Last week, the Google News Blog posted a few comments about how Google News editorializes and ranks articles, in an effort "to share some of the facts, and debunk the myths." Perhaps this can also help newspapers to better understand how their content, and rivals' content, makes it to Google News.

- Having an image next to your article improves your ranking: Myth

- Updating an article after posting it will create problems with Google News: True
Since the Google News crawler only visits each article URL once, this can be problematic for many news websites that now regularly post updates on published stories.

- Timing the publication of your article improves your article ranking: Myth
Google News' algorithms are designed to avoid duplication of content and promote original sources, so it doesn't help newspapers to post the same story after another source.

- Articles that are just images or video won't be included: True
Good to know, as many newspapers and blogs increasingly publish photo galleries or pure-video stories.

- Redesigning my site may affect my coverage in Google News: True
Since Google News relies on automated crawlers, a well-crafted website redesign can affect Google News' retrieval of a website's information.

- If I put AdSense on my site, my article rankings (on Google News) will improve: Myth
Google News has some sense of 'editorial independence': using Google's AdSense service doesn't affect Google News' rankings.

For more detailed information, click below.

Source: Google News Blog