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These are the methods Google News watch used when it was running.
Under the heading "Top Stories", the Google News home page gives
most prominence to two stories. We assume it considers these to
be its Top 2 news stories of the moment. The Google News page layout
technique is similar to that used by most news sites.
To see whether Google News is in step with other major news sites,
Newsknife regularly compares the Top 2 stories at the 24 major US
and 14 major UK sites listed on our home page (including news.google.com
and news.google.co.uk).
We call this comparison the Newsknife Google News Watch.
The comparisons are within a short time frame (mostly within 6-12
minutes, with Google News near the middle of the group). The EDT
time shown in the results is from US
Naval Observatory Clock and\or timeanddate.com
within a minute of visiting Google News (but if there is a * by
the time, check the Day Notes below the Google News Watch results
chart).
The chart lists the national and international news stories that
we found in first or second position within that time frame at more
than 25% of the US news sites. The UK results have been omitted
from the chart to keep it simple, (and because it appears to us
that at present Google News mostly follows the set of stories preferred
by US news sites). However, if Google News doesn't have two US Top
2 matches but it does have a UK Top 2 match, we include that story
in the chart.
Each row section of our chart shows the results for the day and
time listed. The most recent days are at the top of the chart.
If Google News had the story in its Top 2 we say YES in the third
column. If CNN or Yahoo! News home pages both did likewise we say
"2" in the last column. If only one did we say "1".
CNN and Yahoo! News are Newsknife's top rated sites overall for
January-November 2002. (How
we rate.) So it's an interesting comparison!
Here's an example: if the row section headed "10/21/02. 17.05"
includes story details "Sniper: 2 men, message 21 YES 2"
it means that on October 21 at around 17.05 EDT we found that 21
of the 24 US sites - including Google News - had a story about the
US Sniper, that we briefly describe as "2 men, message". Both CNN
and Yahoo! News also had the story. Our Day Notes below the chart
expand this description to "2 men questioned, and police ask the
person who phoned a message about the sniper to call again."
In another example, if the story says "Irish EU vote UK7 YES 1"
it means that 7 of the 12 UK sites - including Google News - had
as one of their Top 2 stories the Irish EU vote, and that CNN or
Yahoo! News also had it in their Top 2.
We take a generous view when scoring, particularly if a site has
three stories vying for the top two spots. For example, two stories
could be competing for second place below the top news item. One
story might have a big photo and small caption, the other a big
caption and no photo. If either story is among the top stories at
most sites we visited, we say it was one of the top two stories
at that site.
Until mid-2003 the top stories at the Google News UK and US sites
appeared to us to be the same.
Google News Watch archives
Full list of individual comparisons
The year's Watch
analyzed
What you'll like
about Google News.
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