A search engine service that uses computer algorithms rather than journalists to find news from web sites around the world is performing well, according to an independent study.

Google News has been given the thumbs-up by http://www.newsknife.com, which has been monitoring the service since its launch last year.

The online news magazine has been regularly checking the stories ranked highest by Google and comparing them to the top stories on leading US and UK sites.

A spokesman said: "Up to early December 2002, we ran Google News Watch 17 times, checking the top two headlines at each site during a sub-12 minute window. That's 34 possible Top 2 stories, and Newsknife reckons that Google News picked 20 of them, compared with Yahoo! News and CNN both at 25.

"Not bad! And Google says that at present Google News is a beta or test version, ie it's still learning. It might beat those human news editors yet."

Experts had questioned the value of the service, arguing that it ranks news reports simply on popularity rather than on the basis of quality. The lack of human input also means the site sometimes displays contradictory results.

The service operates via 'intelligent agents', similar to those that rank search results in order of relevance.

• CNN, BBC News and Yahoo! News have come out on top in a Newsknife survey of the best news sites of 2002. The sites were assessed on the quality of reporting. Others which ranked highly were CBS, GuardianUnlimited, and ABC News.

Sources:
http://news.google.com
http://news.google.co.uk
http://www.newsknife.com
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