Google Publishes Google News Transparency Policy for Publishers

Google is the world's most popular search engine and news aggregator. It also has one of the highest volumes of daily visitors. Publishers use Google News to reach out to their audiences and share their content with them.

With the Google News transparency policy, Google seeks to maintain its ethical standards as an aggregator.

At the same time, the policy also seeks to level the playing field by giving publishers a better understanding of how Google indexes and ranks their content. In addition, they want to make sure that their job is not outsourced to a machine.

Article-Level Factors

Google's Article-Level Factors Policy is a set of guidelines that determine how Google should rank an article. To avoid conflicts with the Article-Level Factors Policy, website owners need to ensure that their content follows them.

A link to the bio
Blog posts and articles with bylines are more likely to be clicked and viewed by those interested in the topic. In addition, by including your name and a link to your website in the body of articles, you give search engines authority that helps bring people quickly to your site.

Date of publishing
You need to mention the date of publishing so that the users get the most updated information. Or they at least know which time the article relates to.

Labeling of the article
The labels explain the contents of the article based on the titles of the topics they cover. The main goal is to use the tags to convey the reader's intent.

Site-Level Factors

Google also listed out these 'site level' factors and signals that 'helps readers understand a site's purpose, its organizational structure, and the kinds of information they can expect from that site.' These signals and factors include:

Coverage of The Information
The breadth of information on a publishing site's homepage is considered the site level factor. This may consist of links to topics, featured content, or lists of content. In addition, the site should feature a concise, practical, and up-to-date statement of editorial policy that will guide users through working out how trustworthy the information they are reading is and forming opinions on who they think should be held accountable for the content on that site.

Staff Information
Your site must have staff biographies and headshots for editorial and sales staff. This information will be used across Google and the web.

Generic Information
Do you provide information on your site about how to contact you? Do you publish your email address? From now on, if you don't, Google will drop your site to a lower-level category. This is the latest change that Google has made to its policy regarding site-level quality standards and care.

Other Information
Google has a site-level policy that requires other types of information in addition to your organization's name, address, and phone number. This additional information typically includes your organization's fiscal sponsor, owners or funders, and so on.

Other Guiding Principles

• Different countries have different laws about collecting, retaining and using personal data in an increasingly globalized world. Google said it is committed to complying with the spirit and letter of those laws when dealing with information originating in or might end up being processed in other countries. So, here are some other guiding principles to make the most of your news site.
• According to Google, it can analyze many submissions and consider a variety of editing approaches. It can help Google. This guarantees that diverse editorial methods (for example, publishing unsigned content) do not compromise the reputation of an otherwise trustworthy source.
• Google may also consider the information available to users, putting 'more significant, more technically complex sites on the same footing with smaller areas that rely on plain text to communicate information.

Summing Up

The announcement for the transparency policy indicates that it has been implemented with publishers' ethical standards in mind. It also shows how they are making a difference by considering factors such as indicators of trust and authoritativeness at the website level. And if you want to make your news site a success, there's only one better way - do as Google bots like.