How the Reich Wing articles are listed first on Google News

[Woodstock]

Michnews, PHX News, NewsMax, Human Events, American Daily, Chron Watch, Iconofan, Town Hall - not exactly respected icons of news reporting, eh? Then why are they on the first page when you click on Google News' Howard Dean or Wesley Clark links?

I conclude the reason is that they mention the Democratic candidate's full names in the title of their articles, often first.

For instance, as the amateur reich wing site titles:

Howard Dean is a Commie
or
Wesley Clark is a Commie

Whereas the legitimate news site's titles would be:

Ex-Sen. Bradley Backs Dean's Campaign
or
Clark Offers Plan to Overhaul Tax System

In the latter case, Google has to dig deeper to find their full name, and thus considers these less relevant, when in fact, they are just as relevant (and certainly more factual.)

"By relevance" is the Google News default - and the articles with their full names go to the top. But when you click on "Sort by date" you get the legitimate news articles, which mostly only have the candidate's last name in the headline, if at all (even though most of the article is about them.)

So Google is out of touch with the way major news operations name their articles. Thus you get so much trash when you click on their "In the News" news links.

Try it now:
http://news.google.com/

For Dean -
Look at the "In the News" links
Click on Howard Dean and the majority of articles are from the bogus reich wing sites named above
Then Click on "Sort by Date"
Now the majority of the articles are from legitimate news sites - but most do not have his full name in the title

Try the same for Clark (he's not in the bullseye as much since he's not percieved as the frontrunner, but the above pattern still holds - and he'll get the full treatment if he emerges as frontrunner)

So if you have a blog or news site, and want to promote your candidate, my conclusion is, try using their full name in the title of each post/article. Any thoughts?

[DemDogs]

1. Head of Google is a Dem (n/t)

[Woodstock]

3. I didn't suggest a conspiracy, just incompetency

in this respect.

I like Google as a search engine, but as a news engine, I don't use them anymore because of this. I got tired of wading through articles not only trashing Dem candidates, but with sleazy titles that make me want to take a shower after reading them. I use Yahoo for news now.

[Duder]

2. That makes sense

Good point.

[LuminousX]

4. Linkage plays a role, I believe

Right wingers link more often to right wing crap stories in their blogs, etc. which makes Google think those stories are more relevant.

[Woodstock]

5. So PHX News gets top billing over the NY Times?

These fringe sites are getting top billing - undisputed prominence - over ABC News, CBS News, Washington Post, New York Times, etc. in the most popular search engine. Hell, these fringe sites are even getting top billing over the Weekly Standard. I can't believe it's all due to "linkage" - for one thing, the title pattern observed above can't be a coincidence. For Google to re-examine what is "relevant news" or to leave that link out altogether - or make "by date" the default - would be an improvement. These sites getting top billing are NOT respected or popular sites of the right wing (with the exception of NewsMax, perhaps, and that's like the National Enquirer of the right.) I'd imagine the NY Times is one of the most linked-to sites on the web, and certainly gets more hits than PHX News. Yet it's tough to find a Howard Dean article from the NY Times when using Google's "by relevance" link, yet old articles weeks old from PHX News are on the front page near the top. These are fringe sites - many of which have only recently emerged, I submit for this very purpose. If anyone has any other tips, please post them here. Google is much too popular to cede to the right wing.

[FreakinDJ]

6. Trym searching "Gogglebot"

You should find some explanations and techniques they use to fool the GoggleBot search into linking their sites

[Woodstock]

7. techniques the NY Times doesn't use?

please read my post above