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Google says indexing issue has been fixed

UPDATE Feb. 8, 2024: Google has finally given the all-clear for the indexing issue that affected news publishers in several countries over the last week.  At 6:36 a.m. ET today, Google posted on the Google Search Status Dashboard: “We fixed the issue with indexing. There will be no more updates.”

We continue to see more normal indexing patterns in the Trisolute News Dashboard Index Rate report.

UPDATE Feb. 6, 2024: While the latest Google update on the indexing issue says they are still working on fixing the problem, our Trisolute News Dashboard Index Rate data shows that the number of indexed articles across all our instances is back to normal levels since Feb 2nd. This can be seen, for example, in the average Index Rate for the top 5 publishers in Germany:

For the top 5 german publishers, it looks like Google has solved the indexation problem.

It looks like Google has solved the indexation problem, at least for German publishers.

Also, the average Index Rate of the top 5 US news publishers shows that Google seems to have found a solution to the problem or is at least working on it:

The average index rate of the top 5 US publishers also shows that Google has apparently found a solution or is working on one.

The average Index Rate of the top 5 US publishers also shows that Google has apparently found a solution or is working on one.

And, to give you one more example, we can see some changes back to a “normal” amount of indexed articles in the average Index Rate of the top 5 UK news publishers:

Also, for the top 5 UK publishers, it looks like Google has solved the indexation problem.

Also, our Index Rate shows that the average Index Rate for the top 5 UK publishers got back to “normal”.

UPDATE Feb. 2, 2024: As of 2:31 p.m. ET, Google posted an update to the indexing issue that has hit news publishers hard:  “The issue with indexing has been mitigated and our systems are becoming stable, but we’re still working on a fix.” We noticed some positive development today on the Trisolute News Dashboard Index Report. Below is a screengrab of the average Index Rate of five major US news publishers as of 9 a.m. ET.

The average Index Rate of five major U.S. publishers from February 1, 2024 to February 2, 2024

ORIGINAL POST:

A sudden downturn in indexed articles on Google has alarmed major news publishers around the world. This situation, which seems to have begun on the evening of January 31, has triggered a substantial decline in the number of indexed articles. Overnight on Feb. 1, Google posted the following message on the Google Search Status Dashboard : “We’re investigating an issue with indexing in Google Search that’s affecting a small number of sites. Sites may experience slower than usual indexing times. We’re working on identifying the root cause.”

At 11:10 a.m. ET on Feb. 1, Google posted an update on the Google Search Status Dashboard: “We’ve identified the issue with indexing and we’re working on a fix. Next update will be within 12 hours.”

While it may be true that the indexing issue is affecting a small number of sites overall, we’ve found that it is impacting a significant amount of news publishers globally. To shed light on how serious this issue is and whether this really is a worldwide concern, we carried out a quick analysis across five different countries: Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the U.K., and the U.S. For each country, we compared last week’s average Index Rate of five major publishers to today’s to detect whether there are any major differences. Here’s what we found out:

Germany

For Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, we focused on the time period between 12 a.m. and 11 a.m. (GMT+1) on both Thursday, January 25 and Thursday, February 1. In Germany, the average number of articles indexed plummeted from 271 to 57, marking an acute difference of 214 indexed articles. The following screenshot from the Trisolute News Dashboard further shows how extreme the drop has been when compared to the previous day. It seems like the issue started at around 6 p.m. on January 31, with the graph obviously dropping down and not really recovering by the next morning. When comparing the time period from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. on February 1 to the same time period on the previous day, a radical decrease is visible.

A graph showing the average index rate of five major German publishers from January 31 to February 1.

The average Index Rate of five major German publishers from January 31, 2024 to February 1, 2024

Switzerland & Austria

Similarly, in Switzerland and Austria, the average Index Rate saw a substantial decrease when comparing the two dates. On January 25, an average of 88 articles in Switzerland and 94 articles in Austria were indexed by 11 a.m. Fast forward to February 1, and these figures dropped to 22 indexed articles in Switzerland and 25 in Austria, signaling a decline of 66 and 69 articles, respectively. The two following screenshots from our tool show those decreases even more clearly:

Switzerland:

A graph showing the average index rate of five major Swiss publishers from January 31 to February 1.

The average Index Rate of five major Swiss publishers from January 31, 2024 to February 1, 2024

Austria:

A graph showing the average index rate of five major Austrian publishers from January 31 to February 1.

The average Index Rate of five major Austrian publishers from January 31, 2024 to February 1, 2024

What could already be noticed with German publishers seems to be the case in those two countries as well: around the evening of January 31, the numbers of indexed articles saw a major decline in both Switzerland and Austria and no significant recovery could be seen the next morning.

U.K.

In the U.K., our analysis covered the time period from 12 a.m. to 10 a.m. on the same dates. The average number of indexed articles at 10 a.m. on January 25 stood at 338 here, while on February 1, it plunged to 92, indicating a significant reduction of 245 articles. Here’s another screenshot from our tool to show how noticeable the drop was:

A graph showing the average index rate of five major U.K. publishers from January 31 to February 1.

The average Index Rate of five major U.K. publishers from January 31, 2024 to February 1, 2024

What’s interesting here is that though the decline seems to have begun around the same time as in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, the numbers were able to recover for around two hours in the late evening and only then started to really drop.

U.S.

The United Stated witnessed the most noticeable effects. From January 24, 3 p.m., to January 25, 2 a.m., the average Index Rate was 427 articles. However, one week later, in the time period from January 31, 3 p.m. to February 1, 2 a.m., this figure fell by 301 articles to a mere 126 indexed articles on average, underscoring a concerning difference. The following screenshot shows the extreme decline in indexed articles:

A graph showing the average index rate of five major U.S. publishers from January 31 to February 1.

The average Index Rate of five major U.S. publishers from January 31, 2024 to February 1, 2024

 

By delving into this data, it becomes evident that the issue with Google indexing does not seem to be confined to a specific region but is rather to be understood as a global issue, affecting news publishers worldwide. The reason for those issues are yet to be revealed by Google. Whatever it is, here’s to hoping that the issue will be fixed soon! We will keep you posted as we learn more.

Not yet part of the Trisolute News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out how your articles rank on Google Discover, Google News and the SERPs!

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Celebrating 2023, Planning for 2024

Happy New Year! Here at Trisolute News Dashboard, we reflect on 2023 with a mixture of gratitude and pride. Here are some highlights:

  • Releasing the revamped Action View 2.0, to help News Dashboard clients better optimize for search during breaking news and live news events.
  • Presenting “SEO for News Publishers” at ONA23. We were thrilled to see an engaged, overflow crowd for our session.
  • Sponsoring WTF is SEO community calls and contributing to their “What’s in store for news on Google in 2024? Experts weigh in” newsletter edition.
  • Providing data analysis insights and advocacy for the Google News indexing issue in summer 2023, which eventually led to Google fixing the problem.
  • Blogging on critical issues like the development of Google’s SGE and what it may mean for news publishers.
  • We attended Media Party in Chicago and participated in the Media Fair, where we connected with those doing amazing work in the news and technology sectors.
  • Our German team held another successful Expert Day event with top news publishers in Germany. The German team also attended conferences in Europe, including SMX (Munich), SEOkomm, BrightonSEO UK, CAMPIXX, and DMEXCO, and networked with other SEO professionals while gaining insights into the latest SEO and digital media trends.
  • Shortlisted in the 2023 US Search Awards in two categories: Best Search Software Tool and Best Software Innovation.
  • Year in Review analysis series: Once again, the Trisolute team did a deep dive analysis into hot news SEO topics such as Google Discover, ranking types, and article freshness and offered insightful conclusions for news publishers to consider when configuring their news SEO strategy.

We are excited about the Trisolute News Dashboard product roadmap for 2024 and the new features we are working on so stay tuned! 

As we focus on 2024, all eyes are on Google’s Search Generative Experience and when and in what form the AI-powered SERP features will be released to the general public. Preparing for SGE should be at the top of your SEO to-do list in 2024. Here are suggestions on how to get started:

  • Conduct technical SEO and content SEO audits. You won’t be able to accurately gauge the impact of SGE on your news site’s search rankings without understanding the strengths and vulnerabilities of your website from a technical and content perspective.
  • 2023 was the year for experimentation with generative AI tools in the newsroom. 2024 will be the year for thoughtful implementation. Develop newsroom guidelines around AI and search tool usage and document AI projects with a focus on accountability, ethics, and practical applications.
  • The SEO data analysis dashboards of the past will need to be revamped once SGE is released to the public. If you don’t have the access or ability to update such reports, establish a strong working relationship with those who do in your newsroom. Inform stakeholders that there will inevitably be disruption to SEO benchmarks this year, and stress the need for flexibility in determining how best to assess SGE’s impact on a news outlet’s SEO performance. A dedicated news SEO tool like the Trisolute News Dashboard can help you stay on top of what is expected to be another volatile year in search.
  • Not only will you need to remain flexible when it comes to data analysis, be prepared to pivot your newsroom’s SEO content strategy to take advantage of or minimize the negative impact that SGE may have on your Google’s SERP visibility.

Not yet part of the Trisolute News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out how your articles rank on Google Discover, Google News and the SERPs!

 

Illustration by Search Engine Land’s SearchBot image generator, powered by DALL-E 3.

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Google Discover Analysis: Holiday Content Tips

‘Tis the season for a holiday content strategy. Here at Trisolute Software, we used our award-winning News Dashboard to analyze Google Discover data from the 2022 holiday season to offer news publishers insights and actionable tips on which types of holiday content perform best on the popular platform.

Our News Dashboard analysis reviewed the top-performing Thanksgiving and Christmas articles on Google Discover in 2022 for 7 major US news publishers. All personally identifying information has been stripped, with a focus on which categories performed the best during the holiday season period. Note: Categories were assigned by Trisolute solely for descriptive purposes and are not intended to represent Google categories or entities.

The analysis focuses on impressions and clicks, to highlight topics in which Google considered important to make visible on Discover along with the topics which drove engagement for Discover users.

General tips for Thanksgiving and Christmas:

Use Google Trends to stay on top of trending holiday topics that will perform well on Discover. Dig deeper by analyzing breakout search results from relevant Google Trends categories (such as Arts & Entertainment, Food & Drink, Shopping, Sports and Travel) and search options: Web Search, Image Search, News Search, Google Shopping.

Check out Google Maps trends for holiday traveling, shopping and more, a post on Google’s blog that uses Google Maps data to break down the best time to travel, shop and run errands during the holiday season.

For current Trisolute News Dashboard users, refer to this blog post about finding new topics to discover how to use the tool’s content discovery features.

Don’t overlook the influence of Google’s Search Generative Experience and how Google Discover’s algorithm has evolved over the past year.

THANKSGIVING

 

 

Food:

It’s no surprise that food is a dominant theme around the Thanksgiving holiday period.  Recipes and food safety were the top performers on Discover for Thanksgiving 2022. Focus on last-minute cooking tips, food handling advice, accommodating special diets, etc. Review and refresh, if necessary, any existing Thanksgiving explainer and evergreen content, as Google Discover features a mix of evergreen and current news topics. 

Travel and Weather:

Thanksgiving is also a big travel period, and with that comes a keen search interest in weather. In 2022, post-Thanksgiving storms caused extensive travel delays. While weather forecasts are typically more locally focused, from a Discover perspective, multiple publishers had success covering the storm systems threatening Thanksgiving travel across the US. While local weather coverage will always be of utmost importance, be prepared to go broader in scope with weather content and keep an eye on severe weather impacting major transportation hubs. If your local coverage area includes a major transportation hub, make sure you have content that will be useful to both locals and holiday travelers.

