If you want to get the latest news from various sources at a glance, Google News is an efficient option. Google’s excellent algorithms are responsible for article composition, and users often trust Google’s newsfeed more than the sources themselves. For your website to be recognized by Google News’ algorithms and for your site’s articles to land on the news portal, you must first submit your website to Google News. Due to the high level of competition, however, news sites and their articles have to comply with certain guidelinescommunicated by Google.
Submitting your website may well be worth it – after all, news.google.com is ranked 112th worldwide. As mentioned, many users trust news articles which appear in the Google News feed more, but even more important is the integration of the news portal into Google's search engine, by far the most visited website in the world wide web. Those who get into Google News will also improve their presence in the search engine overall, and that's exactly what leads to success on the internet. This makes it all the more important to put time and effort into submitting your website to Google News – sites which appear in the Google News results can expect to get a lot of traffic.
The IONOS guide will tell you how the news portal works, and how to register your website. This guide also offers a wealth of tips on how to optimize your website for Google News so you can increase your chances of success through Google News.
Google News automatically collects all current articles from registered news sites and sorts them by relevance. In addition, Google's algorithm combines articles on the same topic into a primary topic. This results in a list containing the most relevant headlines of the day with a main article and related articles.
On the right-hand side, you’ll see the keywords that Google currently considers relevant, under the heading In the News. Clicking on a keyword takes you to a page where news articles regarding that keyword are listed, displayed as a news feed containing the latest articles from major publications. Under that box are sections for weather forecasts, editorial recommendations, and a news panorama.
The core of Google News is the main feed in the middle. This begins with the most relevant general headlines and then lists the most important news for certain sections such as technology and sport. Further links take you to dedicated section pages, where articles are also published that have been rated as less up-to-date or urgent. So, if you find your article on the Google News main page, you've "made it", as these articles receive the most immediate exposure.
If you take a look at the news sources whose articles appear on the Google News feed, you’ll see that mainly heavyweights such as CNN, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA TODAY, NBCNews, and so on. Competing with this online reporting 'elite' is likely to be extremely difficult for newcomers. Smaller websites have higher chances of being included by the algorithm in the sections dedicated to a specific topic, i.e. health.
Another key way in which submitting your website to Google News could boost readership, is the integration of Google News into the search engine. The algorithm of Google News also plays a role here. The more relevant Google decides your news is, the higher up it will appear in the search results under the News tab. The goal should be for you to land your article as high in the results as possible. That way increased traffic is guaranteed. Under certain circumstances, your news article may even move into theresults of the normal search if the keyword searched is up to date.
Google News checks each and every site that registers. According to the guidelines, the website will then be listed or rejected within 60 days. For your website to be checked by Google, you must first register in the Publisher Center.You can then apply for your website’s inclusion in Google News search results, and wait for the evaluation from Google. Sounds very simple, but there are a few boxes to tick, and things to watch out for, so paying close attention to the Google News guidelines is essential.
Guidelines and legalities are among the core concepts of successful SEO. This is no different with Google News. In order for your content to have a chance of appearing, some preliminary work is necessary. You need to optimize your website and your articles so that Google News considers them relevant and receptive. The following points should be considered:
Once you've checked and, if necessary, implemented the above points, you can submit your website to Google News. Don't worry: even if you’re initially rejected, you can try to register again after 60 days after making some changes, and/or writing more quality content.
If you think your website is ready to be submitted to Google News, you should claim authorship for it by registering it as your property in the Google Search Console if you’ve not already done so. The website will then appear in the Publisher Center under My Websites. From here you can access, complete, and submit the Google News application form.
The registration form is very simple. In addition to the necessary metadata, Google News asks for a description of your website in a few words. Keep your description short and concise. This is not so much about advertising your site as it’s about communicating the content and topics of your site in a compact and understandable way. After all, you want to make it as easy as possible for the Google News team to consider your website a worthy news source. Text which is extensively detailed or excessively self-promoting should be avoided.
Once you have submitted your form, you’ll receive an e-mail from Google requesting a response. Take this opportunity to address the Google News guidelines. In this way, you show Google that you have related to them, taken them into account, and carried out the necessary optimizations. In your response, make sure you pay attention to the following points:
Once you have sent your reply, you’ll receive an active ticket from Google News. You’ll then have to be patient for about one to two months. During this time, it’s important that your website continues to do what you promised in the response – the regular publication of good content. Only then will you have a chance of getting into Google News. Google will contact you with either an acceptance into the Google News group, or a rejection. If you receive a rejection, you can start a new registration procedure after 60 days – just keep writing and publishing good news articles!
