Local News Systems: The Google Search’s 8th ranking signal. If you have yet to read about the previously discussed Google ranking signals, you should first read about them.
Here is the list of previous Google ranking signals/factors:
- BERT Explained: Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers
- Crisis Information Systems – CIS
- Deduplication Systems
- Exact Match Domain System
- Freshness Systems
- Helpful Content System
- Link Analysis Systems and PageRank
There was a time when people used the internet primarily to talk to strange/unknown people, to see photos, to content people far away from them, etc.
In 2023 every platform has not become international but hyper-local. The Facebook feed has not been limited to friends now. But now you can hide your photos from a number of your friends and relatives while at the same time, you can show them to specific friends/relatives. That is hyper localization of content.
Check out my Organic Facebook Marketing Strategy
On Instagram, you can change your account from public to private. On Twitter, you can create Twitter circles.
Check out my complete guide about Twitter Marketing Strategy
The point here is that the internet was created to connect people globally, but now people concentrate more on exploring/searching for things near them.
That is why Google likes to show the local news in search results and uses the Local News Systems.
What is Local News Systems Ranking Signal?
Local News Systems is trigger-based Google’s ranking signal. That increases the rank of selected news websites in selected cases/situations.
The selected news websites are the authoritative local news websites. No matter whether the websites are local news websites but have high authority in their area.
Now, we have two critical points of discussion related to Local News Systems:
- Authority
- Local news
Local news websites are those websites that cover the local news of a city or a state, or a specific area/sector/phase/zone.
What is “Authority” from Google’s point of view? To understand this, first, we’ll have to look into another term, “Hub Pages.”
The Hub page is a page that contains many other trusted website links. The websites which get backlinks from these hub pages can see an increase in the authority of their websites.
Therefore, if your website gets backlinks from multiple hub pages, then your website’s authority will automatically increase.
The Local News systems provide traffic only to these high-authority local news websites.
When does Google show Local News Pack?
Based on the following four factors, Google decides whether to show or not to show the local news for a specific search term.
- History of the person who is searching for the query.
- History of the phrase/keyword that is being searched.
- Language in which the user is searching.
- Location of the person who is searching.
If the search query is relevant to a specific location, Google shows the local news results pack for that query.
Google’s Local Intent Algorithm Explained
Google developed the local intent algorithm in 2010. In 2012 Google had patented the local intent algorithm and using it since then.
Local Intent in Local SEO
How do get benefited from the local intent algorithm?
If you have one local news website or you are working for one, you’ll have to concentrate on the methods to increase your local website’s authority.
Conclusion
To increase your rank in local news, you’ll have to earn/get backlinks from those websites (hub pages) where other authoritative local news websites are getting links. For that, you’ll have to do competitor link analysis with the help of any free or paid link analysis tool or you can do it manually as well, but that requires advance knowledge of Google Search Operators.
That is it for Local News Systems.
For reference: Here is the list of → All Most Important Google Ranking Signals for 2023.