Consider a live blog for holiday travel or weather if developments warrant. There may be less competition in the live blog space as newsroom staffing tends to be thin during the holidays so if you can spare a producer to maintain a live blog it may be to your Discover and overall search visibility advantage. Live blogs on weather and travel delays were a success for at least one publisher in our Discover analysis.

Shopping:

What about Black Friday? Cyber Monday outperformed in impressions and clicks for this analysis. News publishers who have built up a large library of product reviews and shopping guides should review and make sure they are current and optimized ahead of the holiday shopping season. A review of mobile and desktop visibility data suggests that focusing content around big name retailers (Amazon, Walmart, etc.) and popular items (TVs, laptops, etc.) continue to be a winning combination for Google SERP rankings. That approach is a solid one for Discover as well.

For local news sites, consider highlighting holiday shopping events in your area featuring local businesses such as markets or festivals. If your publication participates in Google News Showcase, keep in mind that stories selected for Showcase can also appear on Discover.

Entertainment:

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade dominated in the entertainment category for Thanksgiving on Google Discover in our analysis. 

CHRISTMAS

 

Lifestyle:

Family matters, such as tips on getting along with relatives, performed well on Discover in 2022. Similar topics can include accommodating dietary restrictions during the holidays, discussing politics at the dinner table, etc. Personal essays performed well in this category on Discover. These topics are captured in the Lifestyle category on the charts.

Entertainment:

Familiar holiday classics will continue to do well, but also be aware of new blockbusters and nontraditional titles that trend in search during the holiday season. In 2022, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and Netflix’s “The Witcher” both performed well on Discover.

Royal family holiday content received a lot of impressions on Discover in 2022, but not as many clicks. To increase the click through rate, keep in mind that Discover is more like a social-search hybrid product and your content strategy should reflect that. Headlines that are more playful, employ calls to action, or are provocative without being clickbait in nature tend to do well on Discover.

Food:

Food is not as big of a performer during the Christmas season as it is during Thanksgiving on Discover, according to our 2022 analysis. News sites who have a large following around food news and recipes may leverage their existing content for Discover by building topical pages such as top Christmas cookie recipes, nontraditional Christmas dinner ideas, etc. that include links to individual recipes. Short how-to videos could also be useful in optimizing this content for Discover.

Additional holidays:

Ensure that content for other holidays during this time period, such as Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, is optimized for Discover. Highlighting local celebrations and traditions, along with explainers on holiday origins, works well on Discover.

Final tip: 

You may have noticed the slew of recent Google updates and their impacts upon your site’s visibility on Discover and the SERPs. Get ready for potentially more updates during the holiday season. According to Google’s Gary Illyes, “The thing about not doing updates around major holidays is an old thing. The problem with that is that around that time, everyone and my grandmother will try to manipulate search results.” Thanks to Marie Haynes for pointing this out.  Follow the Trisolute News Dashboard blog for the latest news SEO insights.

Not yet part of the Trisolute News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out how your articles rank on Google Discover, Google News and the SERPs!

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Does Google AMP Still Matter for Publishers in 2023?

In the ever-evolving realm of online content, especially on Google, adaptability is the name of the game. As a publisher who strives to optimize their digital offerings, one is inevitably confronted with the question:

Does Google AMP still matter? 

To answer this question, in this article we will turn to a thorough analysis of AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) usage, drawing insights from exclusive News Dashboard data from four countries: Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This long-term examination spans over an impressive 88 months (more than 7 years!) – from May 2016 to September 2023, providing a great dataset to explore the enduring relevance of AMP.

Our exploration begins with a broad comparison of AMP vs non-AMP usage trends, showing the shifts and dynamics that have transpired over this vast timeframe. Beyond this general overview, we will then dive a little deeper into specific ranking types which can be found on search engine ranking pages (SERPs) – namely, News Carousels, News Headlines, and News Text. How did the AMP-usage within those distinct categories shift during the last 7 years?

Side note: What is AMP exactly?

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web technology, which was introduced by Google in 2016 to enhance mobile web browsing. It provides mobile-optimized web pages that load faster, catering to users who increasingly rely on mobile devices for news and content consumption. What made it especially interesting for some publishers was its improvement of page speed and loading times without making extensive site modifications, relying instead on Google’s AMP platform for user-friendly mobile experiences.

In one simple sentence, Google describes AMP as “[…] a web component framework to easily create user-first experiences for the web“.

 

As we dive deep into lots and lots of interesting data, we will try to unravel the complex journey AMP has taken over the years, to ultimately discern whether it still remains a crucial tool for news publishers today. For this we want to look into three key industry events that happened throughout those 7 years in detail: the “Speed Update”, the “Core Web Vitals”-announcement, and the “Page experience”-rollout. Let’s have a quick rundown of what happened:

 

Key events

  • Speed Update” (January 17, 2018):
    In January 2018, Google introduced its “Speed Update”. This algorithm change prioritized fast mobile page loading speed as a ranking factor, aligning with Google’s mobile-first indexing shift. It impacted slower-loading mobile pages in search rankings but didn’t specify a fixed speed threshold. The update emphasized user experience and the continuous improvement of page speed, making it particularly relevant for publishers using technologies like AMP.
  • Core Web Vitals“-announcement (May 5, 2020):
    In May 2020, Google introduced “Core Web Vitals”, a set of user-focused metrics measuring web page performance. These metrics became crucial for assessing page quality and user experience, and while not exclusive to AMP, they underlined the importance of fast and well-structured web pages, aligning with the principles of technologies like AMP.
  • Page experience“-rollout (June 15, 2021):
    In June 2021, Google rolled out the “Page experience” update, prioritizing user-centric factors in ranking web-pages. This update included “Core Web Vitals”, mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS security, and non-intrusive interstitials.

 

AMP vs non-AMP

Let’s start this analysis off with a broader look at the AMP vs non-AMP usage trends throughout the last seven years, having a closer look at the “Speed Update”, the “Core Web Vitals”-announcement, as well as the “Page experience”-rollout.

Germany

 

AMP vs non-AMP process in Germany, starting in May 2016 and ending in September 2023.

For Germany, one can easily spot the influence that certain updates or other changes can have on publishers’ AMP-usage. When Google announced its “Speed Update” in January 2018, a very noticeable drop in the percentage of AMP-articles occurred. With around 93% of articles using AMP before the update, this number dropped to less than 80% after it was announced.

Other than a few minor fluctuations, the next two years showed no noticeable changes in the share of AMP-articles. Even when Google revealed that the integration of AMP in an article would no longer be a requirement for appearing in the “Top Stories”-carousel on Google Search and the “Core Web Vitals” were announced in May 2020, the share of AMP-articles did not change significantly.

What did accelerate a remarkable transformation in that share, though, was the official rollout of the “Page Experience”-update for all publishers in June 2021: the share of AMP-articles dropped from around 88% to as low as 15% in the span of 27 months. In May 2022, the share of non-AMP-articles surpassed the share of AMP-articles and from then on, the articles that do not use AMP formed the majority at around 69% in September 2022. One year later, in September 2023, the share of non-AMP-articles is 85%.

 

Switzerland

AMP vs non-AMP process in Switzerland, starting in May 2016 and ending in September 2023.

What sticks out in this visualization of the share of AMP vs non-AMP-articles in Switzerland is that AMP seems to only have become significant here between July and September of 2017 – at least 14 months later than the AMP-usage in Germany. At that point, though, the share of AMP-articles skyrocketed from 0% to over 70%. The fluctuations here seem a little more substantial from there on when compared to Germany. This is why at the time of the “Speed Update” in January 2018, although there was a decrease from around 78% to around 67% of articles using AMP, this change cannot be connected to the “Speed Update” with 100% certainty. Looking at the German data on AMP vs non-AMP from before though, it seems quite likely that those changes could be connected to the update in Switzerland as well.

From this point onwards, there was a slight rising tendency of articles using AMP. After Google’s announcement of “Core Web Vitals” in May 2020, the share of AMP-articles fell again slightly for about three months before re-rising to its peak in May 2021 at around 87%. One month later in June 2021, the “Page Experience”-rollout for all users happened – and it shows! From June 2021 until September 2023, the share of AMP-articles dropped from 81% to 12% –  a drop of nearly 70 percentage points!

Like it was the case in Germany, eventually the share of articles without AMP replaced the share of articles with AMP as the majority. For Switzerland, this switch happened in April 2022.

 

U.K.

AMP vs non-AMP process in the U.K., starting in May 2016 and ending in September 2023.

In the U.K., the first “Speed Update” in January 2018 shows a clear decrease of AMP-articles, with their share falling from 95% to 83% within the span of a month. For the following three years, the trend remained relatively steady with only a slight rising trend between January and August of 2019. The “Core Web Vitals”-announcement in May 2020 did not seem to have any influence on AMP-articles in the U.K.

That’s another story for the “Page experience”-rollout in June 2021, though. As it was the case in both Germany and Switzerland, the share of articles using AMP saw a major drop from that time on. From June 2021 until September 2023, the share dropped by 42 percentage points – from 86% down to 44%. The difference to Germany and Switzerland here is that the articles not using AMP did in fact not surpass the ones that did in 2022, but a a year later in May 2023.

 

U.S.

AMP vs non-AMP process in the U.S., starting in May 2016 and ending in September 2023.

In the U.S.-context, the share of articles using AMP saw quite intense fluctuations in 2016 and 2017. At around 96%, it saw its peak in January 2018 – right when Google announced the “Speed Update”. Following that, the share fell by about 15 percentage points within a month. Despite the prior fluctuations, this certainly looks like it could be connected. After this drop, the trend remained relatively steady for a year, and then slightly rose for another year until January 2020. Though after that a slight drop in shares can be observed, there seems to be no apparent change following the “Core Web Vitals”-announcement.

The “Page Experience”-rollout in June 2021, on the other hand, resulted in a major drop of the share in AMP-articles. While it stood at 89% in June, it dropped down to 74% in August – 15 percentage points. After that, the share continued dropping, though more steadily. Like it was the case in the U.K., though, the share of non-AMP-articles does not surpass the AMP-article one in 2022, but one year later in May 2023.

 

AMP vs non-AMP – Key findings:

 

  • There was a noticeable drop in the share of AMP-articles following the “Speed Update” in January 2018 in all four countries.
  • The number of percentage points (p.p.) that the shares dropped by were all quite similar in all observed countries and looked as followed:
    • Germany: 14 p.p.
    • Switzerland: 11 p.p.
    • U.K.: 12 p.p.
    • U.S.: 15 p.p.
  • In Switzerland, basically no AMP-articles existed up until mid-2017.
  • No apparent change in shares related to Google’s announcement of the “Core Web Vitals” in May 2020 could be observed in any of the four countries.
  • The biggest drop in the share of AMP-articles for all four countries happened in the aftermath of the “Page Experience”-rollout in June 2021. The percentage points the shares dropped by  within 27 months (June 2021 – September 2023) were as followed:
    • Germany: 73 p.p. (88% → 15%)
    • Switzerland: 68 p.p. (81% → 13%)
    • U.K.: 41 p.p. (86% → 45%)
    • U.S.: 52 p.p. (89% → 37%)
  • In both Germany and Switzerland, the share of non-AMP-articles eventually surpasses the share of AMP-articles in May 2022, following the “Page Experience”-rollout.
  • In the U.K. and U.S. this surpassing happens one year later in May 2023.

