Revamped Google News design goes live with top stories, local news and personalized articles

Google has launched the new version of Google News today on its 20th year anniversary of Google News. The new design, which we caught Google testing a month ago, brings forward Top stories, Local news and personalized picks to the forefront of the Google News home page, Google said.

Local news. You can now find a local news box at the top right of the Google News home page. It makes it easier for you to find local news from your community that matters to you. There is a new filter button to add multiple locations to your local news section, so you can find local news about communities you love but no longer currently live in. Google said this helps with local news publishers gain more exposure and traffic from Google.

Customize Google News. You can now also customize the topics that appear in Google News for you by clicking on the customize button. There you can add, remove or reorder topics with the slider feature.

Improved fact check. Google has also improved the Face Check section in Google News by providing more context, the original claim, independent organization assessments, adding the About This Result and more.

Back in Spain. 8 years after Google shut down Google News in Spain due to Spanish law, Google has finally brought back Google News in Spain. We knew this was coming and today is the day where Google News works again fully in Spain. Google said “this is a result of a new copyright law and we hope that the return of Google News to Spain helps more people and more news, from more places, and helps publishers and new readers.”

Why we care. As we said when we saw the redesign test, whenever Google releases a new design or user interface in Google Search or Google News, that can impact ones visibility and clicks to their web site. So keep these user interface tests in mind when understanding any risks or rewards you might see in the future with Google News interface changes.

For those in Spain, they can now access Google News without any restrictions.

Also, Google News officially launched on September 22, 2002, so we are not exactly at the 20 year mark but close to it.

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 can be followed on Twitter here.