Google changes news story ranking, Google News to favor 'journalism awards' and original reporting

Google's news results are about to change.

Today, Google VP of News Richard Gingras published a post titled Elevating original reporting in Search. You're going to want to read the whole thing.

One of the weird metrics they're reportedly going to use, though? HOW MANY JOURNALISM AWARDS A PUBLICATION HAS WON.

Oh.

Original journalism requires time and investment, but it can have a big impact on our communities and conversations. Read more about the steps Google's taking to highlight original reporting in Search https://t.co/pBcs06ci8T

— Google News Initiative (@GoogleNewsInit) September 12, 2019

Here's an excerpt from what Google News VP Gingras wrote for Google's 'The Keyword' corporate blog:

We use algorithms to sort through everything we find on the web and organize this content in a way that is helpful. Those algorithms are composed of hundreds of different signals that are constantly updated and improved. 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. The principles that guide how they operate are mapped out in our search rater guidelines, a public document that allows raters to better understand and assess the unique characteristics of content that appears in Search results.

In short: these guidelines are the clear description of what we value in content when ranking.