Google’s new highly cited label for top stories now live

Google’s new highly cited label for top stories in the mobile US English search results are now rolling out. Google announced this feature a few weeks ago and told us it would be rolling out soon, and now it is.

What it looks like. Here is a screenshot I took last night on my iPhone (while in New York) of the label showing up in this story. I first noticed this from @JoePawl on Twitter. Notice the “highly cited” label in the top left corner of the stories image, you can click on the image to enlarge.

Highly cited label. The highly cited label will help searchers identify stories that have been frequently cited by other news organizations. Google said this will help elevate original reporting that it first spoke about in 2019 as an area Google wanted to improve on. This label will give confidence to searchers that the story is cited by many other journalists and probably offers unique and valuable information that you can rely on. Google said this helps searchers find the “most helpful or relevant information for a news story.” A Google spokesperson told us this label is building on the search company’s efforts for the fact check explorer.

How to I get the highly cited label. Google said this is based on algorithms that check which stories are the most cited, mostly through the links pointing to that story.

Why we care. A story with a “highly cited label” most likely will generate a higher click through rate than a story without the label. The Google search interface changes can directly impact your site’s traffic, so keep an eye out for how this highly cited label may impact your site’s traffic.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry’s personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.