Celebrity endorsements coming to Google Search?

In online search, few things could be more convincing than Google's tested search results - and celebrity endorsements could one of those few things. Google is testing celebrity endorsements as annotations under paid search results as part of a new advertising program, SearchEngineLand.com reported. A screenshot of one such search result indicated a "news" line at the bottom, indicating a celebrity had endorsed the result. It said that while Google social advertising head Christian Oestlien was tight-lipped about the program, he said a “handful" of advertisers are in the testing program now. A separate article on PC Magazine said the program only appears to affect the paid advertising that appears on Google's results page. It quoted Oestlien as saying the program's goal is to give celebrities stronger control over their brand. "More importantly, celebrity endorsements give Google searchers a better way to verify that the advertising they're about to click on is legitimately associated with a particular celebrity product," it said. The PC Mag article said users of Google's upcoming social network Google+ can already recommend links that they think their friends might find valuable. "Celebrity endorsements seem to be a natural extension of this recommendation engine, only with a slightly larger focus on advertised links versus organic user interest," it added. — TJD, GMA News