Google is expanding its “Fact Check” tag to search results and news articles worldwide. The tag signifies that a piece of content includes information which has been fact checked by news publishers and fact-checking organizations.
Fact Check was first introduced in October and was only made available in Google News for select countries. Now, for the first time ever, it is available in the main set of search results pages.
Qualifying content will be represented by a snippet which includes information on the claim, who made the claim, and to what degree the claim is true.
Here is an example:
Google notes this won’t be available for every search, and there may even be instances where different publishers checked the same claim and came to different conclusions.
”These fact checks are not Google’s and are presented so people can make more informed judgements. Even though differing conclusions may be presented, we think it’s still helpful for people to understand the degree of consensus around a particular claim and have clear information on which sources agree.”
Publishers must meet a strict set of criteria in order to be included in this feature. First, they must be using the Schema.org ClaimReview markup on pages where public statements have been fact checked.
Second, publishers will only be included if they are algorithmically determined to be an authoritative source of information.
Lastly, Google says
”Content must adhere to the general policies that apply to all structured data markup, the Google News Publisher criteria for fact checks, and the standards for accountability and transparency, readability or proper site representation as articulated in our Google News General Guidelines.”
Failing to meet these standards may result in Google ignoring a site’s ClaimReview markup.
