Stories from the BBC website are most likely to be displayed in news results in Google.co.uk search results, ahead of The Guardian and the Daily Mail, according to new research from search and social analytics leader, Searchmetrics.
News results are links to the latest news stories, displayed in addition to organic search results and automatically returned by Google in response to certain keyword searches. Searchmetrics analysed search results for several million keywords during April 2013 to create a list of the top ten sites that appear in Google.co.uk news results.
Top ten sites which appear in news results on Google.co.uk
1. bbc.co.uk, 33,384
2. guardian.co.uk, 30,691
3. dailymail.co.uk, 19,315
4. telegraph.co.uk, 19,211
5. huffingtonpost.com, 12,790
6. yahoo.com, 11,347
7. indiatimes.com, 10,764
8. independent.co.uk , 9,863
9. wsj.com, 7,543
10. reuters.com, 7,037
(Figures are the total number of appearances in news results based on an analysis of search results for several million keywords during April 2013)
Getting into Google‘s news results represents an opportunity for sites that produce news content to improve their search engine visibility and traffic. And a separate US study by Searchmetrics found that the number of news results that Google is showing grew by 70% during 2012.
The study also indicated that news results are being drawn from a much wider range of sources, with a 15% increase during 2012 in the number of different news sources, including news sites, blogs and other publications.
Sites have to apply and be vetted by Google before they can be accepted into its Google News channel and have the chance of appearing in news results.
Marcus Tober, CTO of Searchmetrics explained: “News results now appear routinely in search results and because they often incorporate related thumbnail images that help them stand out on the page, they have higher click-through rates (CTRs), delivering valuable traffic to news sites and publishers and help appeal to advertisers.
“While it isn’t surprising that the BBC, with its wide range of content should top our study, our data indicates that there are increasing opportunities for smaller sites to appear in news results as Google is now showing more content from a wider range of sources. Getting into news results is even more valuable for publishers because they always appear on the first page and are positioned near the top.”
Tober explained that while some people might be surprised to see sites from other countries displayed in Searchmetrics’ list of top sites for UK news results, this is quite normal: “Search is truly global, with sites such as IndiaTimes.com increasingly visible in UK results. And the Guardian, while it is primarily known as a UK site, also appears in the top ten in a recent study we carried out on US Google.com searches.”
News results (also called news integrations) are part of the broader Universal Search integrations including video, images, maps and shopping integrations which Google also presents within search results pages.
About the Study
To create the list of the Top ten sites which appear in news results on Google.co.uk Searchmetrics analysed the search results for several million keywords during April 2013 and analysed the sites which appeared in news results most frequently.
The data from the study is highlighted in a Searchmetrics infographic and the Searchmetrics White Paper based on its Universal Search study can be found here.