 

Different Ranking Types: News Carousel, News Headline, News Text

After looking at the general distribution of articles using AMP vs the ones that do not, it seems plausible to dive a little deeper and distinguish between different ranking types. The three major ranking types were News Carousels, News Headlines, and News Text. To get a detailed overview of what those ranking types contain, check out this article.

A little side note on the distribution of the different ranking types that contain AMP, or that do not: The abolition of AMP for one ranking type (e. g. AMP news_carousel) does not automatically mean that its non-AMP-counterpart (e. g. No AMP news_carousel) gets the equivalent share back, like it was the case for the AMP vs non-AMP-instances. When AMP is abolished for one ranking type, that share could also be redistributed onto another ranking type. For example, a News Carousel with AMP could very well turn into a News Text with AMP, which would also result in a change of distribution.

Germany

AMP vs non-AMP process for different SERP-ranking types in Germany, starting in May 2016 and ending in September 2023. The observed ranking types are: AMP News Carousels, non-AMP News Carousels, AMP News Headlines, non-AMP News Headlines, AMP News Text and non-AMP News Text.

“Speed Update” (January 2018):

When Google announced the “Speed Update” on January 17 2018, the most noticeable fluctuation that can be observed with German publishers is the drop of the share of AMP news carousels by 34 percentage points (77% → 43%). After this drop, the share remained relatively steady, except for a few fluctuations mid-2018 which, however, smoothed out again.

AMP News Texts as well as non-AMP News Headlines saw a rather noticeable raise in their percentage, with an eight-percentage-point-increase for News Text (13% → 21%) and a ten-percentage-point-increase for non-AMP News Headlines (7% → 17%).

The increase of non-AMP News Text and of non-AMP News Headlines also saw an increase in their percentages, albeit only a small one. For non-AMP News Carousel, there does not seem to be any fluctuation around the time of the “Speed Update”.

 

“Core Web Vitals”-announcement (May 2020):

None of the different ranking types, both with or without AMP seem to have been seriously affected by this announcement, which Google made on May 5 2020. For non-AMP News Carousels, a minor increase can be made out, but since it already begins in January 2020, the chances that this increase are due to the announcement are quite low.

 

“Page experience”-rollout (June 2021):

As it had been the case with the general AMP vs. non-AMP-observation, this milestone, which happened on June 15 2021, resulted in the most major changes in the different ranking types’ distribution. Most noticeable here is the switch of positions for AMP and non-AMP News Carousels. While the share of News Carousels with AMP started at 81% in June 2021 and dropped to as low as 14% (67 percentage points) just over two years later in September 2023, the non-AMP-carousels saw an increase of 78 percentage points (6% → 84%) in the same amount of time. Here, it seems like the direct transfer of AMP to non-AMP-share happened after all.

While the share of AMP and non-AMP News Headlines saw a minor decrease that is not really noteworthy around the time of the rollout, AMP and non-AMP News Text were already bordering 0% and were therefore not affected by it. This drop to 0% occurred in January 2021, where AMP News Text dropped by almost 24 and its non-AMP counterpart by about 9 percentage points. At the same time, the share of AMP News Carousels skyrocketed from 49% to 76% within a month, which could hint at a redistribution from News Text to News Carousels.

 

 

Switzerland

AMP vs non-AMP process for different SERP-ranking types in Switzerland, starting in May 2016 and ending in September 2023. The observed ranking types are: AMP News Carousels, non-AMP News Carousels, AMP News Headlines, non-AMP News Headlines, AMP News Text and non-AMP News Text.

Like it has been suggested with the AMP vs non-AMP graphic for Switzerland, it here becomes evident once again that AMP seems to not have been used in this country prior to mid-2017 and has therefore been established later than in the other countries compared.

“Speed Update” (January 2018):

Like in Germany, the AMP News Carousel saw the most evident fluctuation at the time of the “Speed Update”, with a drop of around 22 percentage points (46% → 24%) within a month. While non-AMP News carousels were already at 0% at that time and nothing happened with that share, the other instances (AMP and non-AMP News Headline, AMP and non-AMP News Text), all saw more or less minor increases in their percentages.

 

“Core Web Vitals”-announcement (May 2020):

Here it is also not apparent that any of the instances suffered major fluctuations around the time of the “Core Web Vitals”-announcement. Like it was the case in Germany, at the beginning of 2021, AMP and non-AMP News Text dropped to 0% (AMP News Text dropped from 21% and non-AMP News Text from 8%), from which none of them have recovered. At the same time, AMP News carousel saw an increase of 25 percentage points, from 43% to 68%. This hints at a direct distribution from one to the other.

 

“Page experience”-rollout (June 2021):

Once again, this rollout brought along some major changes in the world of AMP. While the share of AMP News Carousels dropped from 57% in June 2021 to 11% in September 2023 (46 percentage points), the share of its non-AMP counterpart rose from 7% up to 84% (77 percentage points) in the same time-span.

The shares of AMP and non-AMP News Headlines both saw an apparent decrease after the rollout in June. AMP News Headline dropped by 22 percentage points, from 23% to 1%, and non-AMP News Headline lost 9 percentage points by dropping from 13% to 4%. Both News Text instances were already at nearly 0% at that time and thus did not show any fluctuation.

 

U.K.

AMP vs non-AMP process for different SERP-ranking types in the U.K., starting in May 2016 and ending in September 2023. The observed ranking types are: AMP News Carousels, non-AMP News Carousels, AMP News Headlines, non-AMP News Headlines, AMP News Text and non-AMP News Text.

“Speed Update” (January 2018):

Like it was the case for the previous two countries, the share of AMP News Carousels saw the most apparent fluctuation at the time of this update: its percentage dropped from 81% to 45% (36 percentage points) within a month.

All other instances except for the non-AMP News Carousels, which remained at 0% at that time, saw an increase in their share:

  • AMP News Text: 16 percentage points – 7% → 23%.
  • non-AMP News Text: 3 percentage points – 4% → 7%.
  • AMP News Headline: 10 percentage points – 6% → 16%.
  • non-AMP News Headline: 4 percentage points – 3% → 7%.

 

“Core Web Vitals”-announcement (May 2020):

Once again, the “Core Web Vitals”-announcement from May 28, 2020 did not result in fluctuations as immense as with the “Speed Update”. For the AMP News Carousels, the no AMP News Headlines and the no AMP News Text, no obvious changes in shares could be made out when the announcement was made.

The AMP News Headline saw a slight rise of around 5 percentage points (6% → 11%), while there was a slight drop in shares for AMP News Carousels (54% → 49%) and AMP News Text (33% → 28%). It should not be disregarded, though, that slight fluctuations like that could be observed at other points in time, which is why the above-mentioned ones may not necessarily be the direct result of the “Core Web Vitals”-announcement.

 

“Page experience”-rollout (June 2021):

Even before the “Page experience”-rollout took place in June 2021, AMP News Text and AMP News Carousels saw major fluctuations in their shares: While AMP News Text was at around 24% in January 2021, it dropped to 0% within a month and never recovered. At the same time, the share AMP News Carousels was at around 54% and rose by 25 percentage points, up to an astonishing 74%, also within a month. No AMP News Text also dropped to near 0% at the same time, although its share was already only at around 4%.

When the “Page experience” was finally rolled out in June 2021, the AMP News Carousels that saw such an extreme only a few months before, suddenly started to drop gradually. While they were still at 79% in June, they dropped by 35 percentage points in the span of 26 months, standing at 44% in September 2023. At the same time, no AMP News Carousels saw a noticeable increase of almost 50% in their share, starting at 6% in June ’21 and landing at 54% in September ’23. In June 2023, the share of no AMP News Carousels overtook the share of AMP News Carousels.

AMP News Headlines and no AMP News Headlines’ shares dropped to near 0% at the time of the rollout and never recovered.

 

U.S.

AMP vs non-AMP process for different SERP-ranking types in the U.S., starting in May 2016 and ending in September 2023. The observed ranking types are: AMP News Carousels, non-AMP News Carousels, AMP News Headlines, non-AMP News Headlines, AMP News Text and non-AMP News Text.
“Speed Update” (January 2018):

Once again, the “Speed Update” from January 2018 had an immense impact on the shares of different ranking types in the U.S. Most noticeably, the share of AMP News Carousels dropped by 35 percentage points – from 83% in January 2018 down to 48% in February 2018. Its counterpart, the no AMP News Carousels, saw no fluctuation at the time of the update, as its share had already dropped to 0% two months before.

All other ranking types – AMP or non-AMP – saw a rise in shares that came with the update. Here are the exact numbers:

  • AMP News Text: 16 percentage point-rise – 8% → 24%.
  • no AMP News Text: 10 percentage point-rise – 4% → 14%.
  • AMP News Headline: 6 percentage point-rise – 4% → 10%.
  • no AMP News Headline: 2 percentage point-rise – 3% → 5%.

“Core Web Vitals”-announcement (May 2020):

As it was the case with other countries before, the “Core Web Vitals”-announcement did not bring along the greatest fluctuations. AMP News Carousel and AMP News Text saw huge variations in their curves before the announcement, though: In December 2019, the share of AMP News Carousels rose from 50% to almost 90% within a month, while AMP News Text dropped from 31% to near 0% in the same time.

“Page experience”-rollout (June 2021):

While both AMP News Text and no AMP News Text were both at 0% at the time of the “Page experience”-rollout in June 2021,  AMP News Headline and no AMP News Headline saw a decrease in their shares, which eventually brought them to almost 0% as well for the time coming.

As in the other countries observed, the share of AMP News Carousels also dropped majorly with the rollout. While it stood at 85% in June 2021, it gradually dropped by almost 50 percentage points down to 36% in September 2023. At the same time, the share of non-AMP News Carousels rose by 55 percentage points: from 7% in June 2021 up to 62% in September 2023. The share of non-AMP News Carousels overtook the share of AMP News Carousels in June 2023, exactly two years after the “Page experience”-rollout.

 

Different Ranking Types – Key findings:

Overall, the key findings were quite similar in all four countries. Here’s an overview of what happened at the times of the “Speed Update”, the “Core Web Vitals”-announcement and the “Page experience”-rollout:

“Speed Update” (January 17, 2018):

  • In all four countries, Google’s “Speed Update” led to a significant decline in the share of AMP  News Carousels, with fluctuations ranging from 22 percentage points (Switzerland, 46% → 24%) to 44 percentage points (Germany, 77% → 43%). In the U.K. the decline was 36 percentage points (81% → 45%) and in the U.S. 35 percentage points (83% → 48%).
  • The U.K. and the U.S. also saw noticeable increases in AMP News Text (both by 16 percentage points), while Germany saw a slight increase in non-AMP News Headlines (10 percentage points).
  • In Switzerland, no apparent fluctuations other than the decrease of AMP News Carousels could be observed around the time of the “Speed Update”. This could have to do with its delayed adoption of AMP, compared to the other countries.

“Core Web Vitals”-announcement (May 28, 2020):

  • Across all four countries, the “Core Web Vitals”-announcement had minimal impact on the shares of the different ranking types, with no significant changes except for occasional minor fluctuations.
  • Notably, AMP News Carousels in Germany and Switzerland saw slight shifts towards non-AMP during this period.

