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Getting Started: Refining your custom section

After clicking Personalize this page, you'll see a set of tools towards the top right of the page. Click Add a custom section, and you'll be taken to a page where you can define your personalized section.

Compound search in keyword field

  • Keywords: To start, you'll need to select keywords; your new section will return only articles that contain all of your keywords. You can use some of our operators to narrow your keyword:

    • Minus operator: use negative keywords for subjects about which you don't want to receive stories. For example, create a custom section about Hockey and use this operator with the keyword "ice" ("-ice") to see articles about Field Hockey.
    • OR operator: use it to do a compound search. For example, "Mars OR Space Shuttle," will give you results for either "Mars" or "Space Shuttle." (Remember that you'll need to capitalize OR when you do a compound search).
  • Stories: Choose how many groups of stories you'd like returned in your personalized section.

The custom section in the screenshot above will display three stories with either the keyword "Mars" or the keyword "Space Shuttle."

Clicking the Advanced link will display additional options that enable you to refine the results of your new section.

  • Advanced - Label: By default, we'll label your new section based on your chosen keywords. You can change your label to anything you like. In this example, you could choose "Space" to be the section label.
  • Advanced - Language: Using the Language drop-down menu, change the language of the stories that your custom section displays.

Learn more about the Google News advanced search operators.

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