Google Improves Personalized Mobile Search by Updating its News Feed
Updated 7.19.2021
Underneath the mobile search bar, a stream of news cards specific to personal interests will be displayed.
Personalized Google news is taking a new step forward as the company rolls out its redesigned Google News Feed, which is initially prepared for Android and iOS. It allows mobile users to personalize their stream of news articles, videos, Google Maps, and other rich content in its mobile search app for Android and iOS. This update is in line with the Search Giant’s dedication to providing relevance in both more traditional and voice search results. Notice the above results for “health care reform”. Mobile advertisers will want to be here. Notice how the one feed shows want it costs for health from different providers
No Query Required for “Discover” to Give Information
Where news appears in Google, which sites are eligible to appear in Google News, and how to know if your site is showing in news.
On Sept 24, 2018, Google announced the rebrand of its well-known Feed — a source of news that is consumer-focused and referral traffic for providers like relying on — has a new name “Discover.” This coincides with the redesign being rolled out. It lets users enjoy more granular control on topics and multi-language support for multiple forms of content. The biggest difference that you will see is the new “Discover” is no the Google homepage on mobile.
Its intuitive responses represent the work of Artificial Intelligence. It’s vital that you’re regularly producing original news content and are high in expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness qualities. The Tech Giant’s systems run regularly and automatically detect if a site has improved to better meet the criteria to be included.
How the Google Feed Works
Machine learning algorithms pull data from the wide Google network to best assess user preferences in anticipation of user inclinations as it populates the Google News Feed. The data may be derived from search habits, calendar entries on smartphones, to places visited using Google Maps, or documents stored on your Google Drive.
Most of the Google News features have been around for a while, Internet users have been more familiar with them as Google Now rich cards. However, “Google Now”, as formerly branded, is going away. These updates have been moved to a secondary tab appropriately named “updates.” Because people are so visual, gaining more relevant clicks through enhanced search results boosts revenue streams.
A Move to Sell Targeted Mobile Ads by Leveraging User Interests
Internet users continue the quest for more convenient answers services that produce immediate and relevant information for on-the-go consumption. To offer such results, Google is harvesting data on all available facets of your life in order to turn-up pertinent and current answers for searchers. It is now obtainable in a vast scrolling list of imagery, text, and hyperlinks.
This feed service aggregates and synthesizes user identified interests, and is constantly gleaning new insights from your behavior to ensure that it is offering you the most wanted and enticing information. Owned and matched by one of the giant data-rich companies on planet earth, Google is quick to lead in a burgeoning and sophisticated data-harvesting process that is designed to efficiently and effectively target mobile advertising.
Reading content Google provides has a high number of individual usage statistics. Headlines not only come from Google Sites but news articles properly prepared with schema markup and optimized for mobile consumption. A new sort that is easy for the Google App to understand makes its feed a destination for browsing in addition to search. Knowing and leveraging the popularity of Facebook and Twitter App consumption will empower Google to take a great share of usage among individuals who start by using an App. Businesses are urged to ardently focus their search marketing strategies to take full advantage of the Google Mobile-First Indexing.
How do I know if my site is appearing in Google News?
Google tells us, “It’s best to look at the performance reports on Search Console for Google News and Google Search (filtered to the News search type) in Search Console. These reports indicate if your site is receiving traffic from Google News and news surfaces within Google Search. If so, you know that your content is eligible and relevant to appear. For more information about how to track performance, learn how to Measure the impact of Google News.”
Both beginner and advanced Google Search Console Reports are available. It is now easier to understand what content is showing up and where in Google Search. Non-publisher sites are also winning news coverage.
Google Drive bans the Distribution of Misleading Content
If you’ve heard this and are worried, be assured that it’s not about private files, it’s about distributing content. Google reported scans private files when you share them publicly. You can store all the pirated movies you want on your Google Drive, and even give private access to specific individuals. However, when you make them publicly viewable Google does scan them and limits access accordingly to that filter.
The two main new categories that are related to democracy and health are higher scrutinized. Each individual’s privacy and legal protections ultimately depend on a democratic foundation. Misinformation is a threat to that foundation and merits Googe’s truth and fact filters.
