YouTube Starts Rolling Out New Website Design, Dark Mode

YouTube has started to invite its users to preview a new design of its website, which includes a dark mode suitable for nighttime viewing.

The design is also more closely aligned to the look and feel of YouTube’s mobile apps, with YouTube product manager Brian Marquardt promising more consistency across platforms in an announcement blog post.

“Starting today, we’re opening up a preview of the new design to a small group of people from all around the world so we can get feedback,” Marquardt wrote Tuesday. “While we hope you’ll love what we’ve been working on, we’re also really excited to involve the YouTube community so we can make the site even better before sharing it more broadly.”

Users interested in the preview could briefly sign up for it on a special web page Tuesday, but YouTube quickly closed the sign-up after reaching an undisclosed threshold. The Google-owned video site promised to invite additional users in the coming weeks, and plans to eventually make the new look available to all users.

In addition to a night mode, which replaces the white website background with a black theme that’s less jarring when used in low-light situations, the new YouTube also uses a somewhat cleaner design. Two separate menus are being merged into one, and individual menu items are spaced more generously, giving the whole site a lighter look and feel.

But one of the biggest changes may be under the hood: YouTube now uses Polymer, a new scripting technology that’s meant to simplify web development. The result could be that YouTube might be able to change up its site more easily in the future.
refer from-variety

15 well-tried ways for Increasing Organic Traffic in 2017

Many business owners understand both the benefits of SEO and the sheer potential for transforming organic visitors into long-term paying customers. But the issue isn't so much realizing that there is a benefit as much as it is finding strategies that work.

Instead of providing you with hypothetical ways that can contribute to the increase in your site's organic traffic, I asked 17 SEO experts for their proven strategies that have led to their own businesses' growth.

1. Connect with influencers

Finding and building relationships with influencers in your niche can have incredible advantages.

Jason Quey, a growth hacker who is known for his ability to connect with influencers and share their growth stories, says: "I build relationships with influential bloggers in my niche and find ways to authentically feature them. When I've done this in the past, I've managed to quickly build over 40 high-quality backlinks in very little time."

But Jason isn't the only one using this technique. Daniel Knowlton, an experienced digital marketer, says: "I create a list of the top influencers on a specific topic and then reach out to them via email and on social. My Content Marketing 2016: Top 100 Influencers post gets more organic traffic than any other page on our website due to influencer shares."

Benjamin Beck uses a similar method as well: "I've found that the best way to increase organic traffic is to get links from the influencers in the niche I am working in. One of my favorite ways to break the ice and build a relationship with these influencers is by creating a badge and post that features them as the experts they are.

"Who doesn't like getting recognition?

"I let each influencer have a badge so they can show it off on their site which builds links back to my site. Even if they don't use the badge I now have a relationship with the influencer and can find several ways to work together. Which will help my organic traffic even more!"

The added benefit of including influencers in your content is that you build an ongoing relationship with them and can continue working together in the future.

2. Use Facebook groups

There are hundreds (if not thousands) of marketing-related groups on Facebook, and a vast majority of these groups are open to anyone interested in joining.

Danavir Sarria of Copy Monk uses Facebook groups to interact with other marketers. He says: "If you become friends with group owners, deliver content, and become part of the community, Facebook groups become an amazing source of organic traffic. Plus, because of the nature of the group, word spreads fast. So you may get a lot of benefits besides traffic, such as general awareness, influence, and you may even be followed by other influencers in your market."

Some Facebook groups you might join are The Content Marketing Lounge, Women in Content Marketing, Digital Marketing Questions, and MarketingProfs.

3. Prioritize keywords

Having a strong keyword strategy is vital, not only to increase your traffic but also to increase traffic that converts. Identifying which keywords to rank for is a strategy in and of itself.

Shanelle Mullin of ConversionXL says: "My 'quick strategy' for boosting organic traffic is to play the long game. It's the only way to win in the long-term.

