After seeing a 15 percent increase in Google News sources last year, a recent study conducted by SearchMetrics discovered that a majority of the News integrations displayed in Google Universal Search results are coming from AOL-owned Patch.com. Analyzing several hundred thousand keywords, the study found that Patch.com made an appearance in the News integration results 4,352 times, followed by HuffingtonPost.com which made a total of 3,530 appearances. According to the SearchMetrics study, the top ten sites to appear in Google News integrations were: Patch.com HuffingtonPost.com Go. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: News | Google: News Keywords Tag | Google: Universal Search

I spoke recently with John Shehata, the director of search for ABC News. Since he owns the SEO responsibility for a number of large media properties, I leapt at the chance to explore some of the things he has learned along the way. We dug in and explored the challenges of educating a large media company, dealing with multiple content management systems, syndicating content and query deserves freshness, all viewed through the eyes of ABC! Interview Transcript Eric Enge: Can you provide a brief outline of your responsibilities at ABC News? John Shehata: I’m the Executive Director of Se [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO | Google: News | Search Engines: News Search Engines

Findings from a new study show the visibility of Google Shopping in Google's "Universal Search" results dropped significantly after the search engine implemented a new paid inclusion model. Video content also dropped but still remained by far the most dominant source mixed with web page listings. Searchmetrics, a provider of search and social analysis software, conducted the study by analyzing millions of listings to evaluate Universal Search results for videos, images, maps, shopping and news. Google implemented Universal Search in 2007 to offer an improved search experience for users [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Google: Images | Google: Maps & Local | Google: News | Google: Product Search | Google: Universal Search | Google: YouTube & Video | Top News

News publications having "sponsored content "deals are on the rise, and Google's apparently concerned enough that it's issued a warning today that publishers should keep such content out of Google News. In a post today on the Google News blog, the company writes: If a site mixes news content with affiliate, promotional, advertorial, or marketing materials (for your company or another party), we strongly recommend that you separate non-news content on a different host or directory, block it from being crawled with robots.txt, or create a Google News Sitemap for your news articles only. O [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: News | Top News

In August of last year, a number of German lawmakers were pressing proposed "ancillary copyright" legislation that would have required Google and others that indexed or aggregated news to pay for links or excerpts from those news items. The proposed law was championed by German magazine and newspaper publishers who, like their counterparts in the US, are seeing declining readership and ad sales. The law did pass in the German parliament, but Bloomberg reports that a compromise reached earlier this week stayed in. That compromise will allow Google (and others) "to display 'single word [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Google: News | Google: Outside US | Legal: Copyright | Legal: Crawling & Indexing | Top News

The good news for search engines like Google is a proposed German copyright law won't require them to pay to show short summaries of news content. However, uncertainty remains about how much might be "too much" and require a license. The new law is expected to pass on Friday. NOTE: See our follow-up story from today: Google Avoids Link Tax But Ambiguous New “Ancillary Copyright” Law Sets Up Legal Battle To Come Der Spiegel explains more about the change: "Google will still be permitted to use "snippets" of content from publisher's web sites in its search results.... "What the ne [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: News | Legal: Copyright | Legal: Crawling & Indexing

Google has avoided getting hit with a "link tax" in France by agreeing to create a €60 million "Digital Publishing Innovation Fund" to essentially help French media adapt to the online age. The settlement, announced today in France by President Francois Hollande and Google's Eric Schmidt -- and announced on Google's blog -- ends several months of debate over France's plan to charge Google for linking to French news content. When the French law was first proposed, Google threatened to just stop linking to French newspaper websites, saying that the country's publishers would miss out on [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Google: News | Google: Outside US | Legal: Regulation | Top News

Yesterday, the Judiciary Committee of the German Bundestag -- Germany's national parliament -- held an expert hearing on a proposed "Leistungsschutzrecht" law for news publishers. The law, known as "ancillary copyright" in English, would require search engines and others -- perhaps even Facebook, Twitter and individual bloggers -- to pay news publishers if they link to or even briefly summarize news content. The hearing didn't result in a vote. It was the next step in a process that may lead to Leistungsschutzrecht becoming law or not. Below, some background on what happened at the hearing, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: News | Legal: Copyright | Legal: Crawling & Indexing | Top News

Just over three months ago, Google launched the news keyword meta tag designed to let news publishers have a better chance of ranking for words they might not have included in their headlines. Adoption rate so far? Only about 5% of the sources within Google News use the tag, according to new data provided by Blekko. Last month, I'd asked Google how many publishers were using the tag. It declined to answer. But rival search engine Blekko crawls the web and is able to spot what pages have the news keywords tag. Blekko has released a report showing how many pages and sites across the web have [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: News | Google: News Keywords Tag | Top News

In today's world of instant gratification, with Twitter often "scooping" traditional news sources, we still turn to professional journalists for accurate, timely news, and confirmation of the events that transpired. While "breaking" news offers instant awareness, we still want to read news accounts reported by trained pros, who have dug deeply for facts and have published stories that have been vetted by qualified editors. Nonetheless, we want "fresh" news, and increasingly we want to sample viewpoints from a diverse number of sources. We definitely don't want yesterday's "fish wrappers" a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Features: Analysis | Google: News | Top News

