There are several threads at the Google News Help Forums with reports that Google News has updated their home page.
I personally do not see the new home page, and I can't track down a picture of it. If you see one, please post a comment with a link to a picture. Here is the best description of the new layout that I can find:
The format of news.google.com inexplicably changed on one of my PCs, and I don't like it. The version that I don't like focuses on only one category of news at a time, such as Top Stories. In order to get any news in other categories such as World, U.S., Sports, etc., you have to click on that category. The only other categories shown on this page are "Recent," "Spotlight," and "More News." I prefer the old format. I know that it's still available because when I load Google News on two other PCs, this old, familiar format appears. Here's a description of it: At the top left of the page is Top Stories with 3 headlines. Directly to the right of Top Stories are six or eight links to some of the top headlines from Google News; usually about nine links to names in the news; and lastly, links to Living Stories. Also appearing in the old format (underneath Top Stories) are the following categories with usually about three headlines per category: World, U.S., Business, Sci/Tech, Entertainment, Sports, Health, and Spotlight. At the bottom of the page is Google Fast Flip. In the old format, if you want to view more than the three top headlines highlighted in a given news category, all you have to do is click on the category name, and you are taken to another page with more news stories for that category. Can someone please tell me how to return to the old format? There must be some way of resetting or formatting the web page because, as I mentioned, I'm still able to use the old format on two other PCs.
I will keep looking for a picture, but Google basically confirmed the test is happening. Inbal from Google said:
At Google, we run anywhere from 50 to 200 experiments at any given time on our websites all over the world. Right now, we are running a small test of a new Google News homepage design. More information about how Google runs experiments can be found at:http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/search-experiments-large-and-small.html
We'd love to hear your feedback. Please let us know what you think at:
http://www.google.com/support/news/bin/request.py?contact_type=report_news&source=redesign
Regards,
The Google News Team
Forum discussion at Google News Help Forums.
Update: A week later I was able to secure a picture of this, to see it, click here.