"Find the most impactful keyword, find the content that's already ranking well for that keyword, write something that's better than everything else out there, promote it far and wide (cold outreach, warm outreach, outreach to those mentioned, etc.), and then reach out to everyone who is linking to those lesser pieces of content to tell them about your extraordinary piece of content.

"Repeat that process for an entire list of prioritized keywords."

That method is a scalable process for increasing your organic traffic long-term.

4. Create noteworthy content

What exactly is "noteworthy content"? Well, Ashley Faulkes of Mad Lemmings says: "To boost my organic traffic I create noteworthy content that gets influencers' and webmasters' or gatekeepers' attention. That means creating the best piece of content on a given topic and then using outreach to get links—in roundups, specific posts, guest post placements, or any other way I can. You can see a recent example of this with a post I did on creating the best SEO content."

Ashley's strategy also has the beneficial side effect of getting a lot of social shares!

5. Track your competitors

If your competitors are already ranking for all of the same keywords you're trying to target, and they are getting tons of organic traffic, clearly they are doing something right.

Ajay Paghdal, the owner of a search engine optimization company, says: "I develop a premium piece of content blueprinted from a previously successful competitor post and target 500+ bloggers who would find it linkable with a compelling offer."

It's important to offer those you are outreaching to, something of value. Otherwise, why would they help you out?

6. Use affiliate marketing

An affiliate marketing strategy includes benefits for both parties. Wilson Hung of Kettle and Fire, a grass-fed-beef bone broth vendor, says: "If you have an affiliate marketing strategy, leverage your existing affiliates' relationships to build links to your pages by contributing high-quality content to them. Aim for just a couple link placements; one will be the affiliate link, and the other will be a link to the page you're aiming to rank for.

"It's a win/win because affiliates get content as well as affiliate commissions, and you become a regular contributor. It's much easier than sending cold guest post pitches."

Finding a mutually advantageous transaction can lead to better results at a much faster pace.

7. Use data and metrics

Sounds straightforward, right? But some marketers fail to remember the advantages of good old data and metrics. Casey Armstrong of Bigcommerce, says: "Stop neglecting Google Search Console and dig into query data for top-performing URLs."

What he means by that is to start tapping into your Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools to find what content on your site is performing well and converting well. Chances are, if one blog post is already convincing people to buy your product, you should focus on optimizing that post.

8. Mention other businesses

People love hearing that someone mentioned them in a blog post or article. Reaching out to companies to let them know you gave them a shout-out could result in some additional social shares.

James Scherer of Wishpond says: "An element of creating content which generates organic traffic is mentioning your favorite tools and thought-leaders and then informing them of the mention.

"For instance, I could quote Jason Miller (Manager of Content at LinkedIn)...

"'Adding influencers to your content initiatives in the form of quotes, callouts, and short interviews help validate your own good content while helping to promote the influencers in your industry. It's a win-win-win—for you, the influencers, and, ultimately, your audience.'

"And then I email Jason, or Tweet him, or DM if I don't have his email address, and let him know of his inclusion. Best-case scenario, Jason sees the value of the rest of my article, appreciates the mention, and shares my content with his own network. Worst case, I've improved the value of my article and validated this answer with a quote from someone who readers trust and respect."

You're probably already mentioning and linking to plenty of relevant resources in your own content. The only step you're missing is telling those mentioned that they were included in your post.

9. Use visual content

There is immense potential for gaining an increase in revenue with infographic design, video production, and SlideShare presentations.

Ross Simmonds, entrepreneur and speaker, says: "I repurpose visual content such as SlideShare decks and infographics into content assets placed in guest blog posts that include links back to key resources and articles."

You can also use the "guest-o-graphic" approach and create visuals for different influencers. There are plenty of graphic design tools that can make this process not only easier but also faster.

10. Tag people in your tweets

It may seem simple, but it's not often done: tagging people in tweets.

