News-Gazette Brand Score: 85/100 - Strong Brand tier

Your Source for Local News

News-Gazette (news-gazette.com) scores 85 out of 100 on Brand Analyzer, placing it in the Strong Brand tier among Media & Entertainment brands, Marketing & Advertising brands, in the 88th percentile of 25819 Media & Entertainment brands.

AI Snapshot

The News-Gazette is a newspaper based in Champaign, Illinois, serving the Champaign-Urbana and East Central Illinois region. Founded in 1919, it provides local news, sports coverage, and advertising services. The publication positions itself as the primary source for community journalism and local advertising in its service area, targeting residents, local businesses, and community members seeking regional news and marketing opportunities.

Key facts about News-Gazette
Brand NameNews-Gazette
Domainnews-gazette.com
IndustryMedia & Entertainment, Marketing & Advertising
Founded1919
HeadquartersChampaign, Illinois
Main CompetitorsChicago Tribune (86/100), The Pantagraph (86/100), Herald & Review (86/100), Daily Illini (81/100), WCIA, WAND (82/100)

Evidence

Moz Domain Authority 71/100 vs category average 52 / leader 100 - a strong backlink profile, so AI systems frequently encounter mentions of the brand.

Ranked #61,066 on the Tranco list of most-visited sites - strong traffic reinforces the brand's prominence to AI models.

News-Gazette has a dedicated Wikipedia entity - a top-weighted signal AI models rely on to identify and describe the brand.

The homepage meta description reads "The News-Gazette is your source for news and advertising in East Central Illinois. Based in Champaign Illinois, the News-Gazette brings you the best local news and sports coverage …" (Meta description: 30 words (ideal length). OG description present and descriptive) - this is the summary AI engines are most likely to quote.

Structured data on the homepage: 3 JSON-LD block(s), Organization schema, Breadcrumb/Website schema, + Microdata, og:title, og:description, og:image, og:type, Twitter cards, canonical. Adding FAQ schema would further help AI crawlers parse the brand's identity.

AI-crawler access: robots.txt mentions GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot - all allowed - robots.txt controls whether engines like GPTBot and ClaudeBot can read the site at all.

Social footprint: verified profiles on LinkedIn, Instagram, GitHub; no detected presence on Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube - consistent profiles reinforce the brand's identity across the web.

0 Reddit mentions - community discussion signals real-world reputation to AI models.

Does AI know News-Gazette?

Live results from asking a general-purpose AI assistant about the brand, checked October 2026.

When asked "What is News-Gazette?", Claude could identify the brand as of October 2026. The News-Gazette is a daily newspaper based in Champaign, Illinois, covering local news, sports, and community events for the Champaign-Urbana area and surrounding counties in east-central Illinois. Best known for Being the primary local newspaper for Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, including extensive coverage of University of Illinois sports and campus news.

When asked "Best brands similar to News-Gazette?", Claude would recommend News-Gazette as of October 2026. It's a well-established regional newspaper worth mentioning for anyone asking about local Illinois media or Champaign-Urbana news sources specifically.

People Also Ask About News-Gazette

Common questions people ask in Google, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI search engines.

Who are News-Gazette's main competitors?

News-Gazette's main competitors in Media & Entertainment: Chicago Tribune (86/100), The Pantagraph (86/100), Herald & Review (86/100), Daily Illini (81/100), WAND (82/100).

Sources: Brand Analyzer scan

What products or services does News-Gazette offer?

The News-Gazette offers local news coverage, sports reporting, and advertising services targeted at the Champaign and East Central Illinois market.

Sources: News-Gazette official site

What is News-Gazette?

The News-Gazette is a newspaper published in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, founded in 1919. It serves as a local news and advertising source for the East Central Illinois region.

Sources: News-Gazette official site

When was News-Gazette founded?

News-Gazette was founded in 1919. News-Gazette operates in the Media & Entertainment category. It is analyzed by Brand Analyzer across seven brand dimensions and AI-search visibility.

Sources: Wikidata

What does News-Gazette do?

The News-Gazette delivers local news and sports coverage and provides advertising services to residents and businesses in Champaign and the surrounding East Central Illinois area.

Sources: News-Gazette official site

Does ChatGPT recommend News-Gazette?

News-Gazette scores 58/100 on Brand Analyzer's AI recommendation signal, indicating it is reasonably likely to be surfaced when AI assistants like ChatGPT suggest Media & Entertainment options. Recommendation depends on crawlability, structured data, and category authority; a Wikipedia presence helps.

Sources: News-Gazette official site

How can News-Gazette improve its AI discoverability?

News-Gazette can improve AI discoverability by strengthening structured data (Organization and FAQ schema), maintaining an accurate Wikipedia/Wikidata entity, earning authoritative citations, and keeping content crawlable for AI bots. Brand Analyzer measures these as visibility, trust, and recommendation signals.

Sources: News-Gazette official site

Who uses News-Gazette?

The News-Gazette is used by residents, local businesses, and community members in Champaign and the East Central Illinois region who seek local news, sports updates, and advertising opportunities.

Sources: News-Gazette official site

What is News-Gazette known for?

The News-Gazette is known for providing local news and sports coverage specific to the Champaign-Urbana and East Central Illinois community, and for being a long-standing publication dating back to 1919.

Sources: News-Gazette official site

Recommendations

AI visibility

News-Gazette scores 64/100 for AI visibility - how well ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews can discover, identify and cite the brand.

News-Gazette has a moderate AI-visibility profile at 64/100 - a proxy for how readily ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews can recognise and cite it. Its strongest area is trust (68/100) and its weakest is recommendation likelihood (58/100). It benefits from a recognised Wikipedia company entity, a Wikidata knowledge-graph entry and a global traffic rank of #61,066 (Tranco). The main gaps holding it back: no llms.txt to steer AI to its best pages. In a live check, Claude could already identify News-Gazette from memory (October 2026) - a sign these signals are paying off.

Visibility - 65/100

Trust - 68/100

Recommendation likelihood - 58/100

Score breakdown - 7 dimensions

The score combines seven dimensions - name quality, digital presence, visual identity, messaging clarity, trust foundation, AI discoverability, and brand authority - into a single objective benchmark.

Peer brands

Ranked closest to News-Gazette: News24 (85/100), New Music USA (85/100), NEXO (85/100), Nexsan (85/100).

A step up - brands to learn from: Yuga Labs (91/100), Yr (91/100).

Category leader: Change.org (97/100).

Brand Analyzer is built by DataEase AI. Track your brand in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.

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