David Dalka brought this to my attention where the Google News blog says they are linking to original stories, from the source. This is total bull$$$$.
Google News does not always link to source articles.
Look at tonight. Search on “social web.” ZDNet is there with a story about the bill of rights that I helped author. But where’s the source document? Not there.
Oh, so only “news sources” will get linked to, right? Yeah, and who makes up that fine distinction?
What’s funny is that Google’s own blog post (er, original source material) on this topic doesn’t get linked to.
But it gets worse from there. David Dalka writes that the removal of duplicate material from Google News, thanks to a new deal with the Associated Press, is causing tons of bad PR for Google. He covers the topic better than I could.
Google:
1. It’s time to include blogs in Google News. It’s ridiculous that there’s a news organization that reprints my blog, which means my words get onto Google News, but not as posted here on my blog.
2. It’s time you include MORE sources, not fewer. Yes, we know Associated Press gets reprinted all over the world but I like being able to track an AP story and see where it gets reprinted. You should still let us see that.
3. You should absolutely link to the original source material that all these journalists are talking about. ESPECIALLY if it comes off of a blog (as David demonstrates, the lack of blog inclusion really makes Google News suck).
Until then, I’d highly recommend checking out TechMeme and Memeorandum as an alternative to Google News. TechMeme already includes the original source document on the bill of rights conversation.
Any news site that doesn’t link to ALL the original source material will look really crappy, especially in comparison to TechMeme and Memeorandum.
Scobleizer 
Hi Robert!
Google News does already include some blogs. On the example you gave “social web”, the story about Rapleaf has a link to GigaOm.
Google has credibility to lose, which is the reason they don’t include blogs everywhere. As much as I like your blog, Google probably doesn’t want to reprint rants you post on your blog, for example.
On TechMeme (or Google Blogsearch), you expect a certain level of less serious blog posts, because of the lack of an editoral layer on most of them.
I would suggest Google linked to the AP/whatever-story that is hosted on their own servers and put a list of “related articles”, including a blog section, beside them.
Let the print media suckers that hate Google News experience what it means to lose traffic from Google!
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Hi Robert!
Google News does already include some blogs. On the example you gave “social web”, the story about Rapleaf has a link to GigaOm.
Google has credibility to lose, which is the reason they don’t include blogs everywhere. As much as I like your blog, Google probably doesn’t want to reprint rants you post on your blog, for example.
On TechMeme (or Google Blogsearch), you expect a certain level of less serious blog posts, because of the lack of an editoral layer on most of them.
I would suggest Google linked to the AP/whatever-story that is hosted on their own servers and put a list of “related articles”, including a blog section, beside them.
Let the print media suckers that hate Google News experience what it means to lose traffic from Google!
LikeLike
Hi Robert!
Google News does already include some blogs. On the example you gave “social web”, the story about Rapleaf has a link to GigaOm.
Google has credibility to lose, which is the reason they don’t include blogs everywhere. As much as I like your blog, Google probably doesn’t want to reprint rants you post on your blog, for example.
On TechMeme (or Google Blogsearch), you expect a certain level of less serious blog posts, because of the lack of an editoral layer on most of them.
I would suggest Google linked to the AP/whatever-story that is hosted on their own servers and put a list of “related articles”, including a blog section, beside them.
Let the print media suckers that hate Google News experience what it means to lose traffic from Google!
LikeLike
If Google News includes blogs, wouldn’t it end up being pretty similar to Technorati?
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If Google News includes blogs, wouldn’t it end up being pretty similar to Technorati?
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If Google News includes blogs, wouldn’t it end up being pretty similar to Technorati?
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I’d second
“2. It’s time you include MORE sources, not fewer. Yes, we know Associated Press gets reprinted all over the world but I like being able to track an AP”
Partly because it would be a GREAT look at the level of syndicated news usage (%age of all news, level in each paper, etc), plus it might go some way to stop seeing the same AP article many times on RSS feeds on reader.google.com
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I’d second
“2. It’s time you include MORE sources, not fewer. Yes, we know Associated Press gets reprinted all over the world but I like being able to track an AP”
Partly because it would be a GREAT look at the level of syndicated news usage (%age of all news, level in each paper, etc), plus it might go some way to stop seeing the same AP article many times on RSS feeds on reader.google.com
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There’s always Google Blogsearch. The problem here is not really that Google News doesn’t include Blogs. It’s that they still haven’t really worked out how to index rapidly changing content. They’re now supporting blog ping but what are they doing with it? I can’t help feeling that “News” is a pretty artificial distinction.