“Page experience”-rollout (June 15, 2021): 

  • The “Page experience”-rollout had the most significant impact across all four countries, resulting in a marked shift from AMP to non-AMP News Carousels. The fluctuations were as followed:
    • Germany: AMP News Carousels: Drop of 67 percentage points (81% → 14%); non-AMP News Carousels: Increase of 78 percentage points (6% → 84%).
    • Switzerland: AMP News Carousels: Drop of 43 percentage points (57% → 11%); non-AMP News Carousels: Increase of 77 percentage points (7% → 84%).
    • U.K.: AMP News Carousels: Drop of 35 percentage points (79% → 44%); non-AMP News Carousels: Increase of 48 percentage points (6% → 54%).
    • U.S.: AMP News Carousels: Drop of 47 percentage points (85% → 38%); non-AMP News Carousels: Increase of 49 percentage points (6% → 55%).
  • AMP News Text dropped to near 0% in all countries except Switzerland, suggesting a move away from this format.
  • Non-AMP News Carousels gained dominance and overtook AMP News Carousels in all four countries. In Germany and Switzerland this happened around one year after the rollout, in the U.K. and the U.S. it took around two.

 

Conclusion – Is AMP still worth using?

The analysis of AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) across Germany, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S. reveals a dynamic landscape in which AMP’s significance has evolved over time.

Following the “Speed Update” in January 2018, there was a significant decline in the share of AMP articles across all four countries. This decline was characterized by a notable drop in percentage points, ranging from 11 to 15 within as little as a month, indicating a clear shift in usage patterns.

While the “Core Web Vitals” announcement in May 2020 had minimal impact on AMP usage, the most significant change occurred after the “Page Experience” rollout in June 2021. During this period, the share of AMP articles experienced a substantial decline, with percentage point drops ranging from 41 to 73. This marked a pivotal moment when non-AMP content started to gain dominance.

Interestingly, the data suggests different regional trends. Germany and Switzerland appear to have transitioned away from AMP rather swiftly, possibly to implement their own alternative speed optimization strategies.

In contrast, publishers in the U.K. and U.S. seem to have held on to AMP for longer. Though a noticeable drop in AMP-usage can be observed after the “Page experience” rollout, the share of non-AMP articles surpasses the share of AMP articles happens a whole year later than in Germany and Switzerland. Accordingly, there still is more AMP-content in the U.K. and U.S. than in Germany and Switzerland.

In conclusion, while AMP was once a prominent feature for optimizing mobile web pages, its relevance has gradually diminished over time. The data suggests that the decision to use AMP depends on specific context and goals. Still, it is clear that AMP has seen a decreasing reliance in favor of non-AMP content in the ever-evolving landscape of search engine rankings.

 

Are you interested in gaining more data-based insights into news SEO? Check out these articles:

Which Role do Video Rankings Play in News Boxes?

Does the Age of your Article Affect its News Box Visibility?

What Defines a Top-Ranking Article on Google Discover?

AI in the Newsroom: Opportunities, Threats, Action Steps

 

To never miss new articles and other updates, follow us on LinkedIn and X.

 

Not yet part of the Trisolute News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out how your articles rank on Google Discover, Google News and the SERPs!

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Looking for new topics? Use the Trisolute News Dashboard!

Sometimes it’s hard to find an interesting topic for an article: The news cycle is surprisingly quiet, there is a well-known seasonal slump or the trending news topics simply don’t fit your news outlet’s content strategy. It’s also no use writing about the exact topics that your competitors have already reported on, unless you can offer a new angle. It’s important that news publishers stay current and publish articles on what people are searching for in the moment, as it can help signal to Google your growing authority in a specific topic area.

But how do you find the topics that are getting a lot of visibility on Google?

The Trisolute News Dashboard can help you! Use our tool features to find interesting topics for your publication and focus area which currently have a high visibility on Google News or on the Google SERPs. In addition, you can see what the competition has published about the topic, and where their strengths and weaknesses lie.

We will show you a recommended workflow in this blog post.

Find topic inspiration in the Keyword Manager 

We have integrated a Topic Inspiration feature in the Keyword Manager. There we show the currently active keywords from Google News, Google Trends or the individually assigned keywords of the publisher. Included is a relevance score that we calculate by determining how active a keyword is at the time. For each keyword, we additionally check whether there is a News Box and if so, what it looks like. This means that we show the News Box headline as well as the articles that rank in the News Box. For the articles, we also show the publishers and the timestamp from Google in addition to the headline. Beside the News Box we also show related keywords from Google News. We also give you the Google Trends perspective by showing you similar search queries for the respective keyword, including a Google Trends rating.

keyword manager

Through this feature, you can get a comprehensive overview of the topics that are currently highlighted from Google’s perspective. In addition, you can take a detailed look at what the competition has published on the topic. This way you can get inspired and find your own angle on the topic that best fits your newsroom’s content strategy.

Action View 2.0: Monitor performance, optimize your content, gather intelligence for new topics

With our Action View 2.0, we also implemented a feature to help news publishers discover new topics and never miss a topic again. For this purpose, we offer “Missing Article” in the Keyword focus. There you can find all keywords that are currently active in the Keyword Manager, but for which we have not found a matching article from the publisher.

It’s therefore very important to constantly update the manual keywords, i.e. those that can be individually adjusted, so that they cover the topics for which you absolutely want to rank. You can set your focus here by using the filters and filtering by category. For example, if you are very active in the field of sports, the information that you have not published an article on a political topic is of little use to you. By using the filters, you can look specifically for the topics that are relevant to you.

In addition to this, we have also integrated the Topic Inspiration feature here for each keyword, so that you can get an overview of the Google perspective for the respective keyword by looking at the News Box, Google News and Google Trends as well as the competitors in the News Box, just like in the Keyword Manager.

action view snapshot

 

If you have found a keyword that you would like to monitor over a longer period of time,  you can put the keyword on the Watch List. This makes it easy to monitor changes in activity for the keyword.

The historical view in the KPI Dashboard: Engage in competitor analysis, identify new topics

The KPI Dashboard offers a number of different analysis options to review your own past performance as well as that of your competitors.

For example, the Google News Report shows you the most visible articles on Google News from you and the top 5 most visible publishers.

You can identify which topics you are particularly strong in by looking at the Category Distribution report. Here we refer to the Google News categories: Top stories headlines, the respective country (e.g. Germany, USA or UK), World, Business, Technology, Entertainment, Sports, Science and Health. Here you can find out if you cover your main areas of topic focus well and if you might have gained authority for other topics.

category distribution graph

In addition, you will find various SERP reports for the mobile and desktop SERP in the KPI Dashboard. Here you can see which keywords you cover on the different SERPs, how many rankings you get in each case and compare this between mobile and desktop as well as with your competitors. You can also analyze the ranking history of the individual articles that have ranked for the various keywords here.

Through the competitor analysis you can find new topics for which your competitors don’t have many rankings. You can also get additional inspiration for your article strategy and find new angles for your key topics.

It’s a good idea to use filters to help you focus on topics of highest interest, especially if you’re a special interest publisher and your strategy is to target a niche. At the risk of repeating myself: It’s very important that the manual keywords you choose are constantly updated so that the keyword set is as current and accurate for your content discovery needs as possible.

Note: We have data back to 2012, which you can analyze through the KPI Dashboard and thus also check your long-term strategy and adjust it if necessary.

Conclusion

There are different parts in the News Dashboard where you can find new topics for articles that have the potential to perform well in search:

☞  The Keyword Manager is useful if you already have a rough topic in mind and want to find more inspiration for it.

☞  In the Action View you can monitor your current performance on keywords and articles, while also finding topics for which you have not yet written an article. Here, too, you can find further insight for your article through the Topic Inspiration and get intelligence into the competition that already ranks in the News Box.

☞  The KPI Dashboard shows you your historical visibility and that of your competitors. This allows you to analyze for which topics you were particularly strong and where you still have potential. You can also evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and draw conclusions for your topic selection and strategy.

You’re not yet part of the News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find new topics!

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Thanks for a fantastic ONA23!

The Trisolute News Dashboard team had an amazing time at ONA23. Thanks to all who stopped by our booth to learn more about the News Dashboard and to chat about the successes and challenges of implementing SEO strategies in your newsrooms.

We were blown away by the full house at our Saturday session, SEO for News Publishers: Hands-on tips to boost your traffic. Even with the rude awakening we all received Saturday morning via the hotel alarm we appreciated you being such an enthusiastic and engaged audience. 

As promised, here is the presentation link: SEO for News Publishers.

Please stay in touch! You can find Trisolute News Dashboard on Twitter/X, LinkedIn and bookmark our blog for continued updates of all things news SEO. 

Hope to see you in Atlanta at ONA24!

Not yet part of the Trisolute News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out how your articles rank on Google Discover, Google News and the SERPs!

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AI in the Newsroom: Opportunities, Threats, Action Steps

Depending on who you talk to, AI will either be the end of civilization or is the greatest technology the world has ever seen. What does it mean for the future of journalism? 

Short on time? Scroll down for News Publisher Action Steps for AI.

AI and the Current Media Landscape

Generative AI may be the current perceived threat, but the traditional journalism model has been broken beyond repair for years. An unintended consequence of artificial intelligence is that it may usher in a very real and much needed transformation of the news industry. 

If you need further evidence of the need for change, read the Digital News Report 2023 from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. One of the brutally honest takeaways: “Many publishers are struggling to convince people that their news is worth paying attention to, let alone paying for.”

(It’s worth noting that the annual Digital News Report has drawn criticism for its methodology, with Nobel-prize winning journalist Maria Ressa raising concerns that the report is being used by government officials to attack journalists.)

News avoidance is an ongoing challenge. The relentless news cycle, which often focuses on violence and extreme political division, has prompted news consumers to tune out. According to the Digital News Report, 36 percent of news consumers say they avoid news, often or sometimes. For those who haven’t completely removed news consumption from their daily habits, their news interest has fallen. Fewer than half (48%) of Digital News Report’s aggregate sample said they are very or extremely interested in news.

Amid this gloomy environment for traditional media outlets, AI has emerged as yet another disruptive force. While there are new generative AI-powered tools that are gaining a lot of attention, automation has been integrated into newsroom workflows for quite some time. This 2021 survey conducted by the Knight Foundation captured over 100 AI and automation projects being conducted in newsrooms. 

Journalists have eyed the rapidly developing AI-powered search products with a mix of skepticism and trepidation. Is this yet another pivot to a hot trend that attracts the attention of media company leaders, like video, social media, newsletters, blogs, and a plethora of now-defunct platforms and technologies before it? 

Veteran digital journalists like myself have permanent whiplash from the never-ending pivots to the “next big thing” that will save the media industry.

via GIPHY

The only thing that has remained constant is change. 

Trisolute News Dashboard has been closely monitoring AI developments, particularly those involving Google. As a Google visibility tool designed for news publishers, we want to stay on top of any developments that could impact the search performance of our publishing partners. With social media in disarray (thanks Meta, Twitter) and no longer a reliable traffic driver, Google visibility and the search traffic it can provide has become even more critical for news publishers. But if Google’s search generative experience (SGE) is popular with users, can news publishers expect a collapse of search traffic? What will that mean for an industry that is already on shaky financial ground? Do newsrooms embrace AI technology or push back against it?

These questions and much more were addressed at Media Party. A mix of journalism and technology solutions leaders presented a sober, but ultimately empowering take on what AI developments mean for the media industry. Several interesting themes emerged. One of the most interesting was the concept of “civic journalism.”

Speaking of change, the two loops model of organizational change was discussed at Media Party. It’s a helpful visualization of where the media industry finds itself now.

 

Jeremy Gilbert from Knight Lab made a bold statement during his Media Party presentation: “News consumers want answers, not stories.”

This point of view was echoed throughout the conference. 

