Google prioritising original reporting with algorithm change
US search engine giant Google has changed its global search algorithm to highlight original reporting and keep these stories at the top of the news cluster for a longer period.
“In today’s fast-paced world of news, the original reporting on a subject doesn’t always stay in the spotlight for long,” Richard Gingras, Google’s vice president of News, wrote in a blog post on Thursday.
The company is also introducing new guidelines for its raters, over 10,000 people that review the search engine.
“To tune and validate our algorithms and help our systems understand the authoritativeness of individual pages, we have more than 10,000 raters around the world evaluating our work – their feedback doesn’t change the ranking of the specific results they’re reviewing; instead it is used to evaluate and improve algorithms in a way that applies to all results,” Richard noted.
Until now, Google’s News search tended to surface whatever was most recent and most comprehensive.
“Giving everyone better access to original journalism across all types of stories – ranging from movies, sports, music and celebrity scoop to the serious journalism behind #MeToo, the Panama Papers and the opioid crisis – is all about helping people stay informed about the news that matters to them,” Richard added.
