Here in the United States, we’ve been enjoying the local news section in Google News for a while now. Last year, Google launched this feature allowing people all over the country to see news pertaining to their local city aggregated in its own section on Google News just like the World, National, Business, Entertainment, etc. categories.
On Friday Google launched the feature for Google News users in the UK, India, and Canada. To use it, find the local section on the front page and enter your city, state, or postal code in the local search bar:
If you can’t find it, you can click “personalize this page” on the top right of the page and then click “Add a local section.”
“We analyze every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located,” explains Hicham Alaoui on the Google News Blog. “The top stories for a given area will be at the top of your results, and our rankings also take into account a publication’s location to promote local sources for each story.”The feature is great for getting local news in a feed reader too.
Local News through Google might be of particular interest those living in towns with struggling or dying newspapers. Publishers of those papers are going to want to make sure their online versions are included in Google’s results. No word on when the feature will become available for more countries.