Shayla Price, an experienced digital marketer says: "When tweeting content, I tag relevant people to encourage them to click the link."

Simply find people who have tweeted similar content in the past using a tool like Buzzsumo, and tag them in your tweets.

11. Take advantage of high-DA sites

Guest posting or content collaborations are a great way to build quality links on sites that have high domain authority (DA).

Jonathan Dane of Klient Boost says: "Before having any domain authority, I would piggyback off well established blogs and use my focus keywords that I'd want to rank for, but on their blog. This helps me eventually own multiple articles around the same topic so I can be on the first page of Google."

You can google which sites accept guest contributions and pitch them ideas that you think their audiences will like. Many sites have a contributions form that you need to fill out.

12. Target keywords one at a time

To target just one main word, you can follow the advice of Ty Magnin of App Cues: "We focus on one short-tail keyword at a time that relates to our product. We develop content around that short-tail keyword, backing ourselves into a central 'hub post' that we promote via internal links, promotion, and guest posting to rank on our short-tail keyword."

Short-tail keywords help you rank for one specific word. This can eventually help you rank for longer phrases or concepts that include that keyword, thus staying top of mind for your customers.

13. Update existing content

If you have existing content that was published years ago, chances are there has been new research about the concepts you wrote about.

Adam Connell says: "I update and improve old blog posts that have lost rankings for keywords that used to drive traffic. Then I add a note to the post that it's been updated and re-promote it like I would a new post."

Republishing content is a good way to get new subscribers to see that content. Content relaunches have been known to provide quick bursts of organic traffic.

14. Identify already-ranking content

If you use a tool like Moz to track your keywords, look at which content is ranking within the first three pages but not necessarily in the top search results. Jacob MacMillen says: "The quickest way to boost organic traffic is to identify content on your site that is already ranking within Google's first three pages for relevant keywords, and then further expand and optimize that content around those keywords."

15. Get social shares

Many people believe that social shares are a vanity metric that doesn't impact your organic traffic, but Nadav Dakner of Inbound Junction thinks differently: "While the jury may still be out on the hard-and-fast connection between social engagement and organic ranking, the correlation in my work is clear: The more popular an article is on social, the more organic traffic it receives. This may be an indication that Google does indeed pay attention to 'social signals,' or it may simply be that the more attention an article on social gets the more likely it is to earn backlinks.

"The other connection that social media engagement provides is a lower overall bounce rate. These things have a direct impact on how search engines rank a webpage. Either way, investing in promotion on social media (both through paid avenues as well as through influencer friendships) is a must."

These 15 strategies are not the only possible methods that work for increasing your organic traffic, but they have been proven time and time again. Increasing your organic traffic should be a long-term plan. If you want strong results that last, it takes consistency and effort. Consider these strategies the first step toward finding those results.

refer from-marketingprofs

Key process that Small-Business homeowners will Use Technology to save lots of Time and cash

When you’re a small-business owner, you frequently don’t have an over sized team around you to delegate to once you need to liberate time to figure on your venture instead of in it. you furthermore may might not have several spare funds accessible to pay to source work to contractors or businesses. fortunately although, technological enhancements and innovations have meant that a lot of long (and usually boring) jobs will currently be controlled a lot of quickly and affordably than ever.

If you would like to grow your business and provides yourself some longer faraway from the workplace over the approaching months, browse on for a few key ways in which you'll utilize technology to contour your work tasks and improve performance.

Finance

There area unit many ways you'll save time by victimisation technology within the space of finance. as an example, there's no have to be compelled to manually produce invoices for your shoppers during this day and age, since there area unit currently lots of accounting programs, apps, and merchandiser process systems that may mechanically compile and send a bill once a group action or order has been created.

Payments, too, may be simply efficient currently. If you sell merchandise or services on-line, you'd be crazy to not utilize digital payment process services to simply accept debit and mastercard payments over the web. These services may handle transactions created victimisation PayPal, digital wallets, gift cards, loyalty points, and also the like.

