Google's goal is to assemble all of the world's information and make it universally useful and accessible.
As part of a brand new high-quality data initiative, the search giant launched last Wednesday- Google is increasing the availability of native information in a makeover of its News aggregator.
Local news will be more prominent on Google after a redesign.
According to the company's blog post commemorating the 20th anniversary of its news service, the new design will include a column presenting local news by city. Either the city will be populated with tourists or people can choose which place they would like to see news from.
A question about whether the service will automatically choose a city based on the user's IP address, which the firm can frequently see, was not immediately answered by Google.
Local news searches have tripled over the last five years, culminating during the COVID-19 outbreak, according to Brad Bender, vice president of product for news.
The revamp comes as criticism of Google, Facebook, and other major internet giants for undermining local media and consuming advertising dollars is growing. Many news outlets who transferred their articles online depended on Google Search to increase traffic to their websites. Because of this, publications became partially dependent on Google, whose adjustments and justifications weren't always clear.
There is increasing legal pressure on Google and other internet firms to compensate news organizations for the stories they publish on their websites. Early this year, Australia approved legislation requiring Google and Facebook to compensate authors for the content they highlighted.
Two months later, Canada submitted laws of a similar nature, claiming that the current digital ecosystem has caused 450 media outlets to close between 2008 and 2021, creating mistrust and fueling the spread of misinformation.
In an effort to address criticisms that Google and its competitors propagate false information, the revamp. To provide readers with more insight, Google News on Desktop has extended the Fact Check section. A fact-check evaluation from unbiased groups is included in the section.
Users can now more easily customize Google News by viewing news based on particular themes like business, entertainment, and sports. It's comparable to the way Yahoo lets people arrange news for themselves.
Google claims that consumers of its Search and News products visit news websites 24 billion times per month and that it gives publishers of high-quality material priority.