Jennifer Brandel from Hearken emphasized the importance of “news and information on how people can live better in their communities.” Her civic media model also included a focus on AE (Actual Experience) instead of AI, pointing out that a journalist’s best weapon against AI is their humanity.

Rishad Patel of Splice Media emphasized the importance of securing an audience’s attention, and why building a user-centric, problem-solving news product will be vital to a newsroom’s survival. He encouraged journalists to “Ask. Listen. Act.”

Google’s own research shows an increased audience interest in local topics and local voices, according to Google’s Dan Newman.

The need for a transformation to a civic media model was also captured in the Digital News Report. Among the report’s findings: “Most consumers are looking not for more news, but news that feels more relevant, and helps them make sense of the complex issues facing us all.” 

The civic journalism concept aligns with Google’s focus on “helpful content” and E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) guidelines. Google addresses helpful content in the emerging world of AI-generated content. According to SEO consultant Dr. Marie Haynes. “It’s important to “assess your content across the helpful content questions … The more I learned about the helpful content system I realized how AI made it possible for Google to create a model that’s good at predicting whether content is helpful.”

Let’s take a closer look at the potential opportunities and threats that AI poses to journalism, and wrap up with action steps your newsroom should be taking now to address AI.

AI Opportunities for News Publishers

According to Juan Señor, editor of  Innovation in Media 2023 World Report, “Generative AI is not about digital transformation but the transformation of digital.” 

Miranda Marcus of BBC News Labs echoed a similar sentiment at Media Party: “Social media democratized distribution of content. Generative AI is about to democratize the production of content.”

Machine learning and AI projects have been taking place in newsrooms around the world for years. The London School of Economics and Political Science JournalismAI Case Studies database has tracked these projects.

There is a great deal unknown about how generative AI will impact the media industry, but the experimentation phase is underway. Newsrooms are using AI to create content, brainstorm headlines, sift through dense documents for research purposes, transcribe meetings and fact-checking. In a world of shrinking newsrooms in both staff and coverage areas, AI tools could help fill in some critical coverage gaps.

The early results have been mixed at best. Some news outlets were embarrassed by publishing AI-written articles that were filled with inaccuracies. AI is prone to hallucinations, in which it offers a response that it seems confident is correct, but is actually filled with made-up information. 

Aimee Rinehart from The Associated Press recommends targeting repetitive tasks and small wins to get your newsroom motivated around AI projects. 

The Associated Press divides AI uses into three main categories:

  • News gathering: Your newsroom regularly sorts through data to find specific events, transcribes audio/video or engages in fact-checking.
  • News production: Your newsroom regularly creates stories from structured data, localizes articles or wants to convert text to audio.
  • News distribution: Your company wants to make better article recommendations, more relevant ads or personalized landing pages.

The Texas Tribune is experimenting with AI in several ways:

  • Smart tags to mark entities
  • Correction suggestions, sponsor disclosures, cross-linking opportunities built into their CMS
  • Building out knowledge graphs for public data like campaign finance
  • Generating copy drafts
  • Leveraging their archive: Inspired by BloombergGPT

International publishers are also experimenting with AI in the newsroom. South China Morning Post used AI to power their article recommendation process, with very successful results.

The Toronto Star used AI to compile and generate crime reports. According to JournalismAI Discovery, the crime beat staff found that automation “helped them rethink traditional crime reporting and find ways to cover these incidents in a responsible and equitable manner.”

AI Threats for News Publishers

AI-generated content poses a direct threat to the media industry, though in its current form, most AI-written content is dull and prone to errors. It’s not prime-time yet, but will it be “good enough” in the near future? For less than scrupulous publishers, who care more about revenue than quality, the answer is most likely yes.

AI replacing newsroom jobs is a legitimate concern. With more newsrooms under scrutiny from their venture capitalist owners, it’s easier to imagine AI being used as an excuse to trim newsroom staff even beyond the massive cuts that the media industry has endured over the last several years.

But perhaps the biggest threat from AI comes from AI-powered search, such as Bing’s partnership with Chat-GPT and Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE). There are multiple threats from AI here, including lack of sourcing and a major transformation of Google’s search ranking algorithm that news publishers have relied upon to get their content in front of their audience.

Google describes SGE in the following way: “the new generative AI powered Search experience will help you take some of the work out of searching, so you can understand a topic faster, uncover new viewpoints and insights and get things done more easily.”

As Avram Piltch, editor-in-chief of Tom’s Hardware outlines in very convincing fashion, Google’s SGE in its current form is not accurately and consistently citing its sources when it creates its AI-powered snapshots to search queries. This could have devastating consequences for news publishers if Google doesn’t make sourcing a mandatory part of its SGE when it’s released to the public. Google’s SGE grabs bits and pieces of articles from across the internet and compiles them into a conversational response that sits at the top of search results. Without proper sourcing, not only is the original publisher not getting due credit, but the quote used from their article may be lacking context or misconstrued when SGE mashes a response together. This could hurt a newsroom’s brand and reputation. 

The other major threat from AI-powered search engines is drastically decreased search visibility. 

With the traditional “10 blue links” getting pushed down underneath the generative AI snapshot in SGE, there is less opportunity to be visible at the top of Google’s SERPS.

 There is a legitimate concern that the generative AI snapshot in SGE will reduce the amount of pages a user will browse when researching a particular topic or seeking an answer to a question. If the SGE provides an acceptable answer, the user potentially may click on no links, also known as “zero-click searches.”

The flipside to this is that if Google becomes too good at generating answers to queries that lead to “zero-click searches,” then it will also face consequences, including reduced user engagement and ability to serve ads. It will be in Google’s best interest to refine the AI-generated search experience in a way that doesn’t make its traditional search offerings irrelevant.

News Publisher Action Steps for AI 

One thing your newsroom cannot afford to do is ignore AI. 

Even if the threats and doomsday scenarios being discussed by pundits prove to be overblown, the newest AI-powered technology tools are already having an impact on the media industry. 

“Publishers need to further accelerate their transition to digital, embracing new business models, different types of storytelling, and new forms of distribution too. There will be many different paths but innovation, flexibility, and a relentless audience focus will be some of the key ingredients for success.” (Digital News Report 2023)

  • Experiment with AI tools in your newsroom. Use the resources in the Journalist’s Toolbox AI to get started.
  • Hire or train staff on creating prompts, as this is a critical skill to successfully use generative AI tools.
  • Develop a newsroom policy around AI usage. Take a look at The Guardian’s approach to AI for inspiration.
  • Define your newsroom’s position on your content being used in AI-powered search. If you’re concerned about Google using your content without proper attribution, become a vocal advocate. Juan Señor, editor of the Innovation in Media 2023 World Report, suggested news publishers take a stance similar to Getty and Spotify: “We need to block the bots scraping our content,” he said.
  • Smaller publishers may want to consider becoming hyperlocal and focusing on niches that are essential to their audiences, an approach suggested by Jacob Donnelly, the publisher of Morning Brew. Block Club Chicago also has seen a great deal of success by taking a hyperlocal, civic news approach.
  • Focus on how to use AI as a weapon for good in the battle against disinformation. While it’s true that AI itself can be a source of disinformation, the technology can also be harnessed to identify disinformation and provide additional context when it comes to reporting on controversial issues. Just note that its fact-checking capabilities are not quite ready for prime-time just yet, according to an experiment conducted by Poynter.

One of the biggest developments to prepare for is how AI transforms search results in Google, which accounts for a significant amount of newsroom search traffic. Here are recommendations on how best to position your news outlet to take advantage of AI-powered search algorithms.

  • Understanding your audience will be more important than ever. Using a search analytics tool designed for news publishers like Trisolute’s News Dashboard can help uncover critical intelligence around your audience’s topic interests and ensure you are answering the most popular search queries for a particular topic. Keep in mind the civic model approach.
  • Building topic authority is even more critical for news publishers who find themselves competing with a flood of dubious AI-generated content. Trisolute’s News Dashboard can help you identify topics and categories in which Google recognizes your search authority, along with identifying new content opportunities to build greater authority. Uncover angles that your competitors haven’t covered yet that your newsroom can offer a unique perspective.
  • Ensure that staff bios are optimized to reflect the individual’s topic authority. 
  • Update existing content that you determine has potential to be cited in Google’s SGE. Trisolute’s News Dashboard can help you identify existing content that offers the greatest potential for success. Search Engine Land offers a good content optimization blueprint.
  • Experience will matter more than ever. Not just in topic authority, but by highlighting the average person’s experience across a variety of topics. Google’s Perspectives and User Generated Content (UGC) may be growing areas of opportunity for news publishers who can target those areas with content that features local voices and viewpoints. 
  • Analyze Google Discover data to understand which topics are most popular with your audience. Trisolute’s News Dashboard tool offers a Google Discover report that not only provides Google Discover data, but displays in the same view if that article is also ranking on the mobile and desktop SERPS and Google News.
  • Monitor the performance of your newsroom’s AI content projects so you can build upon successes and recalibrate your focus in underperforming areas. Trisolute’s News Dashboard offers a robust set of historical data in our KPI Dashboard reports, where publishers can monitor mobile and desktop SERP ranking performance.

Conclusion

AI presents another potential major shift in workflows, but there are a lot of smart folks using AI in positive ways in their newsrooms. Now is the time for education and experimentation by using AI tools in your newsroom so you can be prepared for what comes next.

Paying attention to your search performance will be more critical than ever as Google refines its AI-powered search product and prepares its release to the general public. Expect search traffic patterns to be disrupted. Identifying and growing your topic authority will be crucial in this new AI-powered landscape. Trisolute’s News Dashboard offers several features to help you analyze, optimize and monitor your search performance. 

Blog photo by Google DeepMind on Unsplash.

Not yet part of the Trisolute News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out how your articles rank on Google Discover, Google News and the SERPs!

 

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We’re headed to ONA23!

The Trisolute News Dashboard team is excited to be headed to Philadelphia for ONA23. Members from our German and U.S. teams will be attending one of the biggest annual events for news publishers.

Come visit our booth (216, 4th floor Franklin Hall) and check out the latest News Dashboard features, such as Action View 2.0, that will supercharge your live optimization strategy. While you’re there, pick up our news SEO tip sheets and some nifty News Dashboard swag.

Make sure to attend our Saturday morning session:  SEO for News Publishers – Hands-on Tips to Boost Your Traffic. It takes place at 11:30 a.m. and will feature insights from Trisolute’s News SEO Strategist, Joy Johnston, along with tips that will be crowdsourced from the audience live during the presentation.

Hope to see you there!

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Trisolute News Dashboard Shortlisted for the 2023 US Search Awards

 

 

We are thrilled to announce that the Trisolute News Dashboard has been shortlisted for the 2023 US Search Awards in two categories: Best Software Innovation for Action View 2.0 and Best Search Software Tool!

The winners will be announced at the award ceremony on Oct. 18, 2023 in New York City.

In the meantime, if you are attending ONA23 in Philadelphia this August, please stop by the Trisolute News Dashboard booth to check out the tool’s new features. Make plans to attend our news SEO presentation on Saturday. Hope to see you there!

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Action View 2.0: Check out the new live optimization features

Last week, Trisolute News Dashboard released Action View 2.0, which has been completely redesigned with the feedback of our news publisher partners. Already a popular feature of the award-winning news SEO tool, Action View 2.0 will empower news publishers with enhanced live optimization and near real-time performance tracking features.

Incorporating these features into a newsroom’s SEO workflow will help publishers react quicker to search ranking opportunities, maintain optimum search performance, and build topic authority.