For businesses commerce offline, there are lots of technological tools which may be utilised. As Associate in Nursing example, you may like better to discovered ACH process for straightforward bulk transactions, permit payment via direct checks for faster funds transfers, or build it straightforward for your shoppers to pay over the phone or on-line.

Mobile payments via smartphones are fast to line up and very cheap, and area unit the right selection once you need to be ready to settle for payments once outside the workplace, at conferences, tradeshows, consumer homes or workspaces, pop-up retailers, and so on.

If you’re like several different entrepreneurs, you most likely hate having to pay a lot of time collating your business expenses each month or quarter. If so, it’s time {to build|to form|to create} use of Associate in Nursing app that may make your life abundant easier during this regard. Expensify, as an example, could be a extremely popular application that works on each iOS and golem operative systems.

The program links up to your credit Associate in Nursingd open-end credit accounts in order that it will mechanically send details of transactions created on card to an expense report. moreover, payments created by money may be simply factored in, by taking a photograph of the receipt along with your smartphone, then syncing this image to the app. Expensify can then enter the relevant information from the image and send the main points to your expense report.

Keep in mind, too, that heap|plenty|lots} of accounting package is additionally designed to avoid wasting business house owners an entire lot of your time and energy recently. With programs like Xero and lots of others, you'll adjust your checking account to the package in order that transactions area unit mechanically foreign. As well, you'll discovered codes for normal transactions (both funds returning in and going out), in order that you don’t ought to manually apportion them to a budget anytime.


Human Resources

When it involves human resources functions you’re conjointly lined in several instances by technology. for instance, once you have to be compelled to rent new workers, instead of disbursal time sorting through all the task applications you receive yourself to seek out a order of candidates, you'll use accomplishment package. Such programs area unit designed to seek out the highest individuals out of a gaggle supported criteria you input, like qualifications, location, keywords, and coaching.


To save you time on workers management, engagement, and retention, you'll conjointly address prime school tools. There area unit several apps recently, as an example, that area unit designed to contour common, revenant time unit tasks like payroll and coverage, shift scheduling; the administration of worker benefits; and also the following of workers attending, vacation accumulation, and also the like. You’ll conjointly realize package you'll use to gift and manage workers coaching on-line, that is especially useful once you have staff placed worldwide.

Customer Service

Customer service is another space that may be created way more productive due to technology. particularly, it pays to contemplate implementing self-service client support package in order that your shoppers will complete tasks and realize answers to their queries by themselves at any time (something that a lot of and a lot of shoppers area unit returning to expect nowadays).

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology could be a prime example here. IVR is concerned once customers act with a ADPS victimization their phone or different communication device. They merely have to be compelled to follow machine-controlled laptop prompts and directions.

Install Associate in Nursing IVR system and shoppers will decision up and be directed to the proper person, learn their account balance, build a payment, or establish the solution to varied varieties of queries, all without having to talk with a corporation representative. This frees up extended time for your team members as a result.

Google ‘Solve for India’ campaign to help developers from emerging cities

Google announced a new “Solve for India” initiative that aims to expand and energise the start-up ecosystem in tier II cities across the country. The campaign will mentor and inspire upcoming entrepreneurs and startups in emerging cities like Pune, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kochi, Indore, Nagpur, Nashik, Madurai, Kanpur and Chennai.

“There is a growing number of entrepreneurs in smaller Indian cities who are focusing on building solutions that caters to the real needs of India. Through this initiative we want to bring the best of Google under one program and join forces with them to help create solutions that serves the needs of a billion Indians,” said Karthik Padmanabhan, Program Manager Lead for Google India, in a statement.

Entrepreneurs will get an opportunity to learn directly from Google engineers, who will share product usage insights, how to develop mobile first solutions with strong offline and language capabilities and help them to build solutions across areas like agriculture technology, healthcare, transportation, education and sanitation.

