Many young people are solely using Google and other brand-name search engines to conduct research, regardless of the credibility of the sites these engines list, a recently published study suggests.

"Search engine rankings seem extremely important," said Eszter Hargittai, associate professor of communication studies at Chicago's Northwestern University and one of the study's authors. "We found that a website's layout or content almost didn't even matter to the students. What mattered is that it was the number one result on Google."

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The researchers believe young people should be educated about properly assessing online content credibility, something not commonplace in schools.

But is it just students who entrust their research to Google? Do you put more weight in a site's ranking than its author or source?

(This poll is not scientific. It is based on readers' responses.)