Google planning to "elevate" the news, publishers panic



In a blog post published today, Google’s VP of News, Richard Gingras explained the September 5th changes made to their products.

The latest changes the Google sorting algorithm were made with the intent to “surface and keep surfacing news reporting that is original, i.e., not pieces of content that re-report big stories that are getting good SEO or trending”. Verifying the news sources and YMYL content and its creators becomes paramount. Add on and follow up stories are not considered original content, therefore they lose positioning regardless of SEO.

According to Gingras, the algorithms are tuned and validated by an army of 10,00 raters who are guided by a manual called the Search Rater Guideline. This is a public document that offers readers a better description of what Google considers value in terms of content and ranking.

Concerns quickly surfaced online following the publication of the post. Small publishers who lack the resources to do real investigative work, or the money to hire professional writers considered the measures damaging enough to kill their publication.

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