Information gain
The amount of genuinely new information a document adds beyond what the user has already seen in other results for the same query.
AlgorithmsOriginal reporting
Original content system
Google's system for surfacing original reporting and source content more prominently than the derivative coverage that follows it.
In full
Listed among Google's ranking systems, it aims to keep the outlet that broke a story visible for longer even as aggregators and follow-ups accumulate links. Google's quality rater guidelines were updated to reflect original reporting as a page quality consideration. It is one of the few systems explicitly designed to reward the higher cost of producing primary material.
Example
An investigative piece continues to rank above the dozens of syndicated write-ups that cite it days later.
Related terms
Content syndication
Republishing the same content on third-party sites for reach; without correct canonicalisation it creates duplicates that can outrank the…
Freshness systems (QDF)
Google's systems that boost recent content for queries where recency matters, such as breaking news, sports scores or evolving topics.
Google ranking systems
Google's documented list of the systems that generate rankings, distinguished from one-off 'updates' to those systems, and including…
Top stories
A carousel of recent news articles on the SERP, drawn from sites Google's news systems consider eligible, weighted heavily toward…