24 March 2009 | Author: L. Sutherland Head of Media Content

News is a hot topic for Google

Google News recently revealed contextual ads in the hope of capitalising on its undeniable success, but the search engine has been attracting attention from other big media names: a number of influential news publishers have been lobbying the internet giant for what they claim is a fair viewing.

It seems that news providers are searching for ways to increase their visibility in Google's search results and are unhappy with the status quo. Advertising Age reports that publishers are pushing for a little preferential treatment with regards to the service they provide online users. The main complaints appear to be the algorithm - which allows search engine optimisation to boost results - and the uniform presentation of results.

Back in November, a number of massive names in publishing - including the New York Times, BusinessWeek and the Wall Street Journal - attended an intimate, invitation-only Google's Publishers Advisory Council meeting where concerns were put to the search giants. January then saw Martin Nisenholtz, the senior VP-digital operations of New York Times Co., complaining that Google returned irrelevant results for breaking news of massive stories within its main search results.

But what about Google News? This is a special news orientated service that offers online readers an aggregated news feed displaying stories from sources that the search engine has defined as 'news providers', as well as offering options such as personalised pages, specific news categories and displaying the most popular news stories by country. The service also allows searchers to hunt for the news stories that interest them most.

This feat is achieved by allowing users to search for stories using keywords, meaning that - although Google makes efforts to return the most authoritative source - it does not necessary return the original author of the story as the top result. However, it offers a whole separate sphere for news stories - completely separate from the central search product that has attracted the attention of top publishers.

Nonetheless, it seems clear that Google is unwilling to upset such powerful figures. The search engine says it wants to help but that it's not as easy as publishers may think. According to Advertising Age, a spokesman said: "There's absolutely value to original content.

"There's value to derivative content, too. We look at this in many ways from the point of view of the user. But the truth is there are so many shades of gray even within, quote, original content."

The search engine will give publishers another opportunity to air grievances and suggest ideas at a new meeting of the Council on April 30. Meanwhile, a number of publishers are turning to the Automated Content Access Protocol - a copyright focused protocol designed to tell search engines what can and cannot be used. But for the time being, it's not as though the techniques that could be used to boost your visibility on Google are hard to access, and perhaps big publishers hit by recession need to jump on board the IT rules that have the potential to rule the roost in this digital age.

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