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BBC looses in Google News Ranking

Between August last year until the end of January, the BBC lost almost half of its visibility in Google News. While the BBC was leading the top 5 of Google News with 11 percent in August, they only make it to place 4 with about 5 percent in January. This development already became apparent in September 2015: In that month, the BBC still had a visibility of about 10 percent, but they were overtaken by their competitor telegraph.co.uk, which had gained a lot of visibility (compare the following screenshot).

BBC looses Google News visibilty sonstantly from August 2015 to January 16

Top5 visibility in Google News between August 2015 and January 2016. In Percent

 

Theguardian.com and dailymail.co.uk also had a much higher visibility at the end of September than in the previous month. In the meantime they were able to overtake the BBC, too (view blog post of 9th October 2015). Their average visibility in Google News over the whole month was still smaller than the BBC’s. This changed in October. Then, theguardian.com was able to win the 2nd place in Google News. Whether the enhanced results of telegraph.co.uk and theguardian.com are due to a systematic Google News optimisation remains open, but the development is obvious. It seems as if they, along with dailymail.co.uk, were able to cut bbc.co.uk out of Google News to a certain extent – at least to an extent that the BBC only holds the 4th place with a visibility of 5 percent.

Let’s take a detailed view at January: we see that telegraph.co.uk is always on the first place despite daily variations; theguardian.com holds the second place most of the time, temporary replaced by dailymail.co.uk. The BBC is rarely able to leave the 4th place.

Telegraph leads in January Google News rankings.

Top5 visibility of Google News in January 2016. In Percent.

 

Bbc.co.uk makes it to the 3rd place on five days, at times very narrow before dailymail.co.uk (e.g. on 06.01. and 18.01.). On two days, the BBC even slides down to the 5th place (e.g. on 10.01. with a visibility of only 3.85 percent).

The ranking of the top 5 in the UK has not changed within the last six months when it comes to the Google News Boxes. The BBC is still leading clearly, followed by theguardian.com. Places 3 to 5 are held by dailymail.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk and mirror.co.uk. It will interesting to see if this changes in the next months.

BBC still leads in the visibility charts for the Google News boxes.

Top5 visibility in the Google News Boxes between August 2015 and January 2016. in Percent.

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