Google experiments with 'shared by' numbers on Google News stories

Google is experimenting with adding information about how news articles are shared to its search results.

A "shared by" number has started to appear beneath articles in Google News for some users.

Content strategy consultant Malcolm Coles caught a glimpse of the experiment and captured screengrabs on his blog: "I see it only on the news box on the main web search results page. If I click to see all news results, the link disappears."

Google confirmed to Journalism.co.uk that this is a small experiment and it is running on Google News in the US only, but declined to comment further on how the shared by figure is calculated.

"At Google, we run anywhere from 50 to 200 experiments at any given time on our websites all over the world," a spokeswoman said.

"Knowing how many people have shared a particular story might be interesting to Google News users, if not useful. And of course, it hints that Google might be looking to incorporate sharing as a ranking signal if it isn't already doing so already," writes Patricio Robles on Econsultancy about the experiment.

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