Google is updating its algorithm to more prominently rank original news stories in search results.
Vice president of news Richard Gingras, in a blog post, says the tech giant recently updated its algorithm to better recognise and showcase original stories, and ensure they stay there longer.
Gingras describes original reporting as that “provides information that would not otherwise have been known had the article not revealed it”. However, he says the process of identifying original reporting will be constantly updated.
“There is no absolute definition of original reporting, nor is there an absolute standard for establishing how original a given article is,” he says.
“It can mean different things to different newsrooms and publishers at different times, so our efforts will constantly evolve as we work to understand the life cycle of a story.”
The change will likely be a welcomed move by publishers which invest in newsgathering, only to be outranked by other sites which aggregate content for clicks.
“This means readers interested in the latest news can find the story that started it all, and publishers can benefit from having their original reporting more widely seen,” Gingras says.
The treatment of news publishers by Google and Facebook has been addressed in the Digital Platforms Inquiry report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which recommended an update to their algorithms to more fairly rank news stories.
The government is due to respond to the ACCC’s 23 recommendations by the end of the year.
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