Google News Publishers Have Lower Organic Rankings?

Sep 20, 2012 - 8:43 am 2 by

organic newspaperA WebmasterWorld thread has one Google News publisher thinking that the stories on his site that were syndicated in Google News tend to have a lower organic ranking in Google's web search results.

He said:

We've a section on our website that publishes technology news and is indexed by the Google News service. Now, whenever there's a breaking news, the site usually attracts lot of traffic because Google lists the news articles on first page most of the times.

What we've noticed is that these articles are pushed down in organic searches and that hurts the overall traffic (long tail). Even our well researched articles do not get the rankings they deserve (I can definitely tell apples and oranges).

Now, this site is in Google News and I've always felt our stories don't rank in the web search results as high as they should. I've always assumed it had to do with our penalty and not because of how Google may treat news publishers in organic rankings.

To be honest, I find it hard to believe Google wouldn't rank a well researched article in the organic results because it is a news site.

Tedster, WebmasterWorld's administrator, said:

I've always had the feeling this this is so, but I can't 100% confirm it. Of course, when a query needs fresh results because it is breaking news, then a News Results line may also appear as part of Google's Universal Results page.

But it seems to me a news page from a news website often doesn't break into the organic Web Search top 10 (or even 30) until the news is getting stale. And depending how long tail the search is, that may mean it never shows up in Web Search.

I use both Google News and Google Web Search on a daily basis, so I do have a pretty big base of experience behind my opinion - although that is not a definitive study of a large data set.

So clearly, he concurs with that assessment. Do you?

Matt Cutts tweeted about this:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Image credit to BigStockPhoto for organic paper

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
Google Core Update Rumbling, Manual Actions FAQs, Core Web Vitals Updates, AI, Bing, Ads & More - YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 18, 2024

Mar 18, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Google Updates

Google Urges Patience As The March 2024 Core Update Continues To Rollout

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:51 am
Google

Official: Google Replaces Perspective Filter With Forums Filter

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles Now Offers Additional Review After Appeal Is Denied

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:31 am
Google Maps

EU Searchers Complaining About Google Maps Features Changes Related To DMA

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:21 am
Google

Google Showing Fewer Sitelinks Within Search

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Google Maps App Is Gone In iOS 6!