Optimizing News Sites For Google News

malibucreek writes "More trouble for Google News? Yesterday, it was Google News censoring stories for China. Today, the Online Journalism Review details a potential conservative bias in the site's algorithm for news search results. The story also includes some details about how Google ranks stories on its news page. Turns out that on Google News, backlinks do *not* improve search positioning."

So there really was something to see here!

[datastalker]

I'm glad I didn't move along. ;)

Re:It's google's job to give balanced news

[Anonymous Coward]

This manipulation would never happen in the mainstream media.

Regards,
Dan Rather

Here come the naysayers!

[Eeknay]

And so the circle is complete. People will now start to attack and slander a once good service, because, hey, it's had its good run. I for one welcome our new evilmegaglobecorp, Google.

Re:It's google's job to give balanced news

[Red Alastor]

I don't know, where does Slashdot responsibility lie ? They are doing exactly the same thing.

google?

[Mavness]

google has news?

Thank God

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad we don't have to worry about censorship here on /.

Re:It is not Googles responsibility

[gowen]

Not that all bloggers are liberal

Hardly. To its credit, blogging seem to attract self important sociopaths of every political hue.

My iPod has a liberal bias

[Anonymous Coward]

EVERY time I select Toby Keith it plays the Dixie Chicks.

Re:Google News Republican Bias?

[geoffspear]

No. All media has a liberal bias. I saw it on Fox (which also has a liberal bias, being part of the evil monolithic media itself.)

Re:It's google's job to give balanced news

[hunterx11]

Except that Google doesn't post dupes a week later :)

Re:The bias is in american culture

[Anonymous Coward]

And 92% of people using persentage are moron trying to look intelligent. US media "liberal"? ROTFL!

Re:News Flash: There is no unbiased news

[the arbiter]

Republican values: They are the party of business.

1. What you do with your body is our business.
2. Telling other countries what to do is our business.
3. What you think is our business.
4. Giving your tax dollars to the wealthy is our business.
5. What you say is our business.
6. Your religious beliefs are our business.
7. Ensuring big business pays its fair share is none of our business.

Clear that up for you?

Re:In other news...

[The-Bus]

If leaning towards the right makes them a buck, then I find it hard to believe they'd do otherwise. It may not be right, but it is their right.

So let's get right to the point, rightaway. So, right now, Google has the right to lean towards the right, eventhough it may not be right because they don't write news. But can you lean if you're only write about harmless entertainment like Edgar Wright [google.com]? There doesn't seem to be a slant to the right if you're going to write about Rite-Aid [google.com]. I mean, if I was going to be investing into a REIT I don't want any slants [google.com]. Since Google went public, I can assume all this bashing is a rite of passage. All in all, Google News seems alright to me.

(Sorry, I have no puns *ahem* left.)

Re:It's google's job to give balanced news

[operagost]

But with worse spelling and grammar!

Re:It's google's job to give balanced news

[jayfehr]

Mainstream media is balanced CBS vs Fox

Re:Hatesites?

[MartinB]

Not to mention the telegraph is openly and proudly conservative. Just ask its owner Conrad Black.

1. That'll be former [bbc.co.uk] owner, Conrad Black, currently accused of embezzeling £223 million [bbc.co.uk] from the Telegraph Group.
2. Conservative in the UK has a very different meaning to that on the left hand side of the Atlantic. Both US political parties are to the right of mainstream UK politics.
3. Historically, the Telegraph has always been the newspaper reflecting the views of the generally well educated, landowning segment of the rich.
4. In the years since the Blair government came to power, it has moved from its former stated editorial position of 'broadly supportive of the [previous] Conservative [UK sense] government' to a mixture of generic libertarianism, support for their readership's areas of interest - foxhunting and maintaining heriditary peers in the House of Lords primarily - and increasingly rabid attacks on the Blair administration. In this last point, they appear to be taking baby lessons from the US Conservative approach.

The daily mail is the brit liberal paper, btw.

I can tell you don't read it, or rather, don't read it in context of the rest of the national press here. You're woefully misinformed: the Mail is somewhat to the Right of centre.

Here's an approximate right-to-left split of the national press (Sunday papers omitted for simplicity):

• Right of Centre (in very approximate order, although papers in different markets are often hard to directly compare):
  • Daily Express
  • Daily Telegraph
  • Sun
  • Daily Mail
  • Times
• Left of Centre (again, in approx leftward ascending order):
  • Independent (although on some issues, much further left than the Guardian)
  • Daily Mirror
  • Guardian

Alternatively, there's the traditional definition set of the national press [hps.com] quoted for the benefit of novices such as yourself, which is still sufficiently accurate to be a useful rule of thumb:

The Times:

Read by the people who run the country.

Daily Mirror:

Read by the people who think they run the country.

Guardian:

Read by the people who think they ought to run the country.

Morning Star:

Read by the people who think the country ought to be run by another country.

Daily Mail:

Read by the wives of the people who own the country.

Financial Times:

Read by the people who own the country.

Daily Express:

Read by the people who think that the country ought to be run as it used to be.

Daily Telegraph:

Read by the people who think it still is.

The Sun:

Their readers don't care who runs the country as long as she has big tits.