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a) " a lower clickthrough rate" - the click through rate to news is not the only concern of Google. b) It's not an argument to suggest that Google should be ca

a) " a lower clickthrough rate" - the click through rate to news is not the only concern of Google. b) It's not an argument to suggest that Google should be carrying some random student news paper. As if Google can't tell the difference between 'The Burlington Vermont Times' and random noise.

hannasanarion 7y ago
So now it's a good thing that Google prefers reputable and well-known news sources over random unknown noise?
- sonnyblarney 7y ago
  First, I did not imply that reputability should not factor into the results. Second, the criteria for 'reputability' is a great deal of what's at stake here.
theamk 7y ago
I am not sure I can tell the difference between 'The Burlington Vermont Times' and some random news aggregator which decided to filter on location. And there are individual blogs which have higher quality / better reporting than some regional newspapers. Should those be included as well? Which ones? Once you start making decisions like these, you are quickly getting into controversial territory. So I can see why Google prefers to abstain and say "it's all users, not our fault!"
- sonnyblarney 7y ago
  "it's all users, not our fault" I don't think it's 'aggregate users choice' they use, I think it's ultimately 'page rank' reputation at the core of it. Also, I think if they were using 'user choice popularity' the news would be HuffPo, Buzzfeed, TMZ, Breitbart etc. - we on HN don't read this stuff but it's very, very popular stuff. Consider that HuffPo for example is more popular that most news orgs on that list, and they do actually have a lot of in-house content ... so why are they not added? Clearly Google has made some kind of editorial choice. This is not just regular search, it's news, so this becomes more important. I don't think there is a way around having some kind of editorial opinion, so it should hopefully be transparent, maybe pliable, possibly even regulated.

hannasanarion 7y ago

So now it's a good thing that Google prefers reputable and well-known news sources over random unknown noise?

sonnyblarney 7y ago
First, I did not imply that reputability should not factor into the results. Second, the criteria for 'reputability' is a great deal of what's at stake here.

theamk 7y ago

I am not sure I can tell the difference between 'The Burlington Vermont Times' and some random news aggregator which decided to filter on location. And there are individual blogs which have higher quality / better reporting than some regional newspapers. Should those be included as well? Which ones? Once you start making decisions like these, you are quickly getting into controversial territory. So I can see why Google prefers to abstain and say "it's all users, not our fault!"

sonnyblarney 7y ago
"it's all users, not our fault" I don't think it's 'aggregate users choice' they use, I think it's ultimately 'page rank' reputation at the core of it. Also, I think if they were using 'user choice popularity' the news would be HuffPo, Buzzfeed, TMZ, Breitbart etc. - we on HN don't read this stuff but it's very, very popular stuff. Consider that HuffPo for example is more popular that most news orgs on that list, and they do actually have a lot of in-house content ... so why are they not added? Clearly Google has made some kind of editorial choice. This is not just regular search, it's news, so this becomes more important. I don't think there is a way around having some kind of editorial opinion, so it should hopefully be transparent, maybe pliable, possibly even regulated.