Google News to host agency stories

Google has signed agreements with four news agencies allowing the search giant full access to their articles and photos to publish on Google News, rather than linking to the content as is currently the case.

Associated Press, The Press Association, Canadian Presse and Agence France-Presse have all agreed to license news feeds to Google.

Some commentators have expressed concerns that the move could have a significant impact on web publications that get a lot of traffic from Google News.

But Google claimed that the new feature will not change the look of Google News nor affect the ranking of stories on its pages.

"The flip side is that there will be more room on Google News for more of their original content, which will be pushed higher up the results," wrote Josh Cohen, business product manager for Google News, on an official blog.

Google did not reveal any financial details about the agreements, and the Google pages displaying the articles are not yet carrying any advertisements.

The Google News developers also recently added a 'comments' feature allowing those people or companies that were participants in a story to post full and unedited comments.