Chapter 29. Using Google News

Sure, Google's main gig is the super search engine we all know and love (and its main source of revenue is selling ads on all those search results pages), but Google has also become one of the primary online resources for newshounds worldwide. Not that you have to search the Google index for old news stories (although you can, if you want to); no, Google does all the hard work for you with its Google News service.

Google News is a news-gathering service that identifies, assembles, and displays the latest news headlines from more than 4,500 different news organizations. Google doesn't write any of its own news stories; it has no reporters or editors on staff. Instead, it uses its search technology to search major news sites on the Web and collate the most relevant, most up-to-date news headlines on a single web page. (Google News headlines are updated every 15 minutes.) You can then click any headline to read the full news story on its originating news site.

Of course, you can also use Google's search technology to search older news articles (up to 30 days past), which lets Google News function as kind of a news archive on the Web. This feature, along with its headline-gathering home page, makes Google News a one-stop shop for anyone interested in news and information online.