Every so often I hear from a person with a weblog who has asked to be included in Google News, was turned down, and is not happy about it. I understand this must be difficult for Google, how do they decide? Some of their choices are puzzling. And it seems to matter what CMS is used. If it's weblog software, it can't be included, if they use a more expensive CMS, they can? If it's one person writing, they can't; if there's more than one they can?

Here's what they say when rejecting a site for inclusion in Google News: "Thank you for your email. We have reviewed [url] but can not include it in Google News at this time. We currently do not include news-related blogs. If there is a non-blog news site associated with this movement, we would be happy to review it. We appreciate you taking the time to contact us and will log your site for consideration should our constraints change."

# Posted by Dave Winer on 10/28/03; 7:20:25 AM - --