Can Google's Algo Co-exist with Trust?

Then there's the added clutter of ads and promotional sites that make finding what you are really looking for in Google search even more difficult. Google has gone from concentrating on what it does best - search - to attempting to be everything to everyone.

With Google trying so hard to compete with social sites like Facebook, where you can find information based on trusted sources rather than the shotgun approach of Universal Search, what does this mean?

Could trust kill the algorithm?

To be clear, I don't see Google getting trounced by Facebook or any of the other social sites, but it is very clear that a lot of searchers are finding their way to these sites to find information from sources that they trust rather than navigate through the hodgepodge of ads, videos, news, images and so forth being dished out in search results these days.

It's interesting that ranking in Google depends, in part, on backlinks from trusted sites, but searchers are finding their way to Facebook, StumbleUpon and so forth to find trusted results.

How many more hats can Google put on before they start leaning to one side and eventually tip over, their newest hat being the social networking hat? Can a search engine dish out results based on trusted back links as well as trusted social connections?

Can the algorithm co-exist with trust?

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