Google News SEO: The Definitive Resources List
This is a regularly updated list of official documentation, helpful guides, resources, and tools to help you optimise your site for Google News.
[Last Update: 07 June 2024]
I regularly get asked about official Google documentation relating to Google News, as well as helpful resources and tools that can inform and educate people interested in the topic.
Rather than type out a fresh list of links whenever such a question pops up, I figured I’d create a single list of resources that I can keep updated and send people to.
So that’s what this edition will be for.
Below I’ll list various docs, guides, tools, etc. categorised in a way that sort of makes sense to me and along the lines that people most regularly ask me about. If you know of any link that you feel should be added to this list, please let me know via a comment or email: barry@polemicdigital.com.
I’ll be updating this page with new and changed links to documents, guides, and tools, so make sure you bookmark this URL and check back regularly.
Getting into Google News
How do you get into Google News? That’s the million-dollar question. Here are all the best documents and guides I can find on the subject.
Official Google Documentation
3rd Party Guides
What do we mean when we say ‘Google News? - SEO for Google News
How to get into Google News - Coywolf
Google’s Algorithmic News Inclusion Process - SEO for Google News
Optimising for Google News
Getting included in Google News doesn’t mean the traffic just comes flooding in. Your articles need to be optimised for maximum visibility.
Official Google Documentation
3rd Party Guides
How do I optimise for Google News? - SISTRIX
WTF is SEO - Jessie Willms & Shelby Blackley
Optimising for Discover
The Discover feed is a huge source of traffic for publishers. How can you ensure you achieve maximum visibility in Discover?
Official Google Documentation
3rd Party Guides
Technical SEO
A technically sound foundation is crucial for all SEO success. Here are some Google documents and 3rd party guides that provide best practices on various aspects of technical SEO.
Official Google Documentation
3rd Party Guides
Technical SEO: The Definitive Guide - Backlinko
SEO for Extensive Websites - SISTRIX
Advanced Insights into Googlebot Crawling - SEO for Google News
Technical SEO Beginner’s Guide - Ahrefs
JavaScript SEO Best Practices - Onely
The Most Common JavaScript Issues for Publishers - SEO for Google News
How to do a Technical SEO Audit - Optimisey
TechnicalSEO.com - Merkle
How to get a Live badge with LiveBlogPosting - Clickseed
Bing IndexNow Live Indexing - Search Engine Land
XML Sitemaps
Sitemap files allow you to submit to Google all the pages you want crawled and indexed. For news publishers, extra challenges arise regarding large scale sitemaps and Google News specific sitemap files.
Official Google Documentation
3rd Party Guides
Perfecting XML Sitemaps - Polemic Digital
XML Sitemap: The Ultimate Guide - ContentKing
Video & Images SEO
Video content is a cornerstone of many publishers. Google have some official documentation on how to maximise your videos’ potential impact in search.
Official Google Documentation
3rd Party Guides
How does Video SEO work? - Yoast
Image SEO 101 - WTF is SEO
Page Experience / Core Web Vitals
The Page Experience update is now rolling out, which means core web vitals are now ranking factors. Slow loading pages are at a disadvantage in all of Google’s results.
Official Google Documentation
3rd Party Guides
Core Web Vitals: The Ultimate Guide - Contentking
How to Improve Core Web Vitals - Simon Hearne
Core Web Vitals Audit - Seosly
Core Web Vitals for News Publisher - SEO for Google News
Paywalls
When it comes to paywalled content, there’s a lot of confusion about what to show Google versus what to show your end users. Here are some official Google docs and general guides into paywalls for publishers.
Official Google Documentation
3rd Party Guides
Best Practices for Paywalls and SEO - SEO for Google News
Publisher paywall strategies from WaPo, Le Monde, and Substack - Press Gazette
Tools
SEOs rely heavily on tools to help them identify and analyse issues. Here are some of the most useful tools from Google and 3rd party providers that I regularly use in my work.
Official Google Tools
3rd Party Tools
NewsFlashboard - check if a site is in Google News
NewsDashboard - Google News tracking
NewzDash - Google News tracking
GDDash - Google Discover tracking
SISTRIX - SEO Suite
Sitebulb - SEO crawler
Screaming Frog - SEO crawler
Lumar - SEO crawler
Little Warden - SEO Monitoring
I’m be expanding and updating this list regularly, so make sure you bookmark this page and check back once in a while.
And please do let me know what links you feel should be added here. I want this list to be as good and useful as possible, which can only happen with your help. Leave a comment on email me on barry@polemicdigital.com.
As always, thanks for reading and subscribing. Please send this on to anyone it may be useful for, and see you at the next one.
A serious bookmarker. Fair play for dropping all these resources here Barry, fair play.
Any guide or resources about how to build and manage sitemaps for massive websites (publishers, news sites)?