Several years ago, I wrote a tutorial on how to customize Google News. It worked well until Google made some changes. Fortunately, an astute reader alerted me how my earlier steps no longer worked. The good news is I’ve reworked the instructions. As with most directions, there are multiple ways to create a custom news section on Google.

The first method provides an easy keyword form, but is not as powerful. The main benefit to this method is it shows you a directory of custom sections built by others. You can search the directory by categories such as technology or keywords.

The second method is more powerful and bypasses the directory. Instead, it allows you to restrict the news from various websites or keywords. This second method also provides date filtering.

Method 1: View Existing Custom Sections

1. Go to http://news.google.com/

2. Click the link labeled Add a section +. It should be on the right side. If you don’t see the link, try clicking Top Stories.

When you click the link, the page expands to show the Custom sections directory. Before creating a section you might want to search to see if someone else created one. You can either enter your keyword in the textbox or search by category. You can add an existing section by clicking the Add this section button.

3. If nothing appeals to you, click the button Create a custom section. A form appears where you can enter in your information.

4. Enter a Section title (1). This will be the heading that shows on your News page on the left side. If you omit this field, Google will use your keywords.

5. Enter your Search terms (2). You’ll notice as you enter your terms, preview items appear to the right.

6. You can enter in Edition and Source location information to refine your query. By default, the Edition defaults to your country’s version of Google.

7. If you wish to make your custom search public, select the checkbox to publish

8. Click Create.

Method 2: Create a custom section with Advanced News Search

Depending on your keywords, you may find that your results are off the mark. This isn’t unusual and can be fixed using some of Google’s operators. Operators are symbols that you add to the keywords to refine your search. The most common ones are:

Operator	Meaning
+	include this term
-	exclude this term
~	similar terms
|	OR

The problem is these operators don’t work as expected when you use them on the Method 1form. I found I couldn’t exclude any terms or use quotations for phrase matching. You can solve this issue by doing an Advanced news search and then saving the search as a custom section. The form doesn’t require you know operators or search syntax. A simple example is if you wanted Windows 7 news, but not articles referencing “Apple”.

1. Go to http://news.google.com/

2. At the top of the Google news page, click the link Advanced news search.

3. Enter in your search query in the Find results section. In the example below, I added the term “apple” in the without the words textbox.

4. Add any other options such as a Date filter.

5. Click the Search button.

6. Scroll to the bottom of the search results and click the link Add a custom section for [your query] to Google News. The link text will be based on your query.

Editing Your Google News Custom Section

One issue with using the Advanced news search method is the label becomes your search query. You may want to make changes to the label or search query over time.

To edit or delete your Custom Section,

1. Click the top link labeled Edit this page. If it doesn’t show, try clicking the Top Stories section on the left.

2. Click the section you wish to edit.

3. Click the Advanced link on the dialog that appears. If you wish to delete the custom section, check the Delete section box.

4. Make any changes to the Keywords or Label on the form. You can use your Home and End keys to navigate in the Keywords textbox.

5. Click Save changes.

The custom section of Google news is a great feature that can automatically gather news stories on items that interest you. The service is handy for following the news on everything from your favorites sports team to your business competitors. If you haven’t tried it yet, I’d suggest giving it a try.

Related Google Tutorials

• Easy Google Search tips
• Google News Help Center