Here are the key new Action View 2.0 features that help news publishers track their Google visibility in near real-time and perform live optimization with ease:

  • Simplified format: Action View 2.0 has a clean, efficient interface, using descriptive icons to quickly communicate to newsroom staff the performance of a keyword or article. When live optimizing for breaking news, the ability to gain insights at a glance is essential.
  • Live optimization: The new filter features in Action View 2.0 enhance the News Dashboard’s live optimization capabilities. Select “Lost Ranking” under Ranking Status and “Optimize for Keyword” under Action Suggestions. A specific ranking type can also be selected in the filter menu. To investigate why a ranking was lost, check the visibility history, perform a quick News Box analysis in the News Box tab, check when the article lost ranking and from those indicators implement an SEO strategy.
  • Action Suggestions: Get actionable prompts within Action View 2.0 that will prompt news staff to update a headline, review keyword usage or monitor for further action, supporting the live optimization of articles at critical moments.
  • Automatic updates: Activate Automatic Updates to be notified when ranking for an article or keyword is lost, allowing news staff to be able to respond quickly and be more proactive in optimization. 
  • Enhanced tracking: Use the Watchlist feature to create a customized set of keywords so you can closely monitor volatility and know when to take action. Adding articles to the Watchlist is an efficient method to determine if article optimization strategies are working.

To celebrate the launch of Action View 2.0, Trisolute Software is offering a free 2-month News Dashboard trial. Use code AV2 on the registration form. This limited time offer expires Aug. 8, 2023, so don’t miss out!

 

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What’s Going on with Google News? Confirmed bug is being fixed

Update July 21, 2023: A week has passed since Google announced they have fixed the Google News indexing issue. We have been monitoring Google News patterns and find that they’ve mostly returned to normal. There are still some strange indexing patterns occurring but that doesn’t seem to be having a direct impact on Google News. We will continue to monitor the News Dashboard and share any unusual visibility data results.

Update July 12, 2023: If you are a publisher who was impacted by the Google News indexing issue, keep a close eye on your visibility data today. In today’s update, Google says they’ve identified the indexing issue and implemented a fix. They are now monitoring to see if the fix addresses the issue.

Update July 11, 2023: We are pleased to report that today we are seeing an increase in Google News visibility for impacted publishers. Take a look at the screengrab below from the News Dashboard’s Google News report, which shows the improvement trend began overnight. We will continue to monitor the data and report any further developments as warranted.

Update July 10, 2023: Thanks to publishers from around the world (including Heiko Stammel of DER SPIEGEL and Matthias Thier of TAG24, among many others) who shared their concerns with Google about a steep decline in Google News visibility, a fix is reported to be underway. This update from Google today on the Publisher Center Help Forum may be reason for cautious optimism.

John Mueller of Google also confirmed the existence of what is referred to as an “indexing” issue with Google News.

According to the Google Search Status Dashboard, “There’s an ongoing issue with indexing in Google News that’s affecting all sites. Sites may be experiencing a decrease in traffic from Google News. We’re working on identifying the root cause. Next update will be within 24 hours.”

We will continue to monitor the Google News visibility issue and provide updates as warranted.

Read the original post below:

Last week we noticed a sudden and severe decline in Google News visibility for a wide range of major news publishers. We also had concerned Trisolute News Dashboard customers reach out to us for insights. 

After sharing our initial analysis on LinkedIn, we dove into the Trisolute News Dashboard data in earnest.  We won’t bury the lede: We have not yet determined a reason for the Google News decline for some publishers, but we have uncovered data points that could be useful in your own analysis if you are one of the news publishers investigating a decline in Google News visibility.

An important note for our Trisolute News Dashboard customers: We capture data from the general sections of Google News and not the personalized sections, such as the “Local,” “For you” or “Following” tabs. Therefore, the Google News graphs in the News Dashboard tool will never exactly match the graphs in Google Search Console. Even when taking those differences into consideration, there is still a significant drop in Google News visibility for some publishers.

Here are our key findings surrounding the Google News visibility decline for certain publishers:

  • The decline period began around June 18, mainly impacting YouTube, but by June 21-23, dozens of publishers saw a decline in Google News visibility. Some publishers who were affected have since rebounded to their normal Google News visibility rate while others have not recovered at all. (Note: We include YouTube as a publisher in News Dashboard reports to track video visibility for traditional news publishers who post on that platform.)
  • The impact is being felt globally, with news publishers from around the world seeing significant declines in Google News visibility.
  • Not all news publishers suffered a decline in Google News visibility; some saw a marked increase.
  • The most dramatic drop in Google News visibility was for YouTube, but their visibility has since rebounded, beginning June 28. 
  • There was a notable drop globally in Google News rankings overall week-over-week (for weeks of June 12 and June 19 excluding weekends.)
  • There was not a single type of publisher (sports, entertainment, politics) who suffered a loss in Google News visibility. A diverse mix of publishers were impacted.
  • It doesn’t appear to be an indexing issue, as Trisolute’s News Dashboard includes an Index Rate report which verifies that Google is seeing the articles being published by affected news publishers.
  • The number of US publishers ranking in Google News increased by about 100 beginning June 22. The number of ranking US publishers in Google News continues to be higher than the previous average for the month of June.
  • Google search ranking volatility: On June 23, Barry Schwartz posted on SEO Roundtable about the “incredible volatility” in Google Search ranking results that had been taking place well over a week. On Thursday, he posted an update, once again emphasizing the continued volatility trend in Google search ranking results.
  • News aggregator Yahoo saw a dramatic increase in Google News visibility during this period. Will Flannigan of the Wall Street Journal (and former Trisolute News Dashboard staff member) offered an interesting analysis in a Twitter thread.

Regional Insights:

Note the increase in the amount of Google News publishers and the notable decrease in Google News rankings.

 

Other factors we considered:

  • During the aborted coup attempt in Russia, there were reports of Google News being blocked in the country  See The New York Times report. However, the timing doesn’t match up with when we saw the initial decline in Google News visibility.
  • Titan sub: Because of the rise and dramatic fall of video provider YouTube in Google News visibility, we initially thought it could be connected to the missing Titan sub, which generated a mass amount of video coverage. When there’s a major global news event, normal search patterns can be skewed. However, the dates don’t correspond with the beginning of the decline trend in Google News visibility.
  • YouTube was reported to be running a “small experiment globally” that restricted ad blocker users after three video views. It’s unknown the date range of this experiment or its scope.

Our analysis is ongoing, so please reach out or comment on our posts if you have any additional insights you’d like to share.

Not yet part of the Trisolute News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out how your articles rank on Google Discover, Google News and the SERPs!

 

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12 Key Insights from Media Party

Media Party is always about sparking innovation. The June 2023 conference in Chicago focused on “the intersection between AI, journalism and democracy.” Additional topics included synthetic media, ethics in artificial intelligence, misinformation and privacy. By bringing together an eclectic and enthusiastic mix of media professionals and those in the tech industry, common themes emerged around the concept of a civic media model.

Congratulations to the winners of Media Party’s Hackathon. You can read about the winning projects in this post from the International Center for Journalists, which also includes insightful takeaways from Media Party. Hopefully it will spark ideas to explore in your newsroom.

The Trisolute News Dashboard team participated in the Media Fair, attended workshops and engaged in thought-provoking conversations surrounding Generative AI and other topics and learned from industry leaders who brought their diverse perspectives and expertise to each session.

 

Here is a selection of insights* from Media Party speakers:

  1. On why user-centric relevance and utility is vital to a newsroom’s survival: Attention is the currency. (Rishad Patel, Splice Media)
  2. Social media democratized distribution of content. Generative AI is about to democratize the production of content. (Miranda Marcus, BBC News Labs)
  3. Instead of AI focus on AE: Actual Experience. These are human, face-to-face interactions and have been proven to increase trust in information in a time where so many people have an increased distrust in information. (Jennifer Brandel, Hearken)
  4. Civic media to replace traditional media model to meet audience needs and prepare for the disruptions caused by artificial intelligence (news and information on how people can live better in their communities.) (Jennifer Brandel, Hearken)
  5. We often ask what we can get genAI to do, but forget to ask what our audiences actually want. News consumers want answers, not stories. (Jeremy Gilbert, Knight Lab)
  6. We shouldn’t seek to replicate replicate what human journalists do well but use GenAI for things they can’t do well. (Jeremy Gilbert, Knight Lab)
  7. New skills are needed, for example prompting. (Miranda Marcus, BBC News Labs & Liam Andrew, Texas Tribune)
  8. It looks like GenAI can summarize large data sets and look for patterns and outliers in the near future. (Liam Andrew, Texas Tribune)
  9. Research shows increased audience interest in local topics and local voices. Also a shift in how people like to consume their news leaning towards entertaining and more visual content. (Dan Newman, Google)
  10. Solutions-focused constructive journalism is the goal, with the media playing a role in reducing polarization by sharing diverse viewpoints. (Sara Cooper, The World Talks from ZEIT ONLINE)
  11. To deal with the existence of AI within our industry, media must produce own, trustworthy content and should experiment with GenAI while creating guidelines for it. (Martha Williams, World News Media Network)
  12. Mass media is, by necessity, a one to many business but AI will allow us to move away from that. (Jeremy Gilbert, Knight Lab)

*Note: To demonstrate the power of AI, we used Chat-GPT to sort the above insights into a logical order. Here is Chat-GPT’s reasoning it provided with its sorting response:

“By arranging the bullet points in this order, the logical progression moves from setting the stage with attention as the currency, to exploring the impact of AI on content production and the need for new skills. It then delves into the shift in audience preferences, the strategic approach to utilizing AI, and the potential capabilities of generative AI in analyzing data sets. The discussion then turns to audience interests in local topics and entertaining, visual content. It further emphasizes the importance of solutions-focused constructive journalism and the role of the media in reducing polarization. Finally, it addresses the challenges and opportunities presented by AI, highlighting the need for trustworthy content, experimentation with generative AI, and the establishment of guidelines within the industry.

This logical order allows for a cohesive flow of ideas, gradually building upon each other to provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact of AI on the media industry and the potential paths forward.” 

We would like to thank Mariano Blejman and his team for inviting us to participate in Media Party and look forward to attending future events.

What can news publishers do with the discoveries and insights from Media Party? Stay tuned for a follow-up blog post, where we will provide actionable tips and how Trisolute’s News Dashboard can help your newsroom navigate an AI-powered search landscape.

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What Defines a Top-Ranking Article on Google Discover?

In this analysis, we examine Google Discover’s top 100 articles of 2022 and provide valuable insights on how to optimize content for better performance on the platform. By studying the trends and patterns of the articles that made it to the top, we can provide actionable tips for those looking to increase their visibility on Google Discover. Who knows, maybe 2023’s top 100 will include you.

Let’s start off with the basics: What exactly is Google Discover? Google Discover acts as a personalized feed that is customized to appeal to an individual reader’s interests. Say, for example, your favorite soccer team is Borussia Dortmund. Google’s automated system would eventually notice that you read numerous articles on this team and would therefore suggest articles on soccer and Borussia Dortmund on your own Discover feed.

What data did we use for this analysis and where did it come from? Well, that’s easy – We simply looked at the articles that ranked within the top 100 in 2022, sorted by their number of clicks. Next, we broke down the articles’ individual statistics by different factors, like their number of impressions, CTRs, title length, and others. All the data was taken directly from the Trisolute News Dashboard.