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There’s always Google Blogsearch. The problem here is not really that Google News doesn’t include Blogs. It’s that they still haven’t really worked out how to index rapidly changing content. They’re now supporting blog ping but what are they doing with it? I can’t help feeling that “News” is a pretty artificial distinction.
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There’s always Google Blogsearch. The problem here is not really that Google News doesn’t include Blogs. It’s that they still haven’t really worked out how to index rapidly changing content. They’re now supporting blog ping but what are they doing with it? I can’t help feeling that “News” is a pretty artificial distinction.
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Pick up almost any newspaper in the world and you end up reading an AP or Reuters article that is exactly the same as the last paper you were reading.
I’ve searched Google News and ended up frustrated many a time because every result I clicked was the same exact content over and over again, all the same AP article.
I’m glad that Google is doing this, hopefully News will be as easy to find as Blogs have been with Google’s blog search.
Oh, and BTW — There’s a “Help for Publishers” link at the bottom of Google News that allows you to submit your site for consideration in the Google News Index. Blogs like TechCrunch and ZDNet seem to have worked their way in, what’s the problem?
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Pick up almost any newspaper in the world and you end up reading an AP or Reuters article that is exactly the same as the last paper you were reading.
I’ve searched Google News and ended up frustrated many a time because every result I clicked was the same exact content over and over again, all the same AP article.
I’m glad that Google is doing this, hopefully News will be as easy to find as Blogs have been with Google’s blog search.
Oh, and BTW — There’s a “Help for Publishers” link at the bottom of Google News that allows you to submit your site for consideration in the Google News Index. Blogs like TechCrunch and ZDNet seem to have worked their way in, what’s the problem?
LikeLike
Pick up almost any newspaper in the world and you end up reading an AP or Reuters article that is exactly the same as the last paper you were reading.
I’ve searched Google News and ended up frustrated many a time because every result I clicked was the same exact content over and over again, all the same AP article.
I’m glad that Google is doing this, hopefully News will be as easy to find as Blogs have been with Google’s blog search.
Oh, and BTW — There’s a “Help for Publishers” link at the bottom of Google News that allows you to submit your site for consideration in the Google News Index. Blogs like TechCrunch and ZDNet seem to have worked their way in, what’s the problem?
LikeLike
“It’s time to include blogs in Google News. It’s ridiculous that there’s a news organization that reprints my blog, which means my words get onto Google News, but not as posted here on my blog.”
Correct me if I’m wrong but Google News is a news aggregator? What benefit would the majority of users get from it becoming a blog aggregator as well? Google News is for news not blogs (I appreciate that blogs do convey news at times)… I go to Google News to read the news and I trust that google sources it’s news through established news agencies and the like and not from individual’s blogs (however informed they may be). The established news agencies already report news from informed bloggers if it is news worthy enough, and yes I agree they should be correctly identified as the original sources, but this current approach is more than sufficient without making blogs an integral part of it?! To me it would make Google News seem less authoritive?
I sometimes wonder if A-list bloggers feel that Google have some kind of duty to make everything blog centric as if blogs and blogging is the be all and end all of the web? Don’t get me wrong I follow and appreciate numerous technical/geek blogs I just think the blogging community gets rather carried away with there own importance when in fact the vast majority of people in this world (who also may use Google News) have no inclination to hear what a Robert Scoble of other A-List blogger has to say they just want to see news from AP, BBC, CNN, Guardian, New York Times etc. etc.
I’m not trying to have a pop at you Robert (I’ve always enjoyed your work since Channel9) just not everyone lives in the Silicon Valley blogging world. I may be way off base here and would be happy to stand corrected?! Rant over 🙂
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“It’s time to include blogs in Google News. It’s ridiculous that there’s a news organization that reprints my blog, which means my words get onto Google News, but not as posted here on my blog.”
Correct me if I’m wrong but Google News is a news aggregator? What benefit would the majority of users get from it becoming a blog aggregator as well? Google News is for news not blogs (I appreciate that blogs do convey news at times)… I go to Google News to read the news and I trust that google sources it’s news through established news agencies and the like and not from individual’s blogs (however informed they may be). The established news agencies already report news from informed bloggers if it is news worthy enough, and yes I agree they should be correctly identified as the original sources, but this current approach is more than sufficient without making blogs an integral part of it?! To me it would make Google News seem less authoritive?
