Google wants to help everyone understand the world by connecting people with relevant and authoritative news from a variety of trusted publishers. To do this, they have several products, including Google News, Google Search, Google Assistant, YouTube, and Discover. In this post, they focus on Google News and the News surfaces within Google Search, since most publisher questions pertain to these products.
Google News includes a diverse set of features that help people find links to the latest news, along with the ability to follow specific topics and news sources. For example, the "For you" feed contains news stories based on your interests, while the Headlines section within the app surfaces fresh, newsworthy stories for all users in a particular region. People can also search within Google News to find links to content.
Google Search can show links to news content in web results, but it also has two news-specific surfaces. The first is the "Top stories" carousel, which often appears at the top of search results to highlight relevant news stories on timely topics. The second is the "News" tab, which helps people narrow their search results to focus on news-related content.
Your site is automatically considered for inclusion in these places. You just need to produce relevant content that is identified as having high levels of expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.
Google has updated their requirements for appearing in Google News and the News tab in Search. In the past, there was an application process to appear in these news products, but this process was retired nearly two years ago when they launched Publisher Center in December 2019. This change allowed them to identify more eligible news content across the entire web, from sites that may have been overlooked in the past.
To be eligible for Google News and the News tab in Search, your site must have a consistent history of producing original news-related content, and must comply with Google's News policies.
You can track whether your site is appearing in Google News and the News tab in Search by looking at the performance reports on Search Console for Google News and Google Search (filtered to the News search type). These reports will indicate if your site is receiving traffic from Google News and if your content is appearing on news surfaces within Google Search.
According to Google, if you have a website, you are automatically considered for Google News and news surfaces in Search—no application required. Once Google's systems identify content that is eligible to appear, its ranking is determined automatically by a variety of factors, including relevance of content, prominence, authoritativeness, freshness, location, and language.
You can use the Publisher Center to define certain details about your site—RSS feeds, website URLs, videos and more—that can help manage your brand and make it easier for Google to index your site. The Publisher Center can also be used to create a "News source" page for publications, if you don't already have one. This page allows Google News users – if they choose – to follow the publication and see its latest content.
Google has a process to determine which content is eligible to appear in its news feature, and this process is automated. Just because you are approved to use the Publisher Center, submit content through it, or have a News source page, does not mean your content will automatically appear in Google News, search results, or the News tab.
If you don't want your content to appear in Google News, you can block access to it without affecting your continued indexing and ranking in Google Search.
To increase your chances of appearing in Google News, make sure you produce original news content regularly and are high in expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. You can read more about how to improve these factors on the Google Search blog.
Since Google retired its application process for new publishers nearly two years ago, its automated system has enabled thousands of new publishers - from national brands to emerging local publications - to receive visitors from Google News and news surfaces in Search.
Danny Sullivan, public liaison for Google Search, posted on the Google News Initiative site that the company is always looking at ways to improve its automated system. He encouraged anyone interested in learning more about how news works on Google to visit the How News Works on Google page.