Google moves to recognise quality content with 'Featured' tag

Google has announced plans to give more weight to "standout" content in search results by introducing a new tag for publishers to include in HTML headers, in another sign of the web firm's growing desire to marginalise spam and rehashed content.

The news, which was announced over the weekend, follows the introduction of Google's much-publicised Panda algorithm, which was designed to remove content farms and duplicated content from its all-important listings.

The new content tag, introduced for Google's US edition only at present, can be placed by publishers into the HTML header of articles, explained Google in a blog post by product specialist David Smydra and products manager Justin Kosslyn.

Doing this may result in Google News adding a 'Featured' label on its homepage and News Search results, no doubt soon to be the holy grail of news sites.

"You can use the tag to point to your own content or to point to other sources with standout stories. Standout Content tags work best when news publishers recognise not just their own quality content, but the original journalistic contributions of others when your stories draw from the standout efforts of other publications," they explained.

"Linking out to other sites is well recognised as a best practice on the web, and we believe that citing others' standout content is important for earning trust as you also promote your own standout work."

But content creators take note. Google warned that using the tag more than around seven times a week may result in tags becoming "less recognised, or ignored altogether".

It's yet another curveball for publishers and journalists to deal with, therefore, but one which, if it works in the way Google hopes, will give greater weight to better, original content on the web.

Let's hope it does do this and not end up penalising certain sites which have no idea why, as some of Google's previous 'innovations' in this area have done.

26 Sep 2011