Developers, entrepreneurs in tier 2 cities will also get access to direct mentoring and support from Google. Entrepreneurs will get an opportunity to learn directly from Google engineers under this initiative. Google also cities examples of some apps from upcoming cities, which are trying to solve user problems in India.

There’s a Hello English app, by Jaipur based developer Nishant Patni, which has helped over 95 lakh Indians learn English. Then there’s “kuzhandai nalam” or “child health” app from Chennai’s Natarajan Raman, who is an Android developer. The app lets parents learn about children’s health issues in regional languages and has crossed over 50,000 downloads.

According to Google, its Launchpad mentoring program which will help developers to “build, scale and accelerate early stage product ideas into category leaders.”

This Launchpad program provides six month mentorship and helps apps build, scale, develop market strategies. Google will also look at $50,000 equity free investments for startups part of this program. Those that want to build scalable solutions can also get $20,000 worth of Google cloud credits, to access and use its Cloud services.
Refer from ieTechnology

Hackers Exploited Word Flaw for Months While Microsoft Investigated

To understand why it is so difficult to defend computers from even moderately capable hackers, consider the case of the security flaw officially known as CVE-2017-0199.

The bug was unusually dangerous but of a common genre: it was in Microsoft software, could allow a hacker to seize control of a personal computer with little trace, and was fixed April 11 in Microsoft's regular monthly security update.

But it had travelled a rocky, nine-month journey from discovery to resolution, which cyber-security experts say is an unusually long time.

Google's security researchers, for example, give vendors just 90 days' warning before publishing flaws they find. Microsoft declined to say how long it usually takes to patch a flaw.

While Microsoft investigated, hackers found the flaw and manipulated the software to spy on unknown Russian speakers, possibly in Ukraine.

And a group of thieves used it to bolster their efforts to steal from millions of online bank accounts in Australia and other countries.

Those conclusions and other details emerged from interviews with researchers at cyber-security firms who studied the events and analysed versions of the attack code.

Microsoft confirmed the sequence of events.

The tale began last July, when Ryan Hanson, a 2010 Idaho State University graduate and consultant at boutique security firm Optiv Inc in Boise, found a weakness in the way that Microsoft Word processes documents from another format. That allowed him to insert a link to a malicious programme that would take control of a computer.

Combining flaws
Hanson spent some months combining his find with other flaws to make it more deadly, he said on Twitter. Then in October he told Microsoft. The company often pays a modest bounty of a few thousands dollars for the identification of security risks.

Soon after that point six months ago, Microsoft could have fixed the problem, the company acknowledged. But it was not that simple. A quick change in the settings on Word by customers would do the trick, but if Microsoft notified customers about the bug and the recommended changes, it would also be telling hackers about how to break in.

Alternatively, Microsoft could have created a patch that would be distributed as part of its monthly software updates. But the company did not patch immediately and instead dug deeper. It was not aware that anyone was using Hanson's method, and it wanted to be sure it had a comprehensive solution.

"We performed an investigation to identify other potentially similar methods and ensure that our fix addresses [sic] more than just the issue reported," Microsoft said through a spokesman, who answered emailed questions on the condition of anonymity. "This was a complex investigation."

Hanson declined interview requests.

The saga shows that Microsoft's progress on security issues, as well as that of the software industry as a whole, remains uneven in an era when the stakes are growing dramatically.

The United States has accused Russia of hacking political party emails to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, a charge Russia denies, while shadowy hacker groups opposed to the US government have been publishing hacking tools used by the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency.

Attacks begin
It is unclear how the unknown hackers initially found Hanson's bug. It could have been through simultaneous discovery, a leak in the patching process, or even hacking against Optiv or Microsoft.

In January, as Microsoft worked on a solution, the attacks began.