I sometimes wonder if A-list bloggers feel that Google have some kind of duty to make everything blog centric as if blogs and blogging is the be all and end all of the web? Don’t get me wrong I follow and appreciate numerous technical/geek blogs I just think the blogging community gets rather carried away with there own importance when in fact the vast majority of people in this world (who also may use Google News) have no inclination to hear what a Robert Scoble of other A-List blogger has to say they just want to see news from AP, BBC, CNN, Guardian, New York Times etc. etc.
I’m not trying to have a pop at you Robert (I’ve always enjoyed your work since Channel9) just not everyone lives in the Silicon Valley blogging world. I may be way off base here and would be happy to stand corrected?! Rant over 🙂
LikeLike
“It’s time to include blogs in Google News. It’s ridiculous that there’s a news organization that reprints my blog, which means my words get onto Google News, but not as posted here on my blog.”
Correct me if I’m wrong but Google News is a news aggregator? What benefit would the majority of users get from it becoming a blog aggregator as well? Google News is for news not blogs (I appreciate that blogs do convey news at times)… I go to Google News to read the news and I trust that google sources it’s news through established news agencies and the like and not from individual’s blogs (however informed they may be). The established news agencies already report news from informed bloggers if it is news worthy enough, and yes I agree they should be correctly identified as the original sources, but this current approach is more than sufficient without making blogs an integral part of it?! To me it would make Google News seem less authoritive?
I sometimes wonder if A-list bloggers feel that Google have some kind of duty to make everything blog centric as if blogs and blogging is the be all and end all of the web? Don’t get me wrong I follow and appreciate numerous technical/geek blogs I just think the blogging community gets rather carried away with there own importance when in fact the vast majority of people in this world (who also may use Google News) have no inclination to hear what a Robert Scoble of other A-List blogger has to say they just want to see news from AP, BBC, CNN, Guardian, New York Times etc. etc.
I’m not trying to have a pop at you Robert (I’ve always enjoyed your work since Channel9) just not everyone lives in the Silicon Valley blogging world. I may be way off base here and would be happy to stand corrected?! Rant over 🙂
LikeLike
“It’s time to include blogs in Google News. It’s ridiculous that there’s a news organization that reprints my blog, which means my words get onto Google News, but not as posted here on my blog.”
Correct me if I’m wrong but Google News is a news aggregator? What benefit would the majority of users get from it becoming a blog aggregator as well? Google News is for news not blogs (I appreciate that blogs do convey news at times)… I go to Google News to read the news and I trust that google sources it’s news through established news agencies and the like and not from individual’s blogs (however informed they may be). The established news agencies already report news from informed bloggers if it is news worthy enough, and yes I agree they should be correctly identified as the original sources, but this current approach is more than sufficient without making blogs an integral part of it?! To me it would make Google News seem less authoritive?
I sometimes wonder if A-list bloggers feel that Google have some kind of duty to make everything blog centric as if blogs and blogging is the be all and end all of the web? Don’t get me wrong I follow and appreciate numerous technical/geek blogs I just think the blogging community gets rather carried away with there own importance when in fact the vast majority of people in this world (who also may use Google News) have no inclination to hear what a Robert Scoble of other A-List blogger has to say they just want to see news from AP, BBC, CNN, Guardian, New York Times etc. etc.
I’m not trying to have a pop at you Robert (I’ve always enjoyed your work since Channel9) just not everyone lives in the Silicon Valley blogging world. I may be way off base here and would be happy to stand corrected?! Rant over 🙂
LikeLike
(David wakes up, sees link in WordPress panel, scratches eyes – is happy not to see 36 minutes of video on this – good old fashioned crisp text looks nice here 🙂 )
@Sebastian – You are correct that there are a few certain large group (most old legacy as you point out) blogs that are in Google News.
@Tom – Blogs overall aren’t the point. It’s certain blogs that get used for stories without attribution when they get written about in most mainstream media sources. Bloggers write original content, then is gets ripped off and the evolution and migration to true sources is halted. The artificial separation of news sites (which along with certain super big blogs are literally copying content then not linking to it.)
