What is Google News?

Traditionally, news readers first pick a publication and then look for headlines that interest them. We do things a little differently, with the goal of offering our readers more personalized options and a wider variety of perspectives from which to choose. On Google News we offer links to several articles on every story, so you can first decide what subject interests you and then select which publishers’ accounts of each story you’d like to read. Click on the headline that interests you and you’ll go directly to the site which published that story. Our articles are selected and ranked by computers that evaluate, among other things, how often and on what sites a story appears online. We also rank based on certain characteristics of news content such as freshness, location, relevance and diversity. As a result, stories are sorted without regard to political viewpoint or ideology and you can choose from a wide variety of perspectives on any given story. We’ll continue to improve Google News by adding sources, fine-tuning our technology and providing Google News to readers in even more regions. Google News Features Personalized news: No one can read all the news that’s published every day, so why not set up your page to show you the stories that best represent your interests? Learn more. Alerts: You can sign up to receive weekly, daily or as-it-happens email alerts on any topic that interests you. Learn more. News for your mobile phone: If you have a mobile data plan, you can access a special version of Google News right from your mobile phone. Feeds: You can receive updates of various sections of Google News or Google News search results by subscribing to RSS or Atom feeds in your favorite feed reader. Learn more. News archive search: Search and explore information from historical archives dating back over 200 years. Learn more. More Information Look for more information, find answers to your questions, and send us suggestions in our Help Center pages. If you’re a news publisher, look for answers to your questions and useful tools in our section Help for Publishers. Importance of Google News Ten years after its launch, Google News’ raw numbers are staggering: 50,000 sources scanned, 72 editions in 30 languages. Google’s crippled communication machine, plagued by bureaucracy and paranoia, has never been able to come up with tangible facts about its benefits for the news media it feeds on. Its official blog merely mentions “6 billion visits per month” sent to news sites and Google News claims to connect “1 billion unique users a week to news content” (to put things in perspective, the NYT.com or the Huffington Post are cruising at about 40 million UVs per month). Assuming the clicks are sent to a relatively fresh news page bearing higher value advertising, the 6 billion visits can translate into about $400m (£264m) per year in ad revenue. (This is based on a $5 to $6 revenue per 1,000 pages, i.e. a few dollars in CPM per single ad, depending on format, type of selling, etc.) That’s a very rough estimate. Again: Google should settle the matter and come up with accurate figures for its largest markets. Ten years after its launch, Google News’ raw numbers are staggering: 50,000 sources scanned, 72 editions in 30 languages. Google’s crippled communication machine, plagued by bureaucracy and paranoia, has never been able to come up with tangible facts about its benefits for the news media it feeds on. Its official blog merely mentions “6 billion visits per month” sent to news sites and Google News claims to connect “1 billion unique users a week to news content” (to put things in perspective, the NYT.com or the Huffington Post are cruising at about 40 million UVs per month). Assuming the clicks are sent to a relatively fresh news page bearing higher value advertising, the 6 billion visits can translate into about $400m (£264m) per year in ad revenue. (This is based on a $5 to $6 revenue per 1,000 pages, i.e. a few dollars in CPM per single ad, depending on format, type of selling, etc.) That’s a very rough estimate. Again: Google should settle the matter and come up with accurate figures for its largest markets. Why do Websites Want to Get into Google News? The obvious answers to this from a holistic point of view are brand/expert/service reach, visibility and traffic (some of which will ultimately lead to increased sales and end results). Realistically, though, the answer is more complex. Over 60% of people trust Google News over the news originators. This level of trust when combined with the previous expected returns, opens up broader business value outside of the traditional search metrics of impressions, traffic and revenue. Trust can be a core online differentiation between brands and websites, impacting user behavior at pre-click (advert), and post-click (website) stages. For many businesses, inclusion within Google News is another way of making more out of current and future content. When you invest a great deal of time, money, and resources into any area of your website, you need to make that investment work hard for you as a return. Omitting Google News, or simply failing to see the potential of it, can be a fairly common oversight – one which I’m keen to help businesses overcome.