Back in September 2011, Google News introduced the standout tag, a way for publishers to say these specific stories are really exceptional and Google News readers should really see it.
But did you know that it isn't only reserved to be used for your own stories and that Google encourages you to use it to point to third-party stories that are better than yours?
The Google News help article explains this and explains the standout tag as:
If your news organization breaks a big story, or publishes an extraordinary work of journalism, you can indicate this by using the standout tag. When determining whether to use this tag for your own article, consider whether that article meets the following criteria:
- Your article is an original source for the story.
- Your organization invested significant resources in reporting or producing the article.
- The article deserves special recognition.
- You haven't used standout on your own articles more than seven times in the past calendar week.
- The publisher's article was the original source for the story you are now reporting.
- The original source invested significant resources in reporting or producing the article.
- You know that the original article deserves special recognition.
Also, in the hangout from the other week with Stacie Chan of the Google News team, Stacie answered the question:
Is it necessary to occasionally use 3rd party standouts in order for your own standouts to carry any weight?
The answer:
Oh, great question. Yes.The standout tag is built on the ecosystem of publishers using the standout tag.
In a sense, you can build up credibility by using the standout tag and referring to XYZ.com rather then always referring to your site, ABC.com.
The only thing we ask is that you use the standout tag in your own site only seven times per week.
But really, you can link out to as many other third-party sites with the standout tag as frequently as you’d like. In fact, we encourage it.
So it seems the more you score well using it on third-party sites, maybe the more Google trusts you when you use it on your own site?
Here is the video that starts at 49:38:
Forum discussion at Google+.
