• Google updated its search algorithms to elevate ‘original reporting’ in its search results.
• It has asked its raters to assess the search result's quality, give highest possible grade to original news reporting, and check publication’s history.
• Google said that very high-quality news content should be accurate and meet ‘professional journalistic standards’.

In order to make it search algorithms better and more original, Google is now making a change that will enable the company’s search algorithms to focus more on ‘original reporting’.

Yesterday tech behemoth Google announced a new update to its search algorithms, saying that it will now try to emphasize more on ‘original reporting’, which it will also ‘elevate’ in its search results – a move that will make it easy for people to find the origins of a news story.

“While we typically show the latest and most comprehensive version of a story in news results, we’ve made changes to our products globally to highlight articles that we identify as significant original reporting,” wrote Google. “Such articles may stay in a highly visible position longer. This prominence allows users to view the original reporting while also looking at more recent articles alongside it.”

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For this move, Google updated its guidelines for its over 10,000 raters who assess the search result’s quality. The rater will now be asked to give the highest possible grade to news reporting that ‘provides information that would not otherwise have been known had the article not revealed it.’

Google further wrote, “Often very high-quality news content will include a description of primary sources and other original reporting referenced during the content creation process. Very high-quality news content must be accurate and should meet professional journalistic standards.”

The tech firm has also asked its raters to keep in mind the publisher’s overall reputation for original reporting. They are asked to consider a publication’s history of ‘high-quality original reporting’ or if it has won any journalism awards.

“Giving everyone better access to original journalism across all types of stories—ranging from movies, sports, music and celebrity scoops to the serious journalism behind #MeToo, the Panama Papers and the opioid crisis—is all about helping people stay informed about the news that matters to them.”