Why Searching Google News Sucks
January 28th, 2010
Okay, that’s a little harsh. Google News doesn’t suck. But it could be made a lot better with one simple tweak: filter out the press releases.
I’ve written countless press releases over the years. I understand that a good press release is about announcing something newsworthy. But the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of press releases don’t fall into the category of news.
So when I find myself searching Google News for late-breaking developments on a specific topic and seven or eight of the top 10 results are fluffy press releases about that topic, that renders Google News pretty useless.
Hey Google: Why not create a “Press Releases” sub-category and filter all the press releases there? It can’t be that tough: A huge percentage of your news results are coming from sites like PRNewswire and PRWeb and are tagged “press release.”
It’s time for Google to make the news more newsworthy.
January 28th, 2010 at 11:34 am
I don’t even bother with Google News. I have my trusted blogs that I go to for news or I go to the news sites myself. Google news does need a press release or fluff category
January 28th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Shame on you! Publicists depend on those press releases coming up in a google search for the average internert user. SEO indeed.
January 28th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
I hear you, and if I’m searching Google generally, I want to see those results. (And if I’m issuing the release, I definitely want those results to be there!) But if I’m searching Google News, I don’t want my search results to be clogged by irrelevant puff-releases. That’s why I think aggregation in a sub-category would make sense. But no worries: They probably will never do it. 😉