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: November 14, 2025

Nov 14, 2025 - 10:00 am
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Movemeber Google Update, Opal AI Spam, Discover Spam Fix, Copilot Search, Google Image Ads & More

Nov 14, 2025 - 8:01 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Advertiser Suspension Improvements: Faster & More Accurate

Nov 14, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Ads

Google: Don't Close Your Google Ads Account To Make LSAs Work

Nov 14, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google

Google Shopping With AI Mode Comparisons, Call Store, Track Price & Agentic Checkout

Nov 14, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Brings Brand Inclusions To Standard Shopping Campaigns (NOPE)

Nov 14, 2025 - 7:21 am
 
Previous Story: Google Slot Cars