Molly Shaheen, a Google public affairs spokesperson, told The Verge, “We regularly experiment with features that help shoppers identify trustworthy businesses online, and we are currently running a small experiment showing checkmarks next to certain businesses on Google.”
Jay Peters from The Verge noticed checkmarks appearing next to official links for companies such as Microsoft, Meta, Epic Games, Apple, Amazon, and HP. However, these checkmarks disappeared when he logged into a different Google account, suggesting that the feature is not yet widely available. When hovering over a checkmark, users can see a message stating, “Google’s signals suggest that this business is the business that it says it is,” based on factors like website verification, Merchant Center data, and manual reviews, according to Shaheen.
This new search experiment appears to be an extension of Google’s Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) feature, which displays checkmarks in Gmail for verified senders. Google has not officially announced the search checkmarks or provided a timeline for when, or if, more users will gain access to this feature.