Google dodged a bullet in Germany this week as prosecutors in Hamburg decided, after a lengthy investigation, not to pursue criminal charges against the company over Street View WiFi data collection. Essentially prosecutors found that Google lacked the requisite "criminal intent" to justify prosecution. Google faces another, arguably more daunting legal challenge in Germany however. It's now confronting a proposed "ancillary" copyright rule that could go into effect early next year and effectively eliminate Google's ability to index German news sites without licensing their content. France [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Google: News | Google: Outside US | Google: Street View

"What's the use of PRWeb?," tweeted Megan McCarthy of Reuters, trying to digest how that service ended up circulating a fake Google acquisition story. Come along, Megan and others, and I'll explain one of the sorriest uses, getting crap into Google News and out into news sites. For those who somehow missed today's big tech news, PRWeb ran a press release saying that WiFi provider ICOA was being acquired by Google for $400 million. Plenty of outlets carried the news, until denials from both parties started circulating. Instead, the release appears to have been written by someone trying t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Features: Analysis | Google: News | Top News

It's been about two months since Google launched a "news keywords" meta tag for news publishers. How's it going? Why didn't Google the standard meta keywords tag? The company's not saying, but it did shed a little more light on how to use the tag. Google launched the news keywords tag in September, designed as a way for news publishers to work around the fact that often the key terms they want their stories to be found for don't make it into the story headlines. The primary reason for this are two-fold. First, it can sometimes be awkward or make a headline lengthy to ensure the most rele [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: News | Google: News Keywords Tag | Google: SEO | SEO: Writing & Body Copy | Top News

The French government is digging in its heels. After a meeting today with Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, French President Francois Hollande reiterated the government's plans to create a new law to force Google to pay when it links to newspaper websites. The spat has been going on for a few weeks, since the French government first proposed a law that would require search engines to pay to link to content. After the original back and forth, plans were made for today's meeting in Paris. As Reuters is reporting, President Hollande didn't back down. The president reiterated that F [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: News | Google: Outside US | Legal: Regulation

Google News announced they have improved the search results in Google News to enable expandable clusters, like they have a year ago on the Google News home page. What this means is if you do a search within Google News, you will be able to expand a news cluster to see more sources. You will also see videos and photos related to that news cluster and the improved layout within the cluster as well. Here is a picture: Here is how Google explains the added features: Click-to-expand news results clusters: Each news results cluster is collapsed down to one result with the exception [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: News

Google has sent a letter to the French policy makers about a proposal to charge Google for linking to their content. France 24 reports Google threatened French publishers by telling them they will not pay to link to their content and if they are forced to, Google will simply stop linking to them. The official letter, written in French, doesn't appear to be written in such a direct tone. The letter describes how this proposal can hurt the internet as a whole, can hurt French readers and most importantly - hurt French publishers. Google says they send four billion clicks per month to publi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: News | Google: Outside US | Top News

Technology news site The Verge shared a photo and video of Google chairman Eric Schmidt doing the "Gangnam Style" dance while visiting Korea this week. He took a break from his tour of East Asia where he is launching the Nexus 7 to meet the PSY - the rapper behind the record-breaking viral YouTube hit. It's a good thing he brought his dancing shoes. The song is currently number two in the country on the Billboard's Top 100. Hankyung journalist Kim Kwang-hyun intially shared the photo in a tweet. You can also get a brief sense of Schmidt's dancing skills in the video below. Perhaps we ca [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Google: News | Google: Other | Google: Outside US | Google: YouTube & Video

On Saturday, Google News turned ten years old - launching on September 22, 2002, in reaction to the September 11th events. Google News was a response to enable people to find and search for news with multiple view points, opinions and perspectives. Since then, Google News has added over 50,000 news sources with 72 editions in 30 languages. Google News attracts over one billion unique users a week! We've covered the news portal and search engine well over 150 times here in our Google News category. From new features to bugs to optimization techniques. Such as Google News readopting the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: News

Grab your flux capacitor and fire up the Delorean, folks. We're going back to the future: Meta keywords are back. Well, technically, it's not the same meta keywords tag that died years ago for traditional SEO purposes. No, it's a new news_keywords metatag that Google just announced today and only works for news publishers that are sources in Google News. The new metatag essentially gives publishers some freedom to be more creative in their headlines and article copy, and not have to worry about cramming keywords in everything they publish. Here's a quick explanation from Google News P [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: News | Google: News Keywords Tag | Google: SEO | SEO: General | SEO: Writing & Body Copy | Top News

Google News may soon be getting a nice upgrade on its mobile/iOS/iPad versions. The company is testing a new look and feel that also includes additional functionality not present on the existing mobile/iOS/iPad version of Google News. (Disclaimer: The reason I keep writing "mobile/iOS/iPad" is that we don't know if this test is limited only to the iPad, or just iOS devices, or all mobile versions of Google News. Our source, Search Engine Land reader Stephen from Hand Picked Creatives) has encountered the new/test version of Google News randomly over the past week or so.) As you can s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Google: News