@Julian – Getting the original source right every time is hard, and sorry Robert Techmeme doesn’t always get it right either because sometimes a story plays out over days not hours and many people link to the wrong source. I want to be able to mix both together and with a time sort be able to see the sources. This is not possible in the current state.
OK, let’s look at another example. Bill Slawski does amazing, painstaking research on search engine and related patents at http://www.seobythesea.com/ *all the time*
As he usually does, he was the first person to break the Gpay patent with complete analysis that was published on August 30th. Bill posted this at 10:24PM on September 1st.
http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=799
Ok, there were no stories that I see on the 30th, 31st or 1st prior to his post. The source was PR? No this was a patent filed in February, 2006 and this was again not published by Bill until a Saturday night on a holiday weekend. Stated a different way, it’s my belief there would be nearly zero stories on this Gpay patent if Bill didn’t write his detailed analysis.
Does Bill’s analysis add value? Wall Street thinks so as many people there value his analysis and thoughtful consideration of these patents as do many others. In fact I received his post in two Wall Street emails on Tuesday after the holiday. Apparently Wall Street highly values original detailed source analysis – as they should – their livelihood depends on it!
Here are all the major media stories that got posted after Bill’s story, almost all with zero attribution to his analysis or breaking of the story.
http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=DGUS,DGUS:2006-25,DGUS:en&tab=wn&ncl=1120290317&hl=en
Go read Bill’s post again, then look at the top 10 Google search result for – Google Gpay:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=DGUS,DGUS:2006-25,DGUS:en&q=google+gpay
*sigh* Bill ranks #11…but then again it was a holiday weekend and Matt Cutts does deserve vacation after all, right? 😉
Like I stated in my post, Google is not truly the problem here, the artificial separation of news and blogs is a symptom of a larger problem. Google is a victim of this mess just like us in fact.
The root cause issue is that journalistic and education standards have not been revised for the new realities of electronic news and search engines. When the mainstream media takes a long detailed article and dumbs it down to a few hundred words and doesn’t link to the detailed source they are reacting to or creating a story from, we all lose. The writer of the original content loses, the reader who can’t discover the more detailed source loses, that they might actually prefer both at that moment and in the future. If you lack the self confidence that people will prefer your source if you link out properly to the source, maybe you shouldn’t be publishing the content in the first place.
To all megablogs and mainstream news sources out there lurking I’d say this, the rules have changed. You need to as well. The old rule was that “breaking the story” mattered; the question now should be “what additional value are you adding to the conversation after someone else breaks the story?” If you have nothing to add, please just link to the source. Stop the childhood game of telephone.
A side note to feed reader people, keyword alert sorting instead of subscribing helps this issue considerably.
LikeLike
(David wakes up, sees link in WordPress panel, scratches eyes – is happy not to see 36 minutes of video on this – good old fashioned crisp text looks nice here 🙂 )
@Sebastian – You are correct that there are a few certain large group (most old legacy as you point out) blogs that are in Google News.
@Tom – Blogs overall aren’t the point. It’s certain blogs that get used for stories without attribution when they get written about in most mainstream media sources. Bloggers write original content, then is gets ripped off and the evolution and migration to true sources is halted. The artificial separation of news sites (which along with certain super big blogs are literally copying content then not linking to it.)
@Julian – Getting the original source right every time is hard, and sorry Robert Techmeme doesn’t always get it right either because sometimes a story plays out over days not hours and many people link to the wrong source. I want to be able to mix both together and with a time sort be able to see the sources. This is not possible in the current state.
OK, let’s look at another example. Bill Slawski does amazing, painstaking research on search engine and related patents at http://www.seobythesea.com/ *all the time*
As he usually does, he was the first person to break the Gpay patent with complete analysis that was published on August 30th. Bill posted this at 10:24PM on September 1st.
http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=799
Ok, there were no stories that I see on the 30th, 31st or 1st prior to his post. The source was PR? No this was a patent filed in February, 2006 and this was again not published by Bill until a Saturday night on a holiday weekend. Stated a different way, it’s my belief there would be nearly zero stories on this Gpay patent if Bill didn’t write his detailed analysis.
Does Bill’s analysis add value? Wall Street thinks so as many people there value his analysis and thoughtful consideration of these patents as do many others. In fact I received his post in two Wall Street emails on Tuesday after the holiday. Apparently Wall Street highly values original detailed source analysis – as they should – their livelihood depends on it!
