Google News Doesn't Much Care for Your 'Sponsored Content'

Google has long discouraged the inclusion of paid links and advertorials in publishers’ “news” sections. In the past they’ve done so by threatening to punish those who post and promote such content without calling it by its proper name by pushing them lower down in the Google search rankings. Certain interested parties (ahem) adapted by pitching sponsored content that is somehow “guaranteed to beat” Google’s famous PageRank algorithm (we assume these guys know some code).