Google does not have to justify a rejection and is not able to support you individually. However, certain help forums for publishers on the internet may be useful. In Google's own forum, find experts who sometimes voluntarily check websites for Google News guidelines and identify possible reasons for rejection.
It’s quite common to be rejected by Google News at first. This is simply due to the enormous competition in this field, and the wealth of good news sites. As a result, the service's requirements and guidelines have become increasingly strict over the years. So, it’s important to be aware that getting into Google News means a lot of effort and possibly several attempts. But managing to submit your website to Google News successfully will mean a wider readership and ultimately higher chances of success on the web.
There are many ways to increase your chances of getting into Google News. The deciding factors are above all the quality of the articles, the state of your website, and the activity rate. Careful content structuring is important to Google News for successful SEO.
Optimize individual article headings (H1). If possible, place the main keyword at the beginning and keep the title short, concise and limited to the essentials. Topicality is also key to a successful headline.
| Good example | Bad example |
|---|---|
| Olympic Vaulting Medal in Rio: Simone Biles takes the Gold! | “Biles’ dedication to her sport pays off at the Games in Rio as she wins the Olympic Gold Medal!” |
| “FDA issues warning after dog treat recall” | “After discovering that some dog treats contained salmonella and had to be recalled, the FDA issued a warning” |
Use the headlines that land on the homepage of Google News as a guide. They are all search engine optimized. Learn from the pros, but make sure you don’t plagiarize their work!
The teaser should also be concise and contain keywords and at best should make the reader curious. It appears in the News section of Google's web search under your headline and may be the final factor in getting a reader’s clicks. Since Google News also uses this information to determine the relevance of your article, a good teaser contributes to your success on getting into Google News, and further success once you’ve been accepted.
| Good example | Bad example |
|---|---|
| Biles vaulted her way to Olympic Gold in Rio yesterday, while her team mates won further medals in the women’s gymnastics. (Many keywords in the first sentence, and the teaser promises more information) | Thanks to all the hard work she and her team have put in over the last years, Biles managed to get a medal last night, as did her teammates. (Too few keywords: Olympic, Gold and vaulting are missing, medal too late. The teaser is too wordy and not positive enough – managed to as opposed to won) |
The image for the article should reflect the topic in a concise way and have a suitable alt-text containing the news’ main keyword. Host this image on the same server as your website, use JPEG file format, and keep the file size as small as possible. You can also use a caption. This image will appear as a preview on Google News and is especially important to attract the reader's attention, and get them to click on your article, instead of others. But don't use obvious Clickbait, such as unnecessarily sexualized content or large red arrows – Google penalizes this by ignoring your article and website in their search results.
The meta description is like a hidden teaser for Google’s web crawler. Write a description of the respective article with a focus on keywords, keeping it concise. You can use your teaser as a template without using it word-for-word.
Google News' own keyword meta tag (news_keywords) should contain 5 to 10 keywords relevant to your article. Although this meta tag has become less important for SEO, it’s still a factor to consider.
The article length should be at least 80 words to be recognized by Google News as relevant content. Urgent news can be 80 words short, but for regular headlines, articles of at least 125 words are better. More detailed news starts at around 200 to 250 words.
Google News requires a separate news sitemap that includes the latest articles and collects detailed information about the type of content in your listing. This allows the web crawler to easily pick up and embed the latest content, while you can control which of your news articles you want to have processed. It’s essential that you follow Google's own guidelines for the sitemap. If you have set up a sitemap, you should also register it in Google's Search Console – but only after your website has been included in Google News.
It’s important that you keep your sitemap as up-to-date as possible. Ideally, it would contain only articles from the last 48 hours. You should also remove old articles from the sitemap, especially if your sitemap exceeds the 1.000-article limit. Make sure that the publication name (<news: publication>) is identical to the name you specified in the Publisher Center. In this way, you avoid Google News incorrectly assigning your article.
Did you know that you can submit your site to Google, Bing, and Yahoo! in order for it to be found more easily in the search results? These search engine providers allow web operators to submit their URLs so they can be added to the search index. We’ll show you how to register your web project – a simple procedure that can increase its online visibility.
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