Google News Ranking Factors 2011 Survey Is Live

A few months ago I was working on a SEO project for a big news site around testing various strategies to improve traffic from Google News and was trying to figure out a thorny issue.  I started searching Google for some genius post on the subject but found nothing.

I have done a fair amount of News SEO, but it always surprised me that their wasn’t a SEOMoz-like ranking factors survey done for Google News.  Because of the nature of Google News, fewer sites can compete for traffic there and thus I suppose fewer SEOs get enough experience working with it.

So I called up my bud Tim Ruder at Perfect Market, who has always been willing to share his insights into GN, and asked if Perfect Market would like to put together a survey with me.  24 hours later we were on the phone with Neil Pharazyn of Newsknife, along with the awesome Sheigh Crabtree from PM, and the project was a go.  With their help we got some of the top News SEOs in the world to participate.

Today I’m pleased to announce the inaugural Google News Ranking Factors Survey.   Check it out and let me know what you think.  But you can’t use anything you learn to outrank me for Justin Bieber queries.