...if you look at a user who comes in, and instead of clicking on that first link which is what they were "supposed to do," and instead let's say they click on the fourth link; that is a very strong signal about both the source that they clicked on and also the three sources above it that they didn't click on, even though they were "supposed to" click on that.

It sure is a strong signal, even looking at regular search since data is given for percentages of "new visitors" in analytics on ecommerce sites. New vs. repeat visitors can tell a lot.

you win.

There can be valuable discussion without "winners and losers". In fact, THAT is the purpose of Webmaster World. And I think there's a lot worth discussing in these interviews that we haven't touched on so far.

One of those is Cohen's comment that editors and reporters are "heavy users of Google News". This is not necessarily something that the small news publisher has in mind, but it sounds to me like there's a way to make an impact in the industry here, even before you impact the general population.

it's interesting how GNEWS, or any news portal, knows which are the hot stories of the day and aggregates (hopefully) the best sources for them.

Yes, Cohen did touch on this - the difference between ranking the story itself, and ranking individual articles on that story. He said that Google News pretty much depends on the publishers to decide what is an important story -- essentially basing their decision on how many sources write about it. Since Google News has a portal-style home page, this factor comes in rather strong and could be a good part of the business plan for any news start-up.

There's also a strong implication (not inference) that Google News users will click on more links for a given topic than regular search users do. That makes intuitive sense - I know it's true of my own patterns on Google News compared to Google Search.

This may have more to do with personal preferences and which news source is speaking "my language" then whether or not I click on the first link..etc..

Personally, I'm not going to click on a fox news link for some topics because I know the editorial bent is not balanced...but designed to engage the "outrage"...of the readers...etc..

Yes, Cohen did touch on this - the difference between ranking the story itself, and ranking individual articles on that story. He said that Google News pretty much depends on the publishers to decide what is an important story -- essentially basing their decision on how many sources write about it.

And they heard from me about that this morning, loud and clear. There's a "hot" topic that's listed today, a very important national issue, with the #2 and #3 listings being actual factual, quality news reporting. However, the bolded #1 was completely off, a critical editorial piece by a totally biased, agenda-driven political figure that had nothing in it about the hot news item. It was pure partisan opinion.

The problem, as I see it, is that the Op Ed is in the Wall Street Journal, which is an authoritative publication that's held in high esteem. It never would have been printed there, along with the normal stories, had it been published in the smear rag that man is significantly aligned with.

I expect discrepancies in regular search, but as a long-time daily user of Google News, there's a different picture. Op Eds and editorial opinion pieces shouldn't be lumped together with traditional news reporting, unspecified as such, especially when they're completely off the topic.

"The problem, as I see it, is that the Op Ed is in the Wall Street Journal, which is an authoritative publication that's held in high esteem. It never would have been printed there, along with the normal stories, had it been published in the smear rag that man is significantly aligned with."

especially this:
"it never would have been printed there"...

This simply isn't true anymore with the WST .. I'm seeing more questionable pieces showing up in this "less then high esteem" publication...since Murdoch purchased the paper...

Sad development for quality news..

decaff, sorry for not being clear enough. What I meant is that the article in question probably wouldn't have been printed as a headliner at Google News in that grouping if it had been published by the "other news site" instead of at the WSJ. It's probably the accrued authority of the WSJ.

And BTW, that whole group of stories was gone from the U.S. section of the news page when I went back to GNEWS about a half hour later, but the "headliner" is now listed by itself in the Spotlight section.

It's looking like the majority of headlined stories are now showing the byline of the authors, which is helpful, especially with some of the mixes some online publications now publish. The bylines are linked to a result with a listing of the person's other articles in the publication.

>>Murdoch

Who owns Harper-Collins. It figures. ;)