  People have a high level of trust in search engines, especially Google, but
only limited knowledge of them, as numerous studies have shown. This leads to
the question: To what extent is this trust justified considering the lack of
familiarity among users with how search engines work and the business models
they are founded on? We assume that trust in Google, search engine preferences,
and knowledge of result types are interrelated. To examine this assumption, we
conducted a representative online survey with n = 2,012 German internet users.
We show that users with little search engine knowledge are more likely to trust
and use Google than users with more knowledge. A contradiction revealed itself
- users strongly trust Google, yet they are unable to adequately evaluate
search results. This may be problematic since it can potentially affect
knowledge acquisition. Consequently, there is a need to promote user
information literacy to create a more solid foundation for user trust in search
engines.