One last thing before we start: Since Discover is such a personalized application and we want to protect our publishers’ data, we will refrain from sharing identifying information about the publishers and titles of the articles. But don’t worry, we were still able to pull large amounts of interesting data to share. Let’s have a look!

 

What were the top 100 articles about?

To start this analysis off, let’s break down the main topics of the top 100 Google Discover articles to get a better understanding of what seems to work particularly well. We chose to break the articles down into 14 categories. The distribution of how many articles thematized which category can be seen in the following image:

A breakdown on the topics the top 100 articles on Discover were on.

Let’s quickly go through each category and explain what kinds of articles they include:

Entertainment: Articles about celebrities and people of interest
Consumerism: Articles about money issues concerning households (e.g. saving energy or gas)
Money advice: Articles about how to best handle money issues
Search image: Articles with an image that contains an optical illusion and you have to search for a particular shape or object
Pension: Articles about the topic pension
Economy: Articles about economical issues (e.g. price increases)
Sex: Articles with sexual connotations in their title
Personality quiz: Articles with a quiz determining the reader’s personality traits
Health/Lifestyle: Articles with advice or information on a healthier lifestyle
War: Articles about the Russia-Ukraine-conflict
Covid: Articles about the Covid-19-pandemic
Environment: Articles about environmental issues
Sports: Articles related to sports
Other: Articles that fit neither of the categories above

This categorization of the top 100 articles are the perfect foundation for some more analyses, so let’s dive into the data just a little deeper:

What were some characteristics of the top 100 articles?

To determine what worked best on Google Discover in 2022, we should not forget about the most fundamental SEO-factors – clicks, title length, the lot. Based on the categories you just learned about we did some analyzing on those and found out some quite interesting information.

Average clicks, impressions and CTRs

Before we look at the data, we want do give a quick rundown on what those terms mean exactly. Clicks describe how many times the article was visited by clicking on its link. Impressions mean the number of times an article was presented by Google, or rather how many times that article could be seen on Discover. Lastly, the CTR or Click-Through-Rate tells you how often people actually clicked on the article when it was displayed to them on Discover. The formula to calculate the CTR is easy: You simply have to divide the number of clicks by the number of impressions and voilà! A quick example: If your article has 5 clicks and 100 impressions, you get  5/100 = 0.05. The CTR for this article would therefore be 5%.

Here’s what we found for the average clicks and impressions per category:

Average clicks (left) and impressions (right) per category

The category with the most clicks by quite a lot were search images, followed by personality quizzes – Readers on Discover seem to like to entertain themselves with puzzles and quizzes the most. These two categories also lead the ranking for average impressions, only that personality quizzes were slightly more present on Discover than search images.

The least clicks could be generated for the category sports, and the category war had the least impressions.

Now that we have the two components for calculating the average CTR for each category, why not have a look at that as well:

Average click-through-rate per category

When looking at the CTR, the picture shifts quite a bit from the one the average clicks and impressions conveyed. Here, the articles on the Russia-Ukraine war had the highest CTR with 21,84%, followed by articles that were about the Covid-19 pandemic with 18,32%. The top categories for clicks and impressions, search images and personality quizzes, are situated in the midfield and at the end when it comes to CTR.

According to Google, the CTR can be an indicator on whether readers find your article relevant and interesting.

Average title length

Let’s now have a look at one more SEO-basic: The length of an article’s title. When looking for a keyword, or, in this case, scrolling through your discover feed, you see each article as a link you can click on before reading the whole thing. This link displays the article’s title, even before clicking on it. Though it’s not always 100% accurate, Google tends to clip these titles at around 60-65 characters (letters, spaces and numbers).

Here’s another interesting suggestion about headlines in Discover. SEO news expert Barry Adams from Polemic Digital has come across article headlines in Discover that don’t match the more typical headline types and believes Google occasionally picks headlines for Discover from an article’s Open Graph meta tags, which are used for social media. As Adams discusses in The 5 Article Headlines Google Cares About, while you are optimizing the Open Graph tags for social, keep in mind that they may end up also displaying on Discover.

Why not have a look at how long the titles of the top 100 articles on 2022’s Discover were:

Average length of titles in characters by category

Articles on the topic of money advice had the longest titles by quite a lot: 140 characters are more than double of what Google would usually show on the Discover-feed. Looking back at the other stats though, that didn’t seem to have impacted those articles negatively. The categories sports and personality quizzes had the shortest titles on average – though still both above the display limit of 60-65 characters. By looking at this in detail we noticed that the position of relevant keywords/entities seems to be a deciding factor which we want to analyze further in the future.

 

Takeaways

Finally, let’s look at a quick summary on what we were able to find out from the given data:

  • Search images generated with about 3.4 million clicks the most on average per article.
  • The most impressions on Discover were generated by personality quizzes, with about 42 million on average per article.
  • Articles on the Russia-Ukraine war generated the highest CTR on average (21,84%).
  • The standing of the articles shifts immensely when looking at the CTR instead of the clicks.
  • The articles with the longest titles were on money-advice with 140 characters on average. Generally longer titles do not seem to negatively influence traffic.
  • In general it seems like articles with interactive puzzles or quizzes work particularly well with readers on Google Discover. Besides that, articles on current affairs and articles on personal finance seem to be quite popular as well.

 

Not yet part of the Trisolute News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out how your articles rank on Google Discover, Google News and the SERPs!

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How Does the Choice of Keywords in an Article’s Title Influence News Box Rankings?

You wrote the perfect article and you’re wondering whether a certain keyword should be included in its title or not? And if it’s included and consists of more than one word, is there a strategy to heighten your chances of getting a ranking in Google’s News Boxes? With the help of the Trisolute News Dashboard, we looked at data from 2022 to answer just those questions!

But first, a note on keywords in article titles and its impact on length and display in Google. As SEO news expert Barry Adams points out in The 5 Article Headlines Google Cares About, “There is less space available for a heading in Google’s regular search results than there is for article headlines in Top Stories and other news elements. As a result, the recommended length for SEO titles is shorter.” While Adams says headlines in Top Stories boxes can be between 70 and 85 characters before getting cut off, for titles that appear in organic search results (those using the <title> tag) the character limit is typically between 55 to 65 characters.

The Data

As a basis for this analysis we took data from the Mobile and Desktop News Boxes and examined how many rankings there were in total in the year 2022, which were, to no surprise, quite a lot (a whooping 188,375,195 on desktop and 120,525,067 on mobile, to be exact!). Therefore we had to dig a little deeper: We asked ourselves how big of a difference it made in terms of News Box-rankings whether a publisher had included a keyword in an article’s title in a certain kind of way.

 

Is the keyword in the title or not?

There are three different categories in which to evaluate whether a keyword is included in an article’s title or not: ‘Exact’, ‘Distributed’, or ‘Single’. To illustrate those more clearly, let’s take the keyword ‘hogwarts legacy’:

  • Exact: The keyword has to appear in the title exactly as it is.
    • Hogwarts Legacy: The new action role-play everyone is obsessed with right now” → The keyword is in the title.
    • Hogwarts gets a new legacy” → The keyword is not in the title (because of the words in between ‘Hogwarts’ and ‘legacy’).
    • “You can discover the legacy of Hogwarts in this new game” → The keyword is not in the title (because the words are in the wrong order).
    • Hogwarts as it has never been seen before” → The keyword is not in the title (because the word ‘legacy’ is missing from it).
  • Distributed: All parts of the keyword (in this case ‘Hogwarts’ and ‘legacy’) have to appear somewhere in the title in the correct order.
    • Hogwarts Legacy: The new action role-play everyone is obsessed with right now” → The keyword is in the title.
    • Hogwarts gets a new legacy” → The keyword is in the title.
    • “You can discover the legacy of Hogwarts in this new game” → The keyword is not in the title (because the words are in the wrong order).
    • Hogwarts as it has never been seen before” → The keyword is not in the title (because the word ‘legacy’ is missing from it).
  • Single: At least one part of the keywords has to appear in the title (in this case either ‘hogwarts’ or ‘legacy’). If both keywords appear, the order is irrelevant.
    • Hogwarts Legacy: The new action role-play everyone is obsessed with right now” → The keyword is in the title.
    • Hogwarts gets a new legacy” → The keyword is in the title.
    • “You can discover the legacy of Hogwarts in this new game” → The keyword is in the title.
    • Hogwarts as it has never been seen before” → The keyword is in the title.
    • “Choose your legacy in this new action role-play” → The keyword is in the title.

 

Findings from 2022

With those criteria as a basis of our evaluation, we went on to take the numbers of News-Box-rankings with the keyword appearing either exact, distributed or single and put it into relation to the total number of News-Box-rankings in 2022. We did this both for Mobile and Desktop-rankings.

Since there are overlaps in those scenarios, concerning the classification whether the specific keyword is in the title or not, the percentages exceed the 100%-threshold if added up (for example: the title “Hogwarts Legacy: The new action-role play everyone is obsessed with right now” would fall under all three categories).

Here’s what we found out:

Column chart showing the differences between the desktop and mobile rankings for exact, distributed, single and no keywords in an article's title.

What does it mean?

It comes as no surprise that the category ‘Single’ generated the most rankings both for Mobile and for Desktop-News-Boxes – after all, if you have an exact match in your title, the single keyword will automatically be represented as well. What is more interesting is the fact that the number of News-Box-rankings which had no keyword at all in the title came out as low as it did. Only around 11% of the titles that generated a ranking had no keyword, which, compared to the 88 to 89% which did have at least one part of the keyword in their title.

Based on our data we can safely say that it is beneficial for your rankings to include at least one part of the keyword in your articles’ title. Now say you want to include the whole keyword, not just a part of it. Looking back at the chart above, focusing only on the columns under ‘% Exact (Average)’ and ‘% Distributed (Average)’, the difference in numbers is really not that severe. For the Desktop News Box, the ‘Exact’ percentage is lower than the ‘Distributed’ one by only 5.99 percentage points and for the Mobile News Box by 5.64 percentage points.

But what does that mean?

Well, basically it can be said that it does not make a major difference for your chances of ranking in a News Box whether you decide to leave your keyword whole, with no other words in between, or if you split it up when putting it in your articles’ title. What does matter though, is that at least one part of your keyword has to appear in the title somewhere.

Conclusion

Looking at the data from 2022, our recommendation on how to handle keywords in an articles’ title in the future doesn’t seem too far-fetched:

☞ To significantly heighten your chances of generating rankings in both the Mobile and the Desktop News Box, include at least one part of the keyword in your title.

☞ If you want to include all parts of the keyword, it does not make that much of a difference whether you leave the keyword whole, with no other words in between (‘Exact’), or if you split it up (‘Distributed’).

 

You’re not yet part of the News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out how to optimize YOUR titles for the News Boxes.

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Which Role do Video Rankings Play in News Boxes?

One of the many different news ranking types on Google’s Search Engine Result Page (SERP) is the video ranking. A video ranking can stand alone, be in a News Box or in a News Carousel. Furthermore, there is an extra carousel element only for video rankings, in which mainly YouTube is placed, whereas YouTube does not play a role in the News Box. In addition to that, video rankings can also appear in a Publisher Carousel. That is a news carousel, where only one publisher appears with several articles on one topic. Through the Publisher Carousel, Google shows the authority of a publisher on a certain topic.

Data

The basis for this analysis is the data from the Mobile and Desktop News Boxes. With this data, we examined how many News Box rankings there were in total in the year 2022, which were a lot: in total 81,271,853. Therefore we took a closer look and asked ourselves how big the difference between the News-Box-rankings with a video ranking on the mobile and on the desktop SERP would be and when there were the fewest as well as the most video rankings in the News Box.