Here are all the major media stories that got posted after Bill’s story, almost all with zero attribution to his analysis or breaking of the story.
http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=DGUS,DGUS:2006-25,DGUS:en&tab=wn&ncl=1120290317&hl=en
Go read Bill’s post again, then look at the top 10 Google search result for – Google Gpay:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=DGUS,DGUS:2006-25,DGUS:en&q=google+gpay
*sigh* Bill ranks #11…but then again it was a holiday weekend and Matt Cutts does deserve vacation after all, right? 😉
Like I stated in my post, Google is not truly the problem here, the artificial separation of news and blogs is a symptom of a larger problem. Google is a victim of this mess just like us in fact.
The root cause issue is that journalistic and education standards have not been revised for the new realities of electronic news and search engines. When the mainstream media takes a long detailed article and dumbs it down to a few hundred words and doesn’t link to the detailed source they are reacting to or creating a story from, we all lose. The writer of the original content loses, the reader who can’t discover the more detailed source loses, that they might actually prefer both at that moment and in the future. If you lack the self confidence that people will prefer your source if you link out properly to the source, maybe you shouldn’t be publishing the content in the first place.
To all megablogs and mainstream news sources out there lurking I’d say this, the rules have changed. You need to as well. The old rule was that “breaking the story” mattered; the question now should be “what additional value are you adding to the conversation after someone else breaks the story?” If you have nothing to add, please just link to the source. Stop the childhood game of telephone.
A side note to feed reader people, keyword alert sorting instead of subscribing helps this issue considerably.
LikeLike
(David wakes up, sees link in WordPress panel, scratches eyes – is happy not to see 36 minutes of video on this – good old fashioned crisp text looks nice here 🙂 )
@Sebastian – You are correct that there are a few certain large group (most old legacy as you point out) blogs that are in Google News.
@Tom – Blogs overall aren’t the point. It’s certain blogs that get used for stories without attribution when they get written about in most mainstream media sources. Bloggers write original content, then is gets ripped off and the evolution and migration to true sources is halted. The artificial separation of news sites (which along with certain super big blogs are literally copying content then not linking to it.)
@Julian – Getting the original source right every time is hard, and sorry Robert Techmeme doesn’t always get it right either because sometimes a story plays out over days not hours and many people link to the wrong source. I want to be able to mix both together and with a time sort be able to see the sources. This is not possible in the current state.
OK, let’s look at another example. Bill Slawski does amazing, painstaking research on search engine and related patents at http://www.seobythesea.com/ *all the time*
As he usually does, he was the first person to break the Gpay patent with complete analysis that was published on August 30th. Bill posted this at 10:24PM on September 1st.
http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=799
Ok, there were no stories that I see on the 30th, 31st or 1st prior to his post. The source was PR? No this was a patent filed in February, 2006 and this was again not published by Bill until a Saturday night on a holiday weekend. Stated a different way, it’s my belief there would be nearly zero stories on this Gpay patent if Bill didn’t write his detailed analysis.
Does Bill’s analysis add value? Wall Street thinks so as many people there value his analysis and thoughtful consideration of these patents as do many others. In fact I received his post in two Wall Street emails on Tuesday after the holiday. Apparently Wall Street highly values original detailed source analysis – as they should – their livelihood depends on it!
Here are all the major media stories that got posted after Bill’s story, almost all with zero attribution to his analysis or breaking of the story.
http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=DGUS,DGUS:2006-25,DGUS:en&tab=wn&ncl=1120290317&hl=en
Go read Bill’s post again, then look at the top 10 Google search result for – Google Gpay:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=DGUS,DGUS:2006-25,DGUS:en&q=google+gpay
*sigh* Bill ranks #11…but then again it was a holiday weekend and Matt Cutts does deserve vacation after all, right? 😉
Like I stated in my post, Google is not truly the problem here, the artificial separation of news and blogs is a symptom of a larger problem. Google is a victim of this mess just like us in fact.
The root cause issue is that journalistic and education standards have not been revised for the new realities of electronic news and search engines. When the mainstream media takes a long detailed article and dumbs it down to a few hundred words and doesn’t link to the detailed source they are reacting to or creating a story from, we all lose. The writer of the original content loses, the reader who can’t discover the more detailed source loses, that they might actually prefer both at that moment and in the future. If you lack the self confidence that people will prefer your source if you link out properly to the source, maybe you shouldn’t be publishing the content in the first place.
