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New Google searches news sites only
Monday, March 25 2002
by Sheila McDonald


The search engine Google has launched a beta version of a new Web site that will
let users search newspaper and magazine Web sites for news they need.





The front page of the new test site at  lets users browse the latest headlines in world news,
business, entertainment, technology and sports. There is also a section labelled
US news, although this appears to include general political news from the US as
well as the UK.



Users who enter single terms or phrases into the search pane will see links to
articles taken from around 100 English language publications over the past week.
Google trawls the Web sites hourly for the latest news.



As well as well known sources like the BBC, the Guardian, CNN and the Washington
Post, the site also draws news from Asian and African publications and Web-only
resources like Nando Times. The site also includes headlines from The Irish Times
breaking news section on Ireland.com. 

 

Google said it would consider suggestions for additional news sites that users
want to see included in the news search. The company also plans to update the
index of stories more frequently as the service develops.



The fledgling site uses grouping technology based on a mathematical algorithm,
which lets related stories be grouped together automatically. Multiple stories
from London newspapers about tax cuts in the UK, for example, are grouped under
the same heading. 



Google said its aim was to give users the opportunity to see how different news
sources are covering the same story, but said it is seeking feedback from users
on whether they find the grouping useful or not.



The company also stressed that the listing of headlines that appears on the news
site's front page is generated automatically, and said that no human editors were
deciding which stories are given top placement. 



Google is currently the eighth most popular Web site in the US according to
figures from Web measurement firm Nielsen/NetRatings, ahead of Ebay, Ask Jeeves
and Excite. Jupiter Media Metrix also ranks Google as the number one search site
in Europe, and says Google is posing a real challenge to the search tools at
portal Web sites. Four-year-old Google has earned strong loyalty among Internet
surfers for its speed and accuracy.



Last week the company faced down possible legal action from a Scientology group
that said Google was violating its copyright according to the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act. Google later said that while certain pages of the Xenu.net Web
site have now been removed from Google, the remainder of the site has been
restored to the search engine.