The first known victims were sent emails enticing them to click on a link to documents in Russian about military issues in Russia and areas held by Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, researchers said. Their computers were then infected with eavesdropping software made by Gamma Group, a private company that sells to agencies of many governments.

The best guess of cyber-security experts is that one of Gamma's customers was trying to get inside the computers of soldiers or political figures in Ukraine or Russia; either of those countries, or any of their neighbours or allies, could have been responsible. Such government espionage is routine.

The initial attacks were carefully aimed at a small number of targets and so stayed below the radar. But in March, security researchers at FireEye Inc noticed that a notorious piece of financial hacking software known as Latenbot was being distributed using the same Microsoft bug.


FireEye probed further, found the earlier Russian-language attacks, and warned Microsoft. The company, which confirmed it was first warned of active attacks in March, got on track for an April 11 patch.

Then, what counts as disaster in the world of bug-fixers struck. Another security firm, McAfee, saw some attacks using the Microsoft Word flaw on April 6.

After what it described as "quick but in-depth research," it established that the flaw had not been patched, contacted Microsoft, and then blogged about its discovery on April 7.

The blog post contained enough detail that other hackers could mimic the attacks.

Other software security professionals were aghast that McAfee did not wait, as Optiv and FireEye were doing, until the patch came out.

McAfee Vice President Vincent Weafer blamed "a glitch in our communications with our partner Microsoft" for the timing. He did not elaborate.

By April 9, a programme to exploit the flaw was on sale on underground markets for criminal hackers, said FireEye researcher John Hultquist.

The next day, attacks were mainstream. Someone used it to send documents booby-trapped with Dridex banking-fraud software to millions of computers in Australia.

Finally, on the Tuesday, about six months after hearing from Hanson, Microsoft made the patch available. As always, some computer owners are lagging behind and have not installed it.

Ben-Gurion University employees in Israel were hacked, after the patch, by attackers linked to Iran who took over their email accounts and sent infected documents to their contacts at technology companies and medical professionals, said Michael Gorelik, vice president of cyber security firm Morphisec.

When Microsoft patched, it thanked Hanson, a FireEye researcher and its own staff.

A six-month delay is bad but not unheard of, said Marten Mickos, chief executive of HackerOne, which coordinates patching efforts between researchers and vendors.

"Normal fixing times are a matter of weeks," Mickos said.

Privately-held Optiv said through a spokeswoman that it usually gives vendors 45 days to make fixes before publishing research when appropriate, and that it "materially followed" that practice in this case.

Optiv is now comparing the details of what Hanson told Microsoft with what the spies and criminals used in the wild, trying to find out if the researcher's work was partly responsible for the worldwide hacking spree, the spokeswoman said.

The spree included one or more people who created a hacking tool for what FireEye's Hultquist said is probably a national government - and then appearing to double-dip by also selling it to a criminal group.

If the patching took time, others who learned of the flaw moved quickly.

On the final weekend before the patch, the criminals could have sold it along to the Dridex hackers, or the original makers could have cashed in a third time, Hultquist said, effectively staging a last clearance sale before it lost peak effectiveness.

It is unclear how many people were ultimately infected or how much money was stolen.
refer from gadgets 360

85% enterprises will adopt Windows 10 by 2017 end

Nearly 85 per cent of enterprises are expected to adopt the Windows 10 operating system by the end of this year, market research firm Gartner predicted on Tuesday. According to the survey that involved six countries including India, most of the organisations are recognising the need to migrate to Windows 10.

“Large businesses are either already engaged in Windows 10 upgrades or have delayed upgrading until 2018. This likely reflects the transition of legacy applications to Windows 10 or replacing those legacy applications before Windows 10 migration takes place,” said Ranjit Atwal, Research Director at Gartner, in a statement.

Forty nine per cent of respondents said that the security improvements in Windows 10 drove them for the migration, while 38 per cent of the respondents said that it was cloud integration capabilities that prompted them to adopt this OS.

