On the desktop and mobile Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), News Boxes can be displayed in different ranking types. 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. Also a News Box can rank as News Box headline ranking, News Box carousel ranking or as News Box text ranking. Especially the News Box carousels take up a lot of space on the SERP. Of course, there are some other news ranking types that can be found on the SERP, but in this article we will focus on News Boxes specifically. The time-frame we examined ranges from 2020 to 2022.

Trend of the News Box ranking types on the desktop SERP

A News Box is probably the most interesting ranking type on the news related SERP for news publishers (but we’ll see that in more detail in a moment in the data) and is designed to highlight an article with an image and headline. In addition, the publisher’s logo also appears in the ranking.

News boxes exist on both desktop and mobile SERPs.

On the desktop SERP, the total number of News Box rankings more than doubled from 2020 to 2022: In 2020 there were a total of nearly 90 million News Box rankings (88,683,279), in 2021 there were already over 110 million News Box rankings (111,799,727), and in 2022 the number increased again to nearly 190 million (188,375,195).

The most News Box rankings were on the Desktop SERP in 2022.

A headline ranking is the headline of an article in a News Box. It can be the original headline of the article, but it could also be a subheadline, the title-tag or something from the article text. Google decides what to display as headline in the News Box.

In this News Box on the Desktop SERP, the headline “U.S. Consulting Firm Is the Latest Target of a Chinese Crackdown” is an example of a news headline ranking.

A News Carousel appears as some News Boxes that are next to each other on the SERP and can be moved with a swipe to the left. A News Carousel Ranking shows some articles on a topic.

A News Carousel Ranking can be mostly found on the mobile SERPs.

What’s exciting to watch is the change in share over the years: In 2020, most News Box rankings were News Box carousel rankings, with a total of 75 percent. March 2020 showed the most News Box carousel rankings among the News Box rankings (78 percent) and the fewest in November (71.6 percent). It was similar in 2020 by the News Box headline rankings: Overall, they accounted for a share of 24.1 percent. News Box text rankings had a average of 0.9 percent, but in April the share of News Box text rankings increased to the highest amount of 1 percent of all News Box Rankings in 2020.

From 2022 onwards, the share of News Box Headline Rankings increased to such an extent that there was virtually only this News Box Ranking type left on the Desktop SERP.

In 2021, the share of News Box carousel rankings increased again to 76.8 percent, with May, June, October and November even exceeding 90 percent. In contrast, the share of News Box headline rankings in the total News Box rankings decreased slightly to 22.5 percent, while the share of News Box text rankings remained almost stable at 0.7 percent.

For the year 2022, the picture has suddenly changed: As early as December 2021, the share of News Box carousel rankings dropped to 12 percent, while the number of News Box headline rankings rose to 87.4 percent. This is also reflected in the rest of 2022, where on average 98.5 percent of all News Box rankings were News Box headline rankings. In contrast, News Box carousel rankings accounted for only 0.9 percent and News Box text rankings for 0.6 percent.

It appears that Google made certain changes around that time, having shifted the focus on the desktop SERP more towards News Box headline rankings.

Trend of the News Box ranking types on the mobile SERP 

The most News Box rankings were on the mobile SERP in May 2022.

A different picture emerges on the mobile SERP. Here, the number of News Box rankings also increased, but not as strongly as on the desktop SERP. In 2020, there were over 92 million News Box rankings (92,719,403), in 2021 there were already nearly 105 million News Box rankings (104,212,376) and in 2022 the number rose to over 120 million News Box rankings (120,525,067).

On the mobile SERP, news box carousel rankings accounted for the most news box rankings in 2022.

The ranking type with the largest share here is the News Box carousel ranking with a share of 52.8 percent in 2020. Unlike on the desktop SERP, the share of News Box text rankings accounts for 26.9 percent in 2020 and the share of News Box headline rankings was at 20.3 percent. This changed in 2021: The share of News Box carousel rankings increased over the year from 59.4 percent in January to 95 percent in October. On average, News Box Carousel Rankings accounted for 86.3 percent of News Box Rankings in 2021. In contrast, the share of News Box headline rankings fell to 12.1 percent and the share of News Box text rankings also fell to 1.6 percent. January 2021 in particular appears to have been a turning point here.

Also, this development becomes even more pronounced in 2022, when the average share of News Box carousel rankings is at 96.2 percent, while the share of News Box headline rankings is at only 3.6 percent and that of News Box text rankings at 0.2 percent. The share of News Box carousel rankings was particularly high from April to June. There, the share was at 97 percent.

Furthermore, this development also implies changes at Google in January 2021 and the focus is now more on News Box carousel rankings on the mobile SERP.

Keywords with multiple News Boxes

It is also possible that several News Boxes for one keyword are displayed on one SERP. This was the case for 2022 in the various countries. A few examples on the most recent keyword with six News Boxes at one time are “Putin” in Germany and UK, “police” in Australia, “raptors” in Canada, “Biden” in US, “Alberto Fernández” in Argentina, “Pelé” in Columbia, “futbol” in spain, “amlo” in Mexico and “Emmanuel Macron” in France.

Conclusion

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