Google News – The Secrets of Ranking well ahead of others!
As search engine marketers we are continuously looking for fresh insight into rankings. A recent article in Computer World laid bare a few secrets of ranking well on Google News. The secrets were a result of information derived from a patent filed by Google for its news-ranking algorithm released in February of 2012.
Here are a few factors that affect rankings in Google News:
- The number of articles produced by news organizations in a definite period
- Length of the articles
- Newsworthiness and circulation of the story
- Coverage of the story from news organizations
- Syndication of the news story
- The size of the news organization in terms of staff strength and news bureaus
- Writing style
- The number of named entities in the story
- The news organization’s ability and past record in breaking news
- Number of original articles produced by the news organization
Given the fact that Google today is the largest aggregator of news on the World Wide Web and the preeminent role news plays in organic search results, the above mentioned factors are of great interest from an SEO perspective. Any SEO worth his salt would do well to factor in the above mentioned points if he/she is interested in increasing visibility of client’s in organic search results.
There are some intriguing questions that need to be answered. How does high frequency of article publication boost ranking on search results? What according to Google is the average article length? By what metrics does Google measure writing style? and what role does writing style play in determining rank?
It was observed by experts last year that Google gives preference to high authority websites that break news when compared to Bing.
Although a few questions still remain unanswered, but the above mentioned points give you a direction in how to go about making it big on Google news and how to leverage it to boost organic search rankings.