To all megablogs and mainstream news sources out there lurking I’d say this, the rules have changed. You need to as well. The old rule was that “breaking the story” mattered; the question now should be “what additional value are you adding to the conversation after someone else breaks the story?” If you have nothing to add, please just link to the source. Stop the childhood game of telephone.
A side note to feed reader people, keyword alert sorting instead of subscribing helps this issue considerably.
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You might like to check out http://beta.silobreaker.com which both summarises stories and also shows the sources of the material it is indexing – at the moment it doesn’t index everything but it’s growing…
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You might like to check out http://beta.silobreaker.com which both summarises stories and also shows the sources of the material it is indexing – at the moment it doesn’t index everything but it’s growing…
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Its interesting that TechCrunch just mentioned how the FEC affirms US law supporting blogs as “News orginizations.” http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/152480905/ The trick is figuring out how to put a filter on millions of purely editorial news orginazations.
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Its interesting that TechCrunch just mentioned how the FEC affirms US law supporting blogs as “News orginizations.” http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/152480905/ The trick is figuring out how to put a filter on millions of purely editorial news orginazations.
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Its interesting that TechCrunch just mentioned how the FEC affirms US law supporting blogs as “News orginizations.” http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/152480905/ The trick is figuring out how to put a filter on millions of purely editorial news orginazations.
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I thought you were taking a break from blogging?
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I thought you were taking a break from blogging?
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The content of this post is definitely something that has been on my mind before. I have tried to get my blogs (not the one linked, mind you) into Google News before and have been rejected. On some levels, I can understand it, but in one particular one, I simply can’t.
I have one blog where we cover a specific subject very comprehensively. I have built up a great number of contacts in and around the subject that I use to break news, confirm stories, etc. We do real journalism, in other words. I work hard at it and I am very proud of the site. It got rejected by Google News.
Now, I was OK with that, but what then annoyed me was that there is a blog in Google News that attempts to cover the same subject as us, except that they cover it much less frequently, in much less detail and they don’t break any news at all. The blog isn’t attached to a large organization or anything. So, I have no idea why this blog is listed in Google News, but we get rejected. They give me reasons, but the reasons would have prevented this other person, as well. So, it’s frustrating.
I don’t want to spam your comments with a link to what I wrote about it, so I’m going to drop you a quick e-mail.
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The content of this post is definitely something that has been on my mind before. I have tried to get my blogs (not the one linked, mind you) into Google News before and have been rejected. On some levels, I can understand it, but in one particular one, I simply can’t.
I have one blog where we cover a specific subject very comprehensively. I have built up a great number of contacts in and around the subject that I use to break news, confirm stories, etc. We do real journalism, in other words. I work hard at it and I am very proud of the site. It got rejected by Google News.
Now, I was OK with that, but what then annoyed me was that there is a blog in Google News that attempts to cover the same subject as us, except that they cover it much less frequently, in much less detail and they don’t break any news at all. The blog isn’t attached to a large organization or anything. So, I have no idea why this blog is listed in Google News, but we get rejected. They give me reasons, but the reasons would have prevented this other person, as well. So, it’s frustrating.
I don’t want to spam your comments with a link to what I wrote about it, so I’m going to drop you a quick e-mail.
LikeLike
The content of this post is definitely something that has been on my mind before. I have tried to get my blogs (not the one linked, mind you) into Google News before and have been rejected. On some levels, I can understand it, but in one particular one, I simply can’t.
I have one blog where we cover a specific subject very comprehensively. I have built up a great number of contacts in and around the subject that I use to break news, confirm stories, etc. We do real journalism, in other words. I work hard at it and I am very proud of the site. It got rejected by Google News.
Now, I was OK with that, but what then annoyed me was that there is a blog in Google News that attempts to cover the same subject as us, except that they cover it much less frequently, in much less detail and they don’t break any news at all. The blog isn’t attached to a large organization or anything. So, I have no idea why this blog is listed in Google News, but we get rejected. They give me reasons, but the reasons would have prevented this other person, as well. So, it’s frustrating.
I don’t want to spam your comments with a link to what I wrote about it, so I’m going to drop you a quick e-mail.
LikeLike
The content of this post is definitely something that has been on my mind before. I have tried to get my blogs (not the one linked, mind you) into Google News before and have been rejected. On some levels, I can understand it, but in one particular one, I simply can’t.
