Excerpts from Google boss Eric Schmidt’s new book, ‘The New Digital Age’, have confirmed that Google + is acting an identity verification network – with such material being given priority in search rankings.
The admission comes amidst an increasingly bitter battle for supremacy between the likes of Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook with Google conducting a no holds barred fight for the top slot.
Published by the Wall Street Journal the critical extract reads: “Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”