News sites, 5 insights to gain visibility on Google News
The owners of news sites (or, better to say, sites “with” news) still have difficulty approaching the way Google manages and shows their content on its products: for this reason, a new official blog article of the company answers five questions frequently asked by publishers to clarify how news are displayed on Google News and Google Search.
The visibility of news on Google platforms
Google wants to “help everyone understand the world by connecting people with relevant and authoritative news from a variety of trusted publishers“, writes Danny Sullivan, public liaison for Google Search, who explains where the news is displayed in Google, how a site becomes eligible to appear in Google News, how to know if the site is displayed in the news, how to improve the visibility of the site and other insights useful for those who work in the industry.
Specifically, the article addresses and answers 5 common questions on news content:
- Where do the news appear on Google?
- Is my site suitable to appear in these places?
- How do I know if my site is being viewed?
- Is there anything I can do to improve my visibility?
- Is there anything I can do to improve my visibility?
Where news appear on Google
News content can be viewed on different Google products, especially Search and Google News, but also Google Assistant, Youtube and Discover. And exactly on Google News and on the News platforms within Google Search focuses Sullivan’s article, “because most of the publishers’ questions relate to these products“.
Characteristics of Google News
Google News – which includes the Google News apps for iOS and Android and the showcase accessible from news.google.com – includes a diverse set of features that help people find links to the latest news, as well as the possibility to follow specific topics and news sources.
For example, the For you feed contains news based on the user’s personal interests (thanks to the browsing history), while the Headlines section within the app shows “fresh and noteworthy news for all users in a given region”. People can also search within Google News to find links to content.
News in Google Search
Even the classic Google Search system can show links to news content among web results, and also contains two specific surfaces for news.
The Top Stories carousel is often displayed at the top of the search results to highlight relevant news when people “seek information on a timely topic, “such as a recent sporting encounter or the latest scientific discovery”.
Clicking on the News tab in Search instead helps people to narrow down search results to focus on those related to news, which can help provide a broader context than a topical topic.
How to know if the site is eligible to appear among these places
Until two years ago, Google had a different policy for the inclusion in Google News, because publishers had to fill out a request form and then wait for an evaluation of their profile (which could also lead to a rejection).
Since 2019, Google has launched the new Google News Publishing Center and discontinued the application procedure to appear in Google News, and so now the inclusion is fully automated, without human intervention: In practice, publishers now do not have to submit any request and Google can “automatically consider” whether a site should be viewed in Google News and news platforms in the Search.
According to Sullivan, the choice to abandon the application procedure to appear in these news products “has allowed us to identify more suitable news content throughout the Web, even from sites perhaps overlooked in the past, because they did not know they had to apply for access”. More specifically, “since we withdrew our application process almost two years ago, the current automated system has allowed thousands of new publishers, from national brands to emerging local publications, to receive visitors from Google News and news platforms in Search”.
Yet, this new situation has created some confusion, because publishers often do not know whether their site is suitable or not, and in the international SEO community there are often complaints about the new automated Google inclusion process, that many people even call a failure (and could be the reason behind the publication of today’s post).
Content criteria to appear among news in Google
Sullivan reiterates that a site “is automatically taken into account for Google News and news platforms in the Search, no application is required“.
The important thing is to “produce relevant content”, and in particular follow these directions to enter Google News – which add up to others and more general advice and best practices to succeed on Google News:
- Have high levels of competenceexpertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (the well-known EAT paradigm).
- Have a consistent history in producing original news content.
- Comply with Google’s rules on news.
The article points out that these guidelines “apply only to Google News, Top News and the News Search tab” and “do not apply or affect the ability to be viewed in web results in Google Search”.
How to know if the site is being viewed
Even the system to know if contents are displayed in News is rather criticized: the owners of the sites, in fact, can rely only on performance reports in Search Console, while the classic survey with the advanced search operator site: may be used on Google News or in the News tab to see if pages are indexed, but does not give certainty that such pages are suitable to be displayed for news searches.
And so, Sullivan suggests examining performance reports in Search Console for Google News and Google Search, filtering them according to the type of News search: such reports indicate whether the site receives traffic from Google News and news platforms within Google Search, and “if so, you know that your content is suitable and relevant to be viewed”.
How to improve site visibility
There is nothing we can do manually to ensure (or request) inclusion in Google News: hence, the site is automatically taken into account for this product and the news platforms in the Search, and when Google systems “identify the content suitable for display, their ranking is automatically determined by a number of factors, including the relevance of the content, importance, authority, topicality, location and language”, as we already said in a previous guide to content optimization for different Google products for news.
Then there is another possibility, that is to use the Editors Center to define certain details on the site (RSS feeds, Urls of websites, videos and more) that can help manage the brand and make it easier for Google to index the site. In addition, the Editors Center can also be used to create a News Source page for publications, if we don’t already have one: this page allows Google News users who wish to follow the publication and see its latest content.
The article further reiterates that the Google News Publishing Center can help us manage the content deemed suitable, but will not determine the suitability of our content, which follows an automated process.
On the contrary, if we do NOT want for the content to appear in Google News, we can block access to it in regular methods – robots.txt files, meta tag instructions or HTTP header specifications – without compromising normal indexing and positioning in Google Search, by setting guidelines for Googlebot-News.
Why the site is not eligible, despite following Google’s advice
Although we follow all the indications, advice and best practices of Google, there is still the possibility that the pages of the site are not suitable for the presence in these products news.
In this regard, Google first of all stresses the importance of regularly producing original news content, with a high level of expertise, authority and reliability. Search engine systems “work regularly and will automatically detect if a site has grown to better meet the criteria”.
However, Sullivan concludes, “no system is perfect and we are always looking for ways to improve our automated system.
