A twist in Google's algorithm: 'standout' stories

News organisations can now add "standout" metadata tags to stories they're proudest of like exclusives, scoops and investigative projects and the US edition of Google News will consider including a "featured" label with the story on its news homepage and in search results

PTI | September 26, 2011



Google News, which has long relied on automation to deliver news content from countless providers, has announced a twist in its algorithm: It will now recognise "featured" content among the tens of thousands of stories it delivers every day.

Google announced on Saturday that news organisations can now add "standout" metadata tags to stories they're proudest of like exclusives, scoops and investigative projects and the US edition of Google News will consider including a "featured" label with the story on its news homepage and in search results. There's no guarantee a story tagged this way will be featured, but Google's algorithm will factor the tag into its decisions, the company said.

"We can showcase that standout piece of journalism in Google News by putting a 'featured' label in front of it," said Google News product specialist David Smydra, who announced the new option at the Online News Association conference in Boston. "And that featured label will help that article persist while other news organisations are following and developing their coverage on that story."

There will be such a thing as too much self-promotion. If a news provider puts the standout tag on more than seven stories in a week, the algorithm won't factor it in as much, or may ignore it entirely, Google says. And the company is urging news organisations to share the love by using a different new tag as many times as they want to highlight strong work by other providers.

"The way we've designed standout is that when it's used both ways for calling out their own work and calling out the work of others that builds our trust in that source," Smydra said. The Google News algorithm takes it from there, making stories by such sources show up more prominently on the site.

At Google News, where algorithms rule, the notion of featured stories is the latest sign that the company is reimagining though certainly not abandoning its automated approach to distributing news. Earlier this year, the site introduced "Editors' Picks," a box on its US homepage that features stories selected by the editors of a particular publication. What you see in the box depends on your news preferences, as detected by Google, or you can specify your preferences manually.

Over the past couple of years, Google News has also introduced features to personalise news feeds and offer recommendations based on the stories readers have clicked on before.

Google News is touting its latest new feature as focusing on high-quality journalism and "giving credit where credit is due," as Google said in its blog. Of course, with the biggest stories, there may be some differing opinions among news organisations over who deserves Google's "featured" recognition.  

Comments

 

Other News

Income Tax dept holds Ghatkopar Outreach on new IT Act

The Income Tax Department organised an outreach programme in Ghatkopar, Mumbai, to raise awareness about the key features of the Income Tax Act, 2025, effective April 1, 2026. The initiative is part of a nationwide effort to promote taxpayer awareness, simplify compliance, and strengthen a transparent, eff

Making AI work where governance is closest to people

India’s next governance leap may not solely come from digitisation. It will come from making public systems more intelligent, more adaptive, and more responsive to the dynamics at the grassroots. That opportunity is especially significant at the panchayat level, where governance is not an abstract po

Borrowing troubles: How small loans are quietly trapping youth

A silent crisis is playing out in the pocket of young India, not in stock markets or government treasuries, but in smartphones of college students and first-jobbers who clicked on the Apply Now button without reading the small print.  A decade ago, to take a loan, you had to do some paperwor

A 19th-century pilgrim’s progress

The Travels of a Sadhu in the Himalayas By Jaladhar Sen (Translated by Somdatta Mandal) Speaking Tiger Books, 259 pages, ₹499.00  

India faces critical shortage of skin donors amid rising burn cases

India reports nearly 70 lakh burn injury cases every year, resulting in approximately 1.4 lakh deaths annually. Experts estimate that up to 50% of these lives could be saved with adequate access to skin donations.   A significant concern is that around 70% of burn victims fall wi

Not just politics, let`s discuss policies too

Why public policy matters Most days, India`s loudest debates stop at the ballot box. We can name every major leader and recall every campaign slogan. Still, far fewer of us can explain why a widow`s pension is delayed or how a government school`s budget is actually approved. That


Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter