Google News ‘Promoting Local Sources’

Google News says its latest search innovation will benefit local providers.

The firm is experimenting with a new local search option on the US version of Google News, which is designed to increase diversity of sources.

Users type in a zip code or name of a city and Google brings up a local section for that area with news from “thousands of sources”.

“We’re not simply looking at the byline or the source, but instead we analyse every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located,” states the Google News Blog.

“Our article rankings will also take into account a publication’s location so we can promote all the local sources for each story.”

Google says it hopes to rollout the option to other editions of its news search in the future.