What Makes A Google News Story "Highly Cited"?

Sep 25, 2012 - 8:23 am 4 by
Filed Under Google

Google News Highly Cited

For about a year now, Google has been listing on some Google News story clusters a mention of the "highly cited" story. For example, the story listed above, shows several stories and then notes one of them is "highly cited." But what makes it highly cited?

A WebmasterWorld thread asks why is it "highly" cited, shouldn't it be "mostly" cited?

A Google News help page mentions highly cited as "the article that appears to be most frequently. referenced by other articles in this story."

If you look at the story in the image above, it cites Richard Lai's Google+ profile, he is the Editor-in-chief, Engadget Chinese and the article in the cluster was was written by him but not shared by him on Google+.

So is it Google+ shares or just article citations?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 13, 2026

Feb 13, 2026 - 10:00 am
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Volatility, Bing AI Performance Reports, New AI Mode Retail Ads, UCP Checkout & ChatGPT Ads Go Live

Feb 13, 2026 - 8:01 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Where Are Those New Google Search Console Features?

Feb 13, 2026 - 7:51 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Product Eligibility View Across Campaigns

Feb 13, 2026 - 7:41 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Still Recommends You Focus On Visible Anchor Text For Links

Feb 13, 2026 - 7:31 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Recommended Experiments

Feb 13, 2026 - 7:21 am
 
Previous Story: Google Slot Cars