I have one blog where we cover a specific subject very comprehensively. I have built up a great number of contacts in and around the subject that I use to break news, confirm stories, etc. We do real journalism, in other words. I work hard at it and I am very proud of the site. It got rejected by Google News.
Now, I was OK with that, but what then annoyed me was that there is a blog in Google News that attempts to cover the same subject as us, except that they cover it much less frequently, in much less detail and they don’t break any news at all. The blog isn’t attached to a large organization or anything. So, I have no idea why this blog is listed in Google News, but we get rejected. They give me reasons, but the reasons would have prevented this other person, as well. So, it’s frustrating.
I don’t want to spam your comments with a link to what I wrote about it, so I’m going to drop you a quick e-mail.
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Here’s the strange thing. Today, if you do a search for filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, Google News returns two blogs: Slashfilm and Comics2Film (on a rumor about HBO’s Preacher project). The Slashfilm story (ie: repurposed content) was picked up an hour after it was posted.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=Robert+Rodriguez
These are mid to small level blogs, respectively. As far as I can tell they do little to no original reporting (although Slashfilm’s content has been referenced repeatedly by major media outlets in the past).
So why are these guys in Google News but you (collectively) aren’t?
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Here’s the strange thing. Today, if you do a search for filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, Google News returns two blogs: Slashfilm and Comics2Film (on a rumor about HBO’s Preacher project). The Slashfilm story (ie: repurposed content) was picked up an hour after it was posted.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=Robert+Rodriguez
These are mid to small level blogs, respectively. As far as I can tell they do little to no original reporting (although Slashfilm’s content has been referenced repeatedly by major media outlets in the past).
So why are these guys in Google News but you (collectively) aren’t?
LikeLike
Here’s the strange thing. Today, if you do a search for filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, Google News returns two blogs: Slashfilm and Comics2Film (on a rumor about HBO’s Preacher project). The Slashfilm story (ie: repurposed content) was picked up an hour after it was posted.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=Robert+Rodriguez
These are mid to small level blogs, respectively. As far as I can tell they do little to no original reporting (although Slashfilm’s content has been referenced repeatedly by major media outlets in the past).
So why are these guys in Google News but you (collectively) aren’t?
LikeLike
Here’s the strange thing. Today, if you do a search for filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, Google News returns two blogs: Slashfilm and Comics2Film (on a rumor about HBO’s Preacher project). The Slashfilm story (ie: repurposed content) was picked up an hour after it was posted.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=Robert+Rodriguez
These are mid to small level blogs, respectively. As far as I can tell they do little to no original reporting (although Slashfilm’s content has been referenced repeatedly by major media outlets in the past).
So why are these guys in Google News but you (collectively) aren’t?
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“Oh, so only “news sources” will get linked to, right? Yeah, and who makes up that fine distinction?…” -Scoble
Point 1:
A Proper “News Source” by definition includes news from any business that sounds big, sounds famous, and/or authoritative (like ZDNet for example). This is legally called, a News Source with a “ring to it”
Special Note:
Even though Scoble and others are part of the news story subject, please remember Point 1. Also, consider for yourself; does “Scobleizer’s blog” have the same “ring to it” as ZDNet?
Point 2:
An Improper “News Source” is by definition one where google doesn’t have to point to a bunch of times.
For example the Associated Press. We don’t want all of google news pointing http://www.associatedpress.com, now do we? How would that make google look?
Thank You,
– Google [Fine Reasoning Department]
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“Oh, so only “news sources” will get linked to, right? Yeah, and who makes up that fine distinction?…” -Scoble
Point 1:
A Proper “News Source” by definition includes news from any business that sounds big, sounds famous, and/or authoritative (like ZDNet for example). This is legally called, a News Source with a “ring to it”
Special Note:
Even though Scoble and others are part of the news story subject, please remember Point 1. Also, consider for yourself; does “Scobleizer’s blog” have the same “ring to it” as ZDNet?
Point 2:
An Improper “News Source” is by definition one where google doesn’t have to point to a bunch of times.
For example the Associated Press. We don’t want all of google news pointing http://www.associatedpress.com, now do we? How would that make google look?
