Google News Takes Aim at Quality
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Written By Reprise Media | April 28, 2005 | Share This
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What’s it’s losing in democracy might just be made up for in quality. We’re talking about Google News, who has plans to dramatically improve the quality of the service with a new system that ranks results according to quality rather than simply date and relevancy to search terms.
A special report in NewScientist.com has details on the new system by way of patents filed by researchers at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View.
Google’s planning on building a database that will compare the track record and credibility of all news sources around the world and adjust the rankings of search results on the fly. The database will take into account a wide range of factors, including average story length, how long the source has been in business, volume of traffic, and number of countries accessing the site. It will then plug these parameters into a formula and assign the results a single value.
Read the rest here.
This is an exciting development and one that will hopefully counteract some of the rather schlumpy press Google News has gotten as of late, what with challenges coming at them from France and the AP.
Even more exciting is how this same system could be applied to other search results, such as local search or Froogle. We’ll have more as this one develops…
(Link via Moreover.com)
Topics: Google: AdWords |
I wonder if those criteria will really help with analyzing quality?
I like the idea of human paid editors that review, rank, fact-check stories that are independent of news sources. I don’t see how computers, traffic and click paths can accomplish that.
I’d rather a machine does it - because one man’s quality is another’s bias. But really, I’d rather take responsiblity for what’s quality myself. I’ve found a lot of interesting links via the Google news, stuff I wouldn’t have found otherwise. Doesn’t mean I agree with all of it, but it’s good to be challenged to think.