Google Adds New Publisher Verification Badges to Extension Listings in the Google Web Store

The right Google Chrome extensions can revolutionize your workflow, and Google’s looking to make it easier for people to find the best, most trusted Chrome additions, with new badges in Google Store listings to highlight great extensions and developers.

As per Google:

“Today, we’re announcing two new extension badges: the Featured badge and the Established Publisher badge. Both badges are live on the Chrome Web Store today.”

The Featured badge will be assigned to extensions which follow Google’s technical best practices and meet a high standard of user experience and design.

As you can see here, the new badges will be visible within Chrome Store listings, adding an extra level of assurance for these hand-picked additions, each of which has been manually assessed by Google’s team.

The second badge denotes ‘Established Publishers’, which are extension developers that have verified their identity, and demonstrated compliance with Google’s developer program policies.

The additions will provide more assurance as to the quality of each extension, and with various apps and developers using Chrome extensions to track and collect user data, it’s good that Google’s looking to provide more clarity on this front, which will also help top developers drive more interest in their offerings.

Indeed, after the Cambridge Analytica scandal at Meta, users have become increasingly wary about what each extension is tracking, and how that info could be used. And with Apple’s ATT update restricting data collection for advertisers and developers, many more are now seeking alternate means of additional insight, and extensions like this could be another way to draw in more info.

Google says that publishers can’t pay to receive either of the new badges, though they can submit a request to have their extension reviewed to receive the Featured badge via the support page.

It could be a good way to ensure that you’re utilizing the best tools, and avoiding potential scammers looking to exploit Google’s system.