Google ranks top 25 U.S. newspapers

Forget circulation numbers — Google PageRank is the real metric of
online credibility. The search giant ranked the top 25 most authoritative U.S.
newspapers.

The New York Times gets a class of its own, with a 9/10 rating. Following at its heels is The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, NY Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Fransisco Chronicle and StarTribune, which all earned 8/10.

Tying with a 7/10 authority ranking is The Dallas Morning News, The Chicago Sun-Times, Detroit Free Press, Houston Chronicle, The Arizona Republic, The Oregonian, The Star-Ledger, The San Diego Union-Tribune and Newsday.

The Seattle Times, The St. Petersburg Times and The Plain Dealer received 6/10 ratings, while The New York Post, The Oakland Tribune and The San Jose Mercury News earned 5/10. The Denver Post and Contra Costa Times come in at 4/10.

Jeremy Porter, writing for the blog Journalistics, writes:

“When comparing newspaper to newspaper, PageRank seems like a good
measure of a newspaper’s authority. Once you get outside of an apples to
apples comparison – or in this case, newspaper to newspaper – it gets
harder to determine influence or authority. Take popular blogs like The
Huffington Post or TechCrunch for example. Both blogs have a Google
PageRank of 8/10 – do those blogs have the same authority as The Wall Street Journal or USA Today? As far as Google is concerned they do.”