Edit the Order of Your Feed Shortcuts
Google Play Newsstand is now GoogleNews
Google continues to seek improvements for this key feature. As with the Google Knowledge Graph, more options are in going through a try-and-see process, different results are displayed to various users and from different devices. Therefore, patience is a requirement, as at times we are unable to swipe cards neatly away to remove them from the screen. Updates seem to prefer to stick with a translucent appearance and the three-tab interface in the full feed app.
A new introduction to the user experience in both views includes the added shortcuts at the top of the feed. Four of them come up by default: current weather, Eat and Drink, Translate, and Solitaire (for game connoisseurs). No worries if you want to find it and it isn’t immediately listed, just scroll to view more shortcut options or click the arrow as it reveals the full list.
Updates to Google News:
- Google Play Newsstand and Google News and Weather are now combined into a single experience.
- Includes your saved topics of interest and existing magazine and news subscriptions on the ‘Favorites’ tab. You do not need to follow or subscribe to them again.
- You will now see a ‘Headlines’ tab that shows you an un-personalized display of the top news stories of the day.
Gaining Quick and Relevant Suggestions in Your News Feed
As many individuals habitually check their phones throughout the day for quick suggestions of interesting news and information. Drawing cues from the company’s demo on July 16, 2017, it demonstrated how this works via current top trends in news: the Tour de France, a top classical musician, and popular Oakland Athletics. This will be different in personal test results, as, by nature, it leverages Google datasets stored in search history for each person. So, for example, a past search for a favorite pop star, or Olympic athlete, or national event will switch up SERP results.
Searching Google for updates on personal interests is intended to be easier. Facebook News has had a lead in this area for those who use its news app. Typically new feeds favor fresh content. Now, Google may become the strongest provider of being able to incorporate a searcher’s older search history as well as long-tail keywords found in articles on the web when surfacing the most relevant results.
Busiences using mobile devices may love this; it may mean missing the most relevant results less often and gaining them the first time around. Business should begin, if not already doing so, to enhance their site for mobile consumption by adding Accelerated Mobile Page and fix any product markup errors to avoid a possible Google manual action.
News Feed Updates Strive to Protect Users from Fake News
Today, Casey Newton of The Verge reports that Google’s Ben Gomes stated that “a whole bunch of changes” to prevent false news from spreading in the feed has been implemented.
It relies on the underpinnings of search algorithms behind Google’s featured snippets, which have worked to reward sites using Fact Check Schema to avoid promoting false news information. Predictive search often is used to display local weather, traffic, favorite team scores, recent bookings, and other information as well as news sites. As internet use evolves, so does the need for trusted content. Your personal Google Assistant works to provide personalized answers.
Google wants to empower their real client, the user, and grant more choices. To offer information from varied viewpoints, news stories may have multiple takes from a variety of sources, in addition to more related information and articles. Fact check what you read, conduct marketing research, and gain a more holistic way to identify credible sources for the topics in your feed.
In a July 19, 2017 article titled Feed your need to know, it seems clear that people who favor the Google search engine will have more fine-tuned search feed results. “It’s hard to find one place to stay in the know about exactly what matters to you. Today that’s changing. The more you use Google, the better your feed will be.”, states Shashi Thakur, Google’s VP of Engineering.
How do I Set-up Your Google News Feed?
Mobile users can quickly customize the feed by:
1. Tap on the three dots that are located at the top of each card.
2. Opt to follow a subject or share the article on additional social networks.
3. Now select “done with this story”.
Currently No Video Content in Google Feed
This feed remains largely text-based, incorporating video content less than one may have guessed. If YouTube cards are present in results, video content fails to play within Google’s news feed at this time. Clicking on such a video card sends the user out to the app or to a mobile web application where the video content works.
We urge small business seeking to reaching new customers with the means that are currently available.
Some call this the age of truth age, meaning a time where businesses have to work harder than ever to be attributed as a truthful source of information. It is no longer practical to say want ever you want on your site. What users want to read (and publishers write for) and subscribe to, now commands SEO’s and copy writer’s attention. It is called agile marketing and involves continued adaption to survive and thrive.
Realizing that millions of more people are taking the reigns as to what they want to see in their search results, it merits paying attention to create interesting web content that they work well on mobile.
Experimenting with your Google App
For users already familiar with Google’s app, or individuals who have experimented with Google Now, the new “feeds” will look much the same. Upon accessing the app, viewers will have a visual display of an infinitely scrolling list of topics and news items that it thinks you may find yourself entranced in – based on your previous browsing and search history.