Thank You,
– Google [Fine Reasoning Department]
LikeLike
“Oh, so only “news sources” will get linked to, right? Yeah, and who makes up that fine distinction?…” -Scoble
Point 1:
A Proper “News Source” by definition includes news from any business that sounds big, sounds famous, and/or authoritative (like ZDNet for example). This is legally called, a News Source with a “ring to it”
Special Note:
Even though Scoble and others are part of the news story subject, please remember Point 1. Also, consider for yourself; does “Scobleizer’s blog” have the same “ring to it” as ZDNet?
Point 2:
An Improper “News Source” is by definition one where google doesn’t have to point to a bunch of times.
For example the Associated Press. We don’t want all of google news pointing http://www.associatedpress.com, now do we? How would that make google look?
Thank You,
– Google [Fine Reasoning Department]
LikeLike
“Oh, so only “news sources” will get linked to, right? Yeah, and who makes up that fine distinction?…” -Scoble
Point 1:
A Proper “News Source” by definition includes news from any business that sounds big, sounds famous, and/or authoritative (like ZDNet for example). This is legally called, a News Source with a “ring to it”
Special Note:
Even though Scoble and others are part of the news story subject, please remember Point 1. Also, consider for yourself; does “Scobleizer’s blog” have the same “ring to it” as ZDNet?
Point 2:
An Improper “News Source” is by definition one where google doesn’t have to point to a bunch of times.
For example the Associated Press. We don’t want all of google news pointing http://www.associatedpress.com, now do we? How would that make google look?
Thank You,
– Google [Fine Reasoning Department]
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I would actually prefer that blogs not be included in Google News searches. Blogs are all sorts of things, some are “citizen journalism” or tech blogs with news. But there are plenty (OK, hundreds of thousands) that I wouldn’t want to show up in a Google News search. When I’m looking for the word in blogs, I use Blog Search.
If a news organization reprints your blog article, well it’s not your blog article, it’s a part of their content.
We do need more news sources, but I’d argue for sources along the lines of Huffinton Post (political content aside), where it is someone’s job, not their hobby.
I could care less about seeing the 150 places an AP article appears. It’s still the crappy AP.
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I would actually prefer that blogs not be included in Google News searches. Blogs are all sorts of things, some are “citizen journalism” or tech blogs with news. But there are plenty (OK, hundreds of thousands) that I wouldn’t want to show up in a Google News search. When I’m looking for the word in blogs, I use Blog Search.
If a news organization reprints your blog article, well it’s not your blog article, it’s a part of their content.
We do need more news sources, but I’d argue for sources along the lines of Huffinton Post (political content aside), where it is someone’s job, not their hobby.
I could care less about seeing the 150 places an AP article appears. It’s still the crappy AP.
LikeLike
I would actually prefer that blogs not be included in Google News searches. Blogs are all sorts of things, some are “citizen journalism” or tech blogs with news. But there are plenty (OK, hundreds of thousands) that I wouldn’t want to show up in a Google News search. When I’m looking for the word in blogs, I use Blog Search.
If a news organization reprints your blog article, well it’s not your blog article, it’s a part of their content.
We do need more news sources, but I’d argue for sources along the lines of Huffinton Post (political content aside), where it is someone’s job, not their hobby.
I could care less about seeing the 150 places an AP article appears. It’s still the crappy AP.
LikeLike
I would actually prefer that blogs not be included in Google News searches. Blogs are all sorts of things, some are “citizen journalism” or tech blogs with news. But there are plenty (OK, hundreds of thousands) that I wouldn’t want to show up in a Google News search. When I’m looking for the word in blogs, I use Blog Search.
If a news organization reprints your blog article, well it’s not your blog article, it’s a part of their content.
We do need more news sources, but I’d argue for sources along the lines of Huffinton Post (political content aside), where it is someone’s job, not their hobby.
I could care less about seeing the 150 places an AP article appears. It’s still the crappy AP.
LikeLike
99.99% of blogs have nothing that’s news-worthy. Keep them out of Google News. It just pollutes the waters when you’re trying to find some actual news. Keep some blogs on there, sure. But only the ones that have news on them.
This whole thing of blogs wanting to be equals of “old-school” news services is getting out of control. Blogs have Google Blog Search. For news go to Google News.
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99.99% of blogs have nothing that’s news-worthy. Keep them out of Google News. It just pollutes the waters when you’re trying to find some actual news. Keep some blogs on there, sure. But only the ones that have news on them.
This whole thing of blogs wanting to be equals of “old-school” news services is getting out of control. Blogs have Google Blog Search. For news go to Google News.
LikeLike