Comments on: Real-life experience with the new Google News

By: Damon Kiesow

Damon Kiesow — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 00:38:19 +0000

I appreciate Paul’s comments in the update (above) but I find the answer somewhat off the mark.

Adding a tagline with our URL (which our local bureau ALWAYS does) is about providing credit - which is a totally analog/print concept.

Creating a system by which AP/Google provide SEO that highlights originators of original content is a digital/online concept.

As well - the dilemma for newspapers includes the state/region wires which are much more of a daily concern for us than the national wire that Google hosted news provides.

I talked about this in my blog:
http://blogs.nashuatelegraph.com/web_notes/2007/09/13/let_the_fomenting_begin

By: Charles

Charles — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:32:49 +0000

This is a manifestation of something I was writing about back in, lordy, July 2004: Google News *penalises* the originator of a story (www.charlesarthur.com/blog/?p=43)

If anyone else picks up a story and rewrites it, their page is more “recent” - so, GNews reckons, “newsier”. Even if the “new” page has fewer facts or adds no new information.

The way around that is to change something, anything in the old page - even a correction of a spelling (or introduced error) will make the page “newer”. Of course, nobody would ever do that just to be the top source on GNews… would they?

This AP deal though sounds like poison for sites that aren’t lucky enough to get a Fark link..

By: Mathew

Mathew — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:09:12 +0000

That’s a fair point, M Wendling.

And Craig, I think you are probably right about the role that overall Google juice plays as well.

By: Craig Saila

Craig Saila — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 14:53:53 +0000

I wonder how much of that is a result of Nashua Telegraph being low on Google juice. That being said, I’ve always found Google News’ top picks for stories odd.

By: Damon Kiesow

Damon Kiesow — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:49:47 +0000

FYI - we ended up with 40,749 refers from Fark yestrday and 74 from Google to the yearbook story.

It does sort of put things in perspective.

Damon

By: M Wendling

M Wendling — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:03:59 +0000

One key point that needs to be made is that the AP and Nashua Telegraph articles are actually quite different. AP rewrites and genericizes for a huge audience, rather than just people in Nashua. Take a look at the original articles - the Nashua one doesn’t get to the point until the fourth graf, and that’s not going to show up on a Google search. The original also has a lot of detail about the decision, the legal background, school photos and a lot of other stuff that is interesting … but only if you live in Nashua.
If newspapers want to devote staff and time to genercizing their articles for national and international audiences, well then maybe they have a point. Otherwise the AP has its place.