It is possible to indicate to Google the news topics you are most interested, whether vital healthcare-related information or well-known individuals you prefer to follow. Coming up, you can expect to then see related content populating your feed. Also, settings permit a way to show what type of articles you don’t want to see in the content displayed. There is presently no means to follow individual publishers, but that may change.
A simple tap of the new Follow button at the top of the results will gain more similar news in the feed. It is common to assume that people you know well like learning more about topics they commonly bring up in conversation. Google works the same way. You can tell Google when you’re done reading someone’s tweets because you have reached a level of overload. Or that you want to skip stories from the Columbia Journalism Review and like reading from the Boston Tribune. Think of the new feeds as your personal recommendations list for anytime you surf the web.
“At this time (9.28.2017), it appears that you can now add home screen icons for the Eat and Drink Entertainment, and Sports sections of the Google app. When viewing any of these sections within Google, you’ll see a message either the top or bottom of your screen asking if you’d like to add a shortcut for that particular section to your home screen.” – Android Police (6)
Confidential Medical Records Censored in Google’s Personalized Search Engines
Google alerted the public of its focused effort to remove an individual’s private medical records from its search results, after adjusting its policy regarding how it organizes and uses personal data. It uses your search history to predict the best search results for you.
On its Removal Policies page, the bulleted list under “Information we may remove” was revised to address data that included “confidential, personal medical records of private people”. The logic that prompted the change is clearly stated: “We want to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible, but there are a few instances where we will remove content from Search.”
The revision was posted on Friday 23 June 2017, providing disclosure of how the company voluntarily handles private medical search results in search activity. Additional types of delicate personal information listed include national or government-issued identification numbers, bank account numbers, credit card details, and images that include signatures. For example, at times that I have taken a snapshot to record any incoming or outbound personal checks, while Google creates an album from my mobile phone uploads; these items have never been included.
Google Discover is a Personalized Mobile Search Engine
Google Discover is a form of a PMSE a personalized mobile search engine, representing a “Personalized Mobile Search Engine”. Google generates a user profile from your browsing history. Clickthrough data and location concepts can be helpful to digital marketers to understand user preferences better. Ontology-based sites typically perform better and which aids in decipher content to match a user’s search intent.
Once a user has set this up, it makes more sense when using it. The weighting of the gestures is subject to change as the technology giant improves it. It’s institutive once you swipe and get familiar with the bottom bar and multitasking. The news feed apps are meant to work with one continuous swipe (and go in either direction with no extra effort).
You can delete your google search history at any time. Just know that there is a record of it somewhere in digital space. So why is Google putting so much effort into this?
Google Wants to be a Trusted Source of Personal Data
The percentage of new search queries is expanding daily. People are turning to Google for all kinds of answers and news topics.
Google understands that the inclusion of private medical records can be extremely damaging to the use of its mobile app, so in its announcement, assurances were given. The mobile feed propagates data in the same manner that Google stated for AdWords advertising: “We understand that when employing user behavior or interest data to provide more relevant ad content it’s important to handle that information appropriately and to consider how targeting users with certain content categories impact their overall experience.”
Users are rightfully concerned after the medical records leak reported about an Indian pathology lab that uploaded over 43,000 patient records in December with personal data including names and HIV blood test results. (1) End users are ardently watching to determine the savviness of Google’s mobile personalized search engine. Should any search queries related to medical anxieties, attempts to self-diagnose, or porn surface, a halt to using Google Search is a real concern to the search giant. Creating strong user feed controls alongside its search engine filter is hugely valuable.
Google Believes their News Feed is What Users Want
By using RankRanger’s Mobile SERP Features Tool, SEO’s can quickly assess key insights on the Google News Feed Data and trending features:
AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages: 17.79% of page one SERPs include at least 1 AMP result
Organic: 2.77% of all organic results are AMP (of the SERPs with at least one AMP result, 15.41% are AMP results)
News Box: 55.61% of all News Box results are AMP
Advertising: Ads appear on 14.38% of page one SERPs
Seeing the whopping success of AMP pages commanding a presence in over 55 percent of all News Box results, many should aggressively move to AMP, if they have not done so already. Especially, B2B search marketing strategies needs to adapt over time as opportunities in online search evolve. Work with a skilled strategist to understand how Local Businesses can increase their search visibility with schema markup.
