Top News Sites at Google News, 2006? Ask Newsknife

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Newsknife's top ratings for 2006


Posted December 3, 2006.
Newsknife rates news sites on relevance (how), based on our analysis of the main Google News site.

These ratings are based on our sample of 438,330 individual listings at Google News by 4504 sites for 1768 news items during year to date 2006.

For just $US10 click at the left of this page now to join the Newsknife Members' Area and see full detailed lists.

The Top News Sites of 2006

Newsknife found ABC News 201 times as the top source for a major news item at Google News during 2006. This makes it our Top News Site of the year.

      1  201  ABC News
      2  166  New York Times
      3  164  Reuters
      4          Washington Post
      5          Times Online, UK
      6          Forbes
      7          Guardian Unlimited, UK
      8          Voice of America
      9          Christian Science Monitor
    10          International Herald Tribune
    11          Bloomberg
    12          CNN

(See the full list of 433 sites in the Newsknife Members' Area.)

Newsknife has been rating news sites for 5 years. Comparing the lists of top sites for '04, '05 and '06, we're starting to wonder, not entirely facetiously, if there's "a natural order of news government" - sites "born to rule" come what may.

Look above and below at the consistency of the placings. Are there newcomers smart enough to replace these sites as America's favorite news? Not in a hurry, it seems.

A University of Ulster paper regrets that despite years of fervor "the variety of perspectives offered by the online international news environment is limited". But it appears that people are largely happy with the status quo.

And many of our Top 12 news sites have print media associations. So, maybe printed news will be around for a while too.

Top News Sites of 2005
      1  102  ABC News
      2    93  The New York Times
      3    86  Reuters
      4          The Washington Post
      5          Guardian Unlimited, UK
      6          Voice of America
      7          SFGate.com, CA
      8          Bloomberg
      9          Times Online, UK
    10          International Herald Tribune, France
    11          CNN
    12          The Christian Science Monitor

Top News Sites of 2004
      1    89   The New York Times
      2    71  Reuters
      3    67  The Washington Post
      4          ABC News
      5          Xinhua, China
      6          The Christian Science Monitor
      7          Voice of America
      8          CNN
      9          Bloomberg
    10          San Francisco Chronicle, CA
    11          Guardian Unlimited, UK
    12          International Herald Tribune, France

Why ABC News?

ABC News rules all Newsknife's Best of 2006 ratings, as it did in 2005. If you want to find the secret of their success start by clicking through to these top-ranked ABC News stories from Google News during November.

Nov 19
APEC Calls for N. Korea to Quit Nukes
Nov 19
Federal Agent Among 3 Shot at Md. Mall
Nov 19
Kerry: 'Botched' War Joke Won't Hurt Me
Nov 22
Questions Surround Secret Service After Bush Daughter's Purse Is
Nov 27
Domestic Spying Program to Get Internal Review
Nov 28
Hastings Rejected for Intelligence Chair
Nov 30
Rice seeks wide Middle East truce to restart talks

In Newsknife's Members' Area see 509 ABC News headlines we found during November. They're part of 4000+ in-depth news site profiles. A useful tool to help you find out what works at Google News.

Our other 2006 top ratings:

Below, in the November ratings there is an explanation of how these lists are constructed.

Top sites found by Newsknife for the 2 Top Stories on Google News home page
(Full list of 154 sites in our members' Area)

      1    36      26  ABC News
      2    19      14  Bloomberg
      3    12      14  Forbes
      4    10        6  The Mercury News, CA
      5      6      14  Christian Science Monitor
      6      5      15  CNN International

Top sites found on Google News home page
(Full list 1577 sites)

      1  ABC News
          201  145  134  99  117  96  73
      2  Reuters
          164  122  96  111  83  94  66
      3  New York Times
          166  115  103  92  95  83  84
      4  Washington Post
      5  Guardian Unlimited, UK
      6  Times Online, UK

Top sites found on home page + 10 sub-pages
(From 4504 sites)

      1 ABC News   20087
      2 Guardian Unlimited, UK   14224
      3 Reuters    10458
      4 BBC News, UK   8845
      5 Washington Post   8329
      6 Forbes    9449

Newsknife's November ratings:

Top sources for the 2 Top Stories

Dominating the Google News home page when you first view it are their two "Top Stories". And dominating these are the two news sites listed as their first sources. This is the best exposure a news site could aim for.

