When Google was first launched back in 1998, I was truly excited looking forward to using its search engine simply because I had read about its founders, namely two bright young college students from Stanford who had developed a page ranking search algorithm based on the number and quality of back links ranked by importance pointing to website pages as opposed to how many times a given search term appeared on a page. At the time, I truly believed a search engine algorithm based on such an ideology would serve to improve the overall quality of search engine result pages (SERPS). However, 26 years gone by and organic search engine results (sites that don't pay to achieve position in the SERPS) appear to be overwhelmed by sponsored paid ads returning to the garbage-in garbage-out ideology eradicated by Google at the time of its founding. I also began having reservations several years ago regarding whether to incorporate testimonials when creating my website given their suspect authenticity upon viewing testimonials across the internet containing a lack of identifiable information be it name, address, title; use of vague, overly positive language without specific details about the product or service offered; a lack of specific details about a customer's experience using the product/service, i.e., how it helped them, features they liked, etc. not to mention the cynicism and distrust that exists among those reading them.

In regard to website product reviews such as that provided by Amazon, Trustpilot, or Angi (formerly Angie's List), I admittedly have serious reservations regarding authenticity or veracity depending on the source of information provided. In regard to Amazon, I had come to learn awhile back in what I believed to be a reliable source of product reviews that Amazon reviews consist of legitimate and fabricated ones. Truth is, the ability to differentiate between a legitimate and fabricated review is a crapshoot at best. As for Trustpilot, based on reviews of the same subject matter read elsewhere, it has become virtually impossible to know who or what to believe unless you test the product yourself. Also, due to the disparity of reviews provided on different websites for one and the same product/service, I suspect that a number of websites receive a small commission for their reviews whereby the higher the product/service rating posted on their site, the higher the commission earned. As for Angie's List, I for one would be hesitant to trust and rely on any review or recommendation unless able to verify the knowledge, background, education, and work related profession of the party providing the review/recommendation. For example, a referral from a party with little to no building construction experience who highly recommends a contractor on Angie's list to provide a bathroom or kitchen remodel is questionable at best for reasons too numerous to list.

To summarize, if and when attempting to determine the quality of Google SERPS, the sponsored paid ads are the ones you really need to pay attention to when performing your due diligence in an effort to sift out fly-by-night vendors. As for determining authenticity or veracity of online testimonials/reviews, I highly recommend using a combination of reliable resources/references, common sense, good judgment, and intuition whereby you begin by accepting most testimonials and reviews at face value until you have good reason to believe otherwise based on solid and reliable evidence.