However, budgetary approval is not straightforward because Windows 10 is not perceived as an immediate business-critical project. “It is not surprising that one in four respondents expect issues with budgeting,” said Atwal.
The survey further noted that respondents’ intention to purchase convertible notebooks increased as organisations shifted from the testing and pilot phases into the buying and deployment phases.
Reffers from financial express

Google targets ‘fake news,’ offensive search suggestions in search

Google is making changes to its search in order to fight fake news, and offensive suggestions in auto-complete. Google has sprinkled some new ingredients into its search engine in an effort to prevent bogus information and offensive suggestions from souring its results.

The changes have been in the works for four months, but Google hadn’t publicly discussed most of them until now. The announcement in a blog post Tuesday reflects Google’s confidence in a new screening system designed to reduce the chances that its influential search engine will highlight untrue stories about people and events, a phenomenon commonly referred to as “fake news.”
“It’s not a problem that is going to go all the way to zero, but we now think we can stay a step ahead of things,” said Ben Gomes, Google’s vice president of engineering for search.

CORRECTING AUTOCOMPLETE

Besides taking steps to block fake news from appearing in its search results, Google also has reprogrammed a popular feature that automatically tries to predict what a person is looking for as a search request as being typed. The tool, called “autocomplete,” has been overhauled to omit derogatory suggestions, such as “are women evil,” or recommendations that promote violence.

Google also adding a feedback option that will enable users to complain about objectionable autocomplete suggestions so a human can review the wording.

Facebook, where fake news stories and other hoaxes have widely circulated on its social network, also has been trying to stem the tide of misleading information by working with The Associated Press and other news organizations to review suspect stories and set the record straight when warranted. Facebook also has provided its nearly 2 billion users ways to identify posts believed to contain false information, something that Google is now allowing users of its search engine to do for some of the news snippets featured in its results.

WHY GOOGLE CARES

Google began attacking fake news in late December after several embarrassing examples of misleading information appeared near the top of its search engine. Among other things, Google’s search engine pointed to a website that incorrectly reported then President-elect Donald Trump had won the popular vote in the US election , that President Barack Obama was planning a coup and that the Holocaust never occurred during World War II.

Only about 0.25 percent of Google’s search results were being polluted with falsehoods, Gomes said. But that was still enough to threaten the integrity of a search engine that processes billions of search requests per day largely because it is widely regarded as the internet’s most authoritative source of information.
“They have a lot riding on this, reputation wise,” said Lucy Dalglish, who has been tracking the flow of false information as dean of the University of Maryland’s journalism department. “If your whole business model is based turning up the best search results, but those results turn up stuff that is total crap, where does that get you?”

To address the problem, Google began revising the closely guarded algorithms that generate its search with the help of 10,000 people who rate the quality and reliability of the recommendations during tests. Google also rewrote its 140-page book of rating guidelines that help the quality-control evaluators make their assessments.

GOOGLE AS REFEREE
Fighting fake news can be tricky because in some cases what is viewed as being blatantly misleading by one person might be interpreted as being mostly true by another. If Google, Facebook or other companies trying to block false information err in their judgment calls, they risk being accused of censorship or playing favorites.

But doing nothing to combat fake news would probably have caused even bigger headaches.

If too much misleading information appears in Google’s search results, the damage could go beyond harm to its reputation for reliability. It could also spook risk-averse advertisers, who don’t want their brands tied to content that can’t be trusted, said Larry Chiagouris, a marketing professor at Pace University in New York.


“Fake news is careening out of control in some people’s eyes, so advertisers are getting very skittish about it,” Chiagouris said. “Anything Google can do to show it is trying to put a lid on it and prevent it from getting out of hand, it will be seen as a good thing.”

Although it also sells ads on its other services and independently owned websites, Google still makes most of its money from the marketing links posted alongside its search results. Google says its new approach isn’t meant to placate advertisers.
Refers from ie Technology