The columns in the list below are ranking, appearances noted by Newsknife as No.1 source in the first Top Story, and the second Top Story. The full list of 30 sites is in the Newsknife Members' Area.

November only:
      1      2        0  Monsters and Critics, UK
      2      2        0  Guardian Unlimited, UK
      3      1        1  Forbes
      4      1        1  All Headlines News
      5      1        1  Times Online, UK
      6      0        2  New Zealand Herald

No. 1 sources

Google News usually lists seven news sites per major news item on their home page and thirty on each sub-page, all "sorted by relevance". We award each site points per appearance on a sliding scale (with occasional tweaking) to get the ranked positions.

The second column is the number of appearances we recorded as the first source for a news item. The full list of 91 sites is in the Newsknife Members' Area.

November only:
      1    10  Forbes
      2      8  Christian Science Monitor
      3      8  Times Online, UK
      4      7  ABC News
      5      7  Voice of America
      6      6  New York Times

Home page sources

This table shows the number of appearances per site that Newsknife found on the home page of Google News as source 1 to 7 for major news items.

Last month we found Forbes 10 times on the home page of Google News as the first source for a news item, 3 times as the second source, through to once as the 7th source. The full list of 377 sites is in the Newsknife Members' Area.

November only:
      1  Forbes
          10    3    6    3    3    2    1
      2  International Herald Tribune, France
            4    3    7    5    6    5    2
      3  Times Online, UK
            8    5    1    4    2    1    3
      4  Monsters and Critics, UK
      5  Voice of America
      6  Reuters

Home page + 10 sub-pages sources

Click here for a larger page format showing all the information...

This list shows the total number of appearances we observed for each site. The full list of 1675 sites is in the Newsknife Members' Area.

November only:
1 Guardian Unlimited, UK   926
2 International Herald Tribune, France   687
3 Forbes   762
4 Houston Chronicle, TX   688
5 BBC News, UK   513
6 Reuters   488

Most appearances on home page as % of site total

To get maximum traffic to your news site from Google News you need to get as many as possible of your listings onto their home page.

Newsknife monitors listings on Google News home page and 10 sub-pages deep.

This table shows appearances Newsknife found at Google News during the month. It shows the % and number we found on the home page and the combined total for the home and 10 sub-pages. The full list of 252 sites is in the Newsknife Members' Area.

            %     HOME  TOTAL
      1    22.95    14     61  Christian Science Monitor
      2    21.43      3     14  Boston Channel.com
      3    18.75      3     16  Council on Foreign
                                        Relations
      4    18.18      2     11  The Nation
      5    18.18      2     11  progressiveU
      6    16.67      2     12  WNBC

% increase on Google News home page

Column 1 shows appearances that Newsknife found on Google News home page year to date pre-November. Column 2 is appearances found during November. Column 3 is the % increase for November. The full list is in the Newsknife Members' Area.

Year thru
Oct    NOV  %
  30      9    30  Euronews.net
  22      6    27  Raw Story, MA
  22      5    23  Moscow Times
  18      4    22  ITV.COM, UK
  18      4    22  Irish Examiner, Ireland
  24      5    21  Daily News & Analysis, India
  50    10    20  People's Daily, China

New sites found last month

Newsknife noted 107 sites for the first time at Google News during last month. Here are the Top 6 ranked by volume found. The columns of the list are rank, home page appearances, total appearances.

November:
      1      0     32  Sky News Australia
      2      1       8  WKRN, TN
      3      1       6  Pierce County Herald, WI
      4      0       7  West Fargo Midweek, ND
      5      0       7  Hudson Star Observer, WI
      6      0       5  Cleveland Leader, OH

Visit Newsknife regularly to discover the most relevant news sites for news of the moment. The 3-month Newsknife Members' Area membership lets you see the ratings for each site in amazing detail.

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