Google News for Pixel Users
Google leverages your web browsing history to provide you content that you are interested in.
A new “transparent look” in the Google News for Pixel users fixes the former issue faced by home screen Google Now integration. Having completely removing tabs and now only showing the Feed, both the Google logo and search bar are gone. It currently turns up a compacted search bar, Upcoming shortcut, and an overflow menu.
Some of the newer users now complain that is this new design creates an inability to swipe away cards from the transparent Feed. Rather, a mobile user must make a trip to the overflow menu, which can be annoying as it requires an added step. What you can count is Google’s effort to provide trusted and factual content.
Note that an additional tap is needed to view all of your cards. At this time, many Pixel and Pixel XL devices on both Nougat and the O Developer Preview are seeing this latest design. Anticipation for a rollout to the Google Now Launcher and other launchers that have home screen integration is high. To understand this better, read common questions and answers about search marketing.
Since people are relying on mobile to find quick answers more than desktop, how this functions for them matters a lot. Google seems to be settled on the new feed layout, so users must adapt to their choices. Your feed is customizable whereas quick answer cards are pulling out exact information from a trusted source. Not everyone is quick to embrace the news feed changes; here is a list of what is now missing or changed (5):
• Formerly, the mix the “upcoming” and “news” cards were presented in one big list.
• Formerly, it did a nice job of sorting important “upcoming” cards (such as calendar appointments) above other news.
• Formerly, its predictive cards were the feed’s stand-out unique feature; the new design gives priority to the “news” cards and tucks the predictive cards under a secondary screen.
• This freshly released design takes away the ability to swipe off news cards—if you want to remove an item, users must now tap on the menu.
“While Google makes no mention in the post of how it will use the data from the news feed preference, the nuggets will surely become one more signal for Google to trigger ads within its network of sites.” – Media Post (2)
How to Switch Google Feed off
Users often ask “How do I turn my Google News feed off?
For individuals who love the Google Feed and prefer to go with the typical Google App and stick to its normal search functionality, just turn it off. In iOS, you do this by tapping the profile icon at the top and go to your feed option and switch it off. If you have an Android, simply navigate to Settings, Your Feed, and Feed. It is a form of search that relies on artificial intelligence which will evolve and add new features.
Dissimilar from stories in Google Now, it also catches your interaction level with a certain topic. If you’ve added snorkeling as your interest and you end up searching about beaches more, you’ll get stories related to beaches more often; articles that relate to desserts won’t get that much push. Google Now Cards also offer significant visibility in Google SERPs.
“For nearly two decades, Google’s been the place you go when you need something. Every time you turned around, there were new somethings. But you always had to go looking. Now, with products like Google Assistant and features like the news feeds, the search engine hopes to flip the script a little. Now, Google comes to you.” – Wired (3)
“Also of note is the way Google will be using the feed to shape how people absorb the news. Instead of just tossing a news article into the feed as a standalone entity, the feed will highlight multiple news sources and fact checks that throw the veracity of information into the forefront of a user’s mind.” – TechCrunch (4)
How to Save a Specific Google News Search Results
To quickly save a search on the news.google.com site, individuals can bookmark the link to the results page by adding it to their favorites in the browser tab. An even simpler method of saving a search within Google News (on the desktop version) is to do the search, then click on the “save” button.
Summary
The number of native apps have mushroomed to a point where many have anticipated such evolutions to a Google feed. Use of these new features from Google in semantic search may be more compelling for mobile users to engage it. As with other aspects of agile marketing, we’ll be watching and responding quickly as Google improves it.
To prepare your site to better reach mobile users and get indexed faster, follow our blog and call us to gain the Benefits of a Schema Website Audit
Sources: 1. https://www.troyhunt.com/43-203-indian-patient-pathology-reports-were-left-publicly-exposed-by-health-solutions/
2. https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/304550/google-redesigns-news-feed-to-personalize-search-i.html
3. https://www.wired.com/story/googles-new-feeds-show-you-the-internet-you-want-to-see/
4. https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/19/google-feed/
5. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/googles-feed-revamp-starts-rolling-out-to-android-users/
6. https://www.androidcentral.com/google-app-now-supports-3-new-home-screen-shortcuts