News Box with video rankings

A video ranking is indicated by the play button.

The play button indicates a video ranking.

Google has displayed articles that contain a video as video ranking on the SERP until April 13, 2023. Since then, only articles whose main content is a video is given a video ranking. For some articles, a video is useful if it illustrates the news situation better because, for example, a politician’s speech is shown in the video. A video can also increase the engagement with the user.

Findings from 2022

Progress of the News Boxes with Video Rankings

Progress of News Boxes on Desktop and mobile SERP with Video Rankings in 2022.

In total, there were over 120 million News Boxes (120,525,067) on the mobile and nearly 190 million News Boxes (188,375,195) on the desktop SERP in 2022. Of these Desktop News Box rankings, 15.4 percent were video rankings. On the mobile SERP, an average of 11,6 percent had a video ranking. In February, the proportion of video rankings then fell to its lowest point at 10.5 percent, with the number of News Boxes also dropping rapidly to just 8,969,293. On the desktop SERP, the lowest point was in March. Only 14.9 percent of more than 16 million News Box rankings were video rankings at that time. December saw the highest number on the desktop and on the mobile SERPs: 12.7 percent video rankings while there were 9,074,419 News Boxes on the mobile SERP. On the desktop SERP were 16.2 percent with a video ranking and also the lowest number of News Boxes on the Desktop SERP: 13,849,465 News Boxes in total.

Conclusion

Looking at the data from 2022, our findings are:

☞  The share of video rankings in News Boxes is not as big as articles without video in the News Boxes, because of all News Box rankings, around 15 percent on desktop and around 11 percent on mobile SERPs are a video ranking.

☞  The share of video rankings in the News Boxes is relatively stable and changes only slightly over time.

☞  The share of video rankings in the News Boxes differs between mobile and desktop SERP by around three percent.

☞  A video ranking can be very attractive for a user and keep the person on your site for a long time, which is good for the time-on-site/session duration. But not all rankings in a News Box are video rankings and this is probably preferred by a certain target group.

You’re not yet part of the News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out how your articles rank on the Google SERPs!

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How Many News Boxes have Multiple News Box Headers?

While most of the focus of a News Box is on the article headlines it contains, you may have wondered about the header that tops such news containers on Google’s search engine result pages (SERPs.) A News Box is a box on the SERPs, where only news publishers can rank and that is labeled as Top Stories or with other titles. Usually there are one or more headers in the News Box, that help identify the topic of the News Box. The number of headers can vary greatly and is the topic of this analysis.

Data

The basis for our analysis is the data from the News Boxes on mobile and Desktop SERP and examined how many rankings there were in total in the year 2022. Therefore we counted the News Boxes that have zero, one, two or three headers. If there were multiple News Boxes on one SERP, we counted them all individually. Then we took a deeper look at the News Boxes on the desktop and mobile SERP. Furthermore, we looked at how high the share of multiple News Box headers on the mobile and Desktop SERP was in 2022, when the peaks were and what you can take from this for your news SEO.

News Boxes with multiple headers

In this example, there are three Headers for the Keyword "ukraine".

In this example, the keyword “Ukraine” got three headers within the News Boxes.

As SERP header we considered everything that can be above a thematic section as headline within a News Box. For each ranking in the News Box, we looked at what the section header is that applies to that ranking, and then counted how many different ones there are in each News Box.

For example, the News Box for the keyword “Ukraine” has three headers: “Russia-Ukraine war”, “News about Ukraine, US and Ron DeSantis” and “Also in the News.” But it is also possible, that there are no Headers or just one. So there is something like “Top stories,” “Also in the news,” but also “News about <any topic>.”

Findings from 2022

Starting with the News Boxes on the Desktop SERP. There were a total of over 40 million News Boxes, to be precise: There were 40,110,572 News Boxes. On average, all had at least one header but 0.01 percent didn’t even have one. The most common was one header (69.3 percent). Every fourth News Box had two headers and only 5.65 percent had three headers.

Progress of News Boxes with no, one, two or three Headers

Progress of News Boxes on Desktop SERPs with no, one, two or three Headers in 2022.

Really exciting is that there are News Boxes with three headers from July until December. But from February to May, there were no News Boxes with three headers at all. In September, however, there were the most News Boxes with three headers (12.05 percent). The News Boxes without headers and News Boxes with one header were most common in January. There were 0.1 percent of News Boxes without headers and 71.16 percent with one header. Also, from April until July and in December there were just News Box with headers. In April, there were the most News Boxes with two headers. That was 32.41 percent.

Progress of News Boxes with no, one, two or three Headers

Progress of News Boxes on mobile SERPs with no, one, two or three Headers in 2022.

On the mobile SERP, we found a total of over 42 million News Boxes, to be precise: There were 42,015,323 News Boxes for 2022. Again, most News Boxes (69.5 percent) had one header. Likewise, there were only 0.01 percent of the News Boxes with no header on the mobile SERP as well. However, the share of News Boxes with two headers was only 17.7 percent and with three headers even 12.8 percent.

Furthermore, the highest value for News Boxes without header on the mobile SERP was measured in January at 0.1 percent of all News Boxes. In addition, every News Box had at least one header on the mobile SERP from April to July. On the other hand, in October there were the most news boxes with one header (72.6 percent). Also the most News Boxes with two headers were in April. Here, 18.63 percent of the News Boxes had two headers. Three headers accounted for 15.35 percent of all News Boxes on the mobile SERP in February.

Conclusion

Looking at the data from 2022, our findings are:

☞ The trend seems to go towards more structure. This can improve the reading experience because you get a faster overview. Also it helps with the evaluation of the data because structures and current positions in the News Box are easier to recognize and you have more help about what is particularly important for a keyword from Google’s point of view.

☞ Most News Boxes have a header.

☞ But many News Boxes have two or three headers as well.

☞ It is also possible that a News Box has no header.

☞ It can be useful to optimize your text for the keywords in the header, but only if certain topics are mentioned in the header that are also suitable as keywords. e.g. the header “Russia-Ukraine war” is suitable for this.

You’re not yet part of the News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out how your articles rank on the Google SERPs!

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How Many Rankings Have a Live Label in News Boxes?

Some topics are so-called evergreen topics, such as the Oscars or the Olympic Games. Other topics are of the highest urgency. These include the war in Ukraine, for example. Live tickers are often created as articles for such developing topics. This is because they can always be updated as soon as there is news. In the News Box, they are designated with a live label, also called a live flag. A News Box is a box on the search engine result pages (SERPs), where only news publishers can rank and that is labeled as Top Stories or with other titles. The live flag can appear as a feature to the Google news ranking types.

Data

The basis for this analysis is the data from mobile and Desktop News Boxes. With this data, we examined how many rankings there were in total in the year 2022, which were a lot. Therefore we go a bit deeper in the data and asked ourselves how big the difference between the News-Box-rankings with a live flag on the mobile and on the Desktop Search Engine Result Page (SERP) would be and when there were the fewest as well as the most rankings with live label in the News Box.

News Boxes with live flag

The Live flag shows that this is a live article.

If the article is one that will be continuously updated, it’s marked with a Live flag.

When an article is written about a current event and it is updated again and again, it is called a live ticker/live article. When Google recognizes an article as such, a live label appears on the search result. In a News Box, for example, it is in the upper left corner.

Findings of 2022

Progress of the news boxes with live flag

News Boxes with live label in 2022 on mobile and Desktop SERPs.

In total, there were nearly 190 million News Boxes (188,375,195) on the Desktop SERP in 2022 and of these, 1.9 percent were with a live flag. The ratio of live flag on the Desktop SERP looks similar on the mobile SERP. Here, there were a total of over 120 million News Boxes (120,525,067) in 2022. Of these, an average of 1.1 percent had a live label. Furthermore, on both SERPs — desktop and mobile — there were similar proportions of live flags in the News Boxes. Thus, both the Desktop News Boxes and the mobile News Boxes had the lowest proportion of live flags in January: The year 2022 started with only 0.4 percent live flag on over 15,6 million News Boxes (15,637,580) on the Desktop SERP. Also on the mobile SERP, the ratio with live label started low at about 0.3 percent to over 10 million News Boxes (10,110,837). Likewise, the highest proportion of live flags in both the Desktop News Boxes and the mobile News Boxes was in November: The share of live flags increased in November to a high of 1.7 percent with over 14 million News Boxes (14,295,348) on the Desktop SERP. On the mobile SERP, the share of live flags also peaks in November at 1.5 percent at 9,6 million News Boxes (9,625,348).

Conclusion

Looking at the data from 2022, our findings are:

☞ In general, there are very few News Boxes with a live label. However, this is also due to the fact that there are only a few topics that are worth reporting about so frequently.

☞ The spread of News Boxes with live flags is stable and more or less the same on both the Desktop and Mobile SERP.

          ☞ Seeking more insights on news SEO? Check out our ongoing news SEO analysis series.

 

You’re not yet part of the News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out which of your articles rank in a News Box with live flag!

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Does the Age of your Article Affect its News Box Visibility?

Getting a news article into Google’s News Box is the main goal for many publishers. FYI: News Boxes are the boxes on SERPs labeled ‘Top Stories” or other titles where only news publishers rank. But how much time has to pass after publishing an article before it has a chance to even be included in a News Box? A second? An hour? A day? And are there any remarkable differences between mobile and desktop News Boxes?

With the help of our News Dashboard data, we were able to find out just that!

 

The data

Let’s start off with the basics, a.k.a., the data we examined:

The foundation of the analysis were the total number of News Box rankings in 2022. That entails all articles that at one point in 2022 had a spot in a News Box both on mobile and desktop. Based off of that, we looked at the ages of those articles and calculated their respective percentage of the absolute number of articles that had a News Box ranking. The (rounded) age of the article is:

  • one second
  • one minute
  • one hour
  • one day
  • one week
  • one month
  • one year

Before looking at the results of our analysis, take a guess at which of the articles’ ages were most successful.

Here’s what News SEO expert Barry Adams said in an interview with RankRanger about his take on article age and ranking: “24 to 36 hours is more or less the maximum you can expect for an article to show up in those Top Stories boxes.”

 

The results

Alright, let’s now have a look at what we were able to find out!

At the outset we can say that the data from mobile and desktop News Boxes were so similar that we were able to simply analyze them as one unit of News Boxes.

Here’s a pie chart showing the distribution of the articles’ ages that were ranking in 2022’s News Boxes:


This pie chart shows the temporal gradation of a published article and their share in News Box rankings for mobile and desktop News Boxes. The gradations are: 1 second, 1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month and 1 year. Articles that are around one hour old have by far the largest share of News Box rankings at 65.53%.

One look and it’s easy to spot which one’s the clear winner: articles that were an hour old made up a whooping 65% of the total. No other age comes even close to that number. Articles that were a day old made up about 27% of the total. Articles that were a minute old accounted for 6 percent of rankings. The rest of the time increments didn’t account for enough rankings to have a meaningful impact.

Conclusion

What can you take away from this for your future News Box rankings?

If you’ve published an article very recently and you’re frustrated by it not ranking in a News Box, you may need to be a little more patient. Articles from an hour to a day old have the highest chance of being included in a News Box.

Note, however, that those results may not apply to every kind of news coverage. In the context of live coverage that is being constantly updated, for example, these findings are likely not applicable. If you are interested in how articles with a live label can influence your News Box ranking, check out our live label analysis.

You’re not yet part of the News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out what publishing-strategy works best for you!

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