If you have a website which is regularly publishing news items, then getting indexed by Google News is a crucial source of traffic.
First of all you need to make a request to have Google News index your content, but there are other requirements. So what else is Google looking for?
Technical requirements
These technical requirements need to be met for Google to consider your site for inclusion:
- Pages that display the full text of news articles need to have unique URLs so that the Google crawler is able to index it. URLs with more than one article cannot be included on Google News.
- The URL for each article must contain a unique number consisting of at least three digits, and should not resemble a date. Aim for more than six digits to be on the safe side.
- Google News cannot index sites for which the main page URL contains a date, as these dates often change regularly so the crawler cannot identify the most recent version.
Website / content
Some of the things Google is looking for include:
-
Content on your news site needs to be original, which makes sense, though a quick search through Google News uncovers plenty of less than original content. And press releases, come to think of it.
- Your site should have more than one author, as well as a page listing them all, with bios. It's a dealbreaker if you don't do this. Articles should also include the writer's name and timestamp.
- Information about your company / organisation should be provided, in the form of 'contact us' and 'about us' pages.
-
Server response time; Google crawlers will look for pages that they can index quickly, and that will load quickly for users.
Ranking well in Google News
Once your site has been included in Google News, how can you improve your ranking / prominence in the news listings?
According to Google, many of the ranking factors that have been mentioned, such as including images in posts, are myths.
Here are a few factors that may improve ranking:
-
Post frequently; adding news articles three times or more daily will increase your chances of getting coverage on Google News.
- Google looking to filter out duplicate content so making the titles of your news articles unique will help to get it ranked. Also, a unique title is more likely to be clicked on by users of Google News.
- Get news out quickly; being the first, or one of the first, to get your news article published should ensure a prominent listing.
We also asked Guava Director Edward Cowell for his tips:
Firstly, don't edit posts once published:
"Google News only grabs a news article once. This is very important because changes to a news article once published and indexed wont then get reflected in Google News. This means publish once and don't go back and edit the title for instance, it will appear with the new title in web search, but not news search."
Also, a news-specific sitemap is recommended:
"Google news sitemaps are different to Google web search sitemaps. They only support 1,000 items per feed (as opposed to 50,000 for web search), so big sites may well need to use more the one news sitemap, and an index sitemap. They also contain <publication_date> and <keywords> tags."
Related articles:
Are social news sites like Digg 'better' than Google News?
SEO benefits of publishing news on your site
Graham Charlton is Senior Reporter at Econsultancy. Follow him on Twitter or connect via Linkedin.
Posted 23 September 2008 11:24am by Graham Charlton with 10 comments
Tags: Google, Search, Blogs and Blogging
Topics: Search Marketing - Organic/Natural (SEO), Search Marketing - Paid (PPC)
Sectors: Publishing, Media & Entertainment
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Graham Charlton
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Web Project Manager at World Archipelago
2:38PM on 23rd September 2008
Thanks for the article we are in the process of getting our site listed on google news.
I have a question when you say
"Google News cannot index sites for which the main page contains a date, as these dates often change regularly so the crawler cannot identify the most recent version."
do you mean the date that the article is published should never appear on the homepage (this is my homepage) a few of the articles have the dates that we published the article - should we take these off ?
http://www.fleetstreetinvest.co.uk/
If anyone knows please can you let me know
Thanks
Sharon
Senior Reporter at Econsultancy
3:44PM on 23rd September 2008
Hi Sharon,
I should have made that sentence clearer. It actually refers to dates in URLs, not on the main page itself. Having dates on the homepage as on yours is fine, and actually helps Google to determine how recent the news article is.
If you have a four digit number in the URL which resembles a date, that is when Google may not be able to crawl it.
See the Google News help section for more on this: http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?answer=68323&topic=11665
Web Project Manager at World Archipelago
9:16AM on 24th September 2008
Thanks Graham
2:18PM on 26th September 2008
Does anyone have any statistical evidence to show the increase in traffic that Google News has had on their site? I know very targeted news sites like Sphinn can generate serious traffic to relevant sites (Online Marketing sites with Sphinn) but as Google News is just "general news", does it still bring in the traffic for smaller sites? Or is it just the bigger news sites that benefit most?
2:03PM on 29th September 2008
"Your site should have more than one author, as well as a page listing them all, with bios. It's a dealbreaker if you don't do this."
Obviously i can see that having a list of author bios is probably a good idea from a content point of view however i've never heard of it being of any relevance to whether you appear on Google News. I have a number of sites successfully appearing on Google News and none have author bios.
I also can't find anything related to author bios on Google News help for publishers. Could you expand on why it's important to have them?
Also is it necessary to link through to their bio everytime an author publishes?
Any thoughts much appreciated!
- Ed
Editor in Chief at Econsultancy
3:00PM on 29th September 2008
Hi Ed,
I've seen this in an email from Google, so I don't know when your sites were submitted but maybe they've recently introduced multiple authors as a factor for inclusion.
I don't think every page needs to link to the author's bio, but multiple authors and a page listing them all is certainly something that can make or break your chances.
There's a bit more discussion here:
http://groups.google.com/group/news-HelpPublishers/browse_thread/thread/860853cab57aa24/18383e2e219ef6a6?lnk=gst&q=%22multiple+authors%22#18383e2e219ef6a6
Chris
5:26PM on 29th September 2008
Ok great thanks for the link. Yep, i get the multiple authors thing, i think that's always been the case. My sites have multiple authors.
It's just i don't have bios for any of them and i was just wondering whether this was a big factor in news aggregation. As far as i can tell from that Google group, the bios just help Google to be sure you do have multiple authors. Obviously when i submitted they must have just taken my word for it when i told them i had multiple authors.
No reason not to have bios though, they have a benefit outside SEO, they just don't seem to be a make or break issue. Multiple authors, yes. Bios, no.
Editor in Chief at Econsultancy
5:42PM on 29th September 2008
I pretty much agree with that Ed. I think the multiple authors thing is also about showing that you have an editing process / capabililty, as much as anything. Yet some of the world's best bloggers are essentially one man bands, and have very good writing skills.
Anyway, this is straight from the horse's mouth:
"We currently only include articles from sources that could be considered organizations, generally characterized by multiple writers and editors, availability of organizational information, and accessible contact information."
Cheers,
c.
1:06PM on 2nd November 2008
Do you also upload the educational institutions website info and news flashes on the home page. Please let me know.
thanks
George
8:04PM on 27th March 2009
i think the tip is so awsome that it really works.