Having the right featured image to accompany your articles is an increasingly valuable SEO element, directly impacting the article's visibility in search.
Good question! I think that articles with good CWV scores will perform well in Discover, if Google doesn't have an AMP version to rank. We already see this in mobile Top Stories, where non-AMP articles rank well as long as their Core Web Vitals are all green.
Hi. Thanks for this information. I am having some issues with getting into Google Top Stories. I have a feeling this might be something to do with my images. Id really like your help
Love the content, Barry, attended last year's NESS conference, will attend this year as well!
I have a question, though. Our sports publication's articles are appearing in Google News, Discover and Top Stories and every article has a professional featured image sourced from an image licensing website. However, they recently changed their policy and we cannot use a single image more than once in our articles. In order not to break the bank, the content team is considering whether it would be okay to publish the article with a professional image and then change it into something more "stock-like" after 24 hours or so, when the article stopped trending. I have to note that the articles are very time-specific as they are about specific matches and these queries stop trending quite fast after the match is over.
What I was wondering was whether changing this image would cause Google to view us as a low quality publication as the images on the past articles would be more generic than on the current ones. We would, of course, respect all the quality guidelines regarding resolution and structured data.
Thanks, Barry! I know, it's tough to say until we've taken a leap of faith and tried it. We're working on a workaround to remediate the potential consequences. Looking forward to seeing you during NESS 2022!
Seems that G News started displaying images with an aspect ratio of 2:1 on mobile. They started to trim 16:9 images that we would provide. Didn't find anywhere on this transition.
Hello Barry! Do you have any idea if the order of aspect ratios within the NewsArticle schema is relevant or not? Also, I'm curious to know if Google consistently uses the first ratio resource that appears in the schema for Discover, or if there are other criteria for selecting the displayed image. In our tests, it appears that Google is using the 1x1 aspect ratio and applying an additional crop to display it on Discover. Thank you!
Hi Carla, that's interesting. Are you defining the image width and height in the NewsArticle schema? If not, I'd recommend you do so, as it means Google will know each image's size and aspect ratio without having to crawl the image itself.
And Google selects the initial 1x1 crop to showcase on Discover. However, since our publisher already applies considerable cropping for the 1x1 format, the image ends up being even more cropped when displayed on Discover.
Great content, thank you Barry.
Hi, this post is like gold for a gnews newbie like me! Thank you very much for share.
I've a Q.: google will soon dismiss AMP, what will happen with Discover?
PS. subscribed to newsletter!
Good question! I think that articles with good CWV scores will perform well in Discover, if Google doesn't have an AMP version to rank. We already see this in mobile Top Stories, where non-AMP articles rank well as long as their Core Web Vitals are all green.
Hi. Thanks for this information. I am having some issues with getting into Google Top Stories. I have a feeling this might be something to do with my images. Id really like your help
Great article, thanks for sharing Barry
Love the content, Barry, attended last year's NESS conference, will attend this year as well!
I have a question, though. Our sports publication's articles are appearing in Google News, Discover and Top Stories and every article has a professional featured image sourced from an image licensing website. However, they recently changed their policy and we cannot use a single image more than once in our articles. In order not to break the bank, the content team is considering whether it would be okay to publish the article with a professional image and then change it into something more "stock-like" after 24 hours or so, when the article stopped trending. I have to note that the articles are very time-specific as they are about specific matches and these queries stop trending quite fast after the match is over.
What I was wondering was whether changing this image would cause Google to view us as a low quality publication as the images on the past articles would be more generic than on the current ones. We would, of course, respect all the quality guidelines regarding resolution and structured data.
Good question Ivan. I honestly don't know - I don't *think* it would hurt your site, but I'm not 100% sure on that.
Thanks, Barry! I know, it's tough to say until we've taken a leap of faith and tried it. We're working on a workaround to remediate the potential consequences. Looking forward to seeing you during NESS 2022!
Seems that G News started displaying images with an aspect ratio of 2:1 on mobile. They started to trim 16:9 images that we would provide. Didn't find anywhere on this transition.
Hello Barry! Do you have any idea if the order of aspect ratios within the NewsArticle schema is relevant or not? Also, I'm curious to know if Google consistently uses the first ratio resource that appears in the schema for Discover, or if there are other criteria for selecting the displayed image. In our tests, it appears that Google is using the 1x1 aspect ratio and applying an additional crop to display it on Discover. Thank you!
Hi Carla, that's interesting. Are you defining the image width and height in the NewsArticle schema? If not, I'd recommend you do so, as it means Google will know each image's size and aspect ratio without having to crawl the image itself.
Hey Barry, we structure it in the following way:
"image":["https://img_1x1.jpg","https://img_3x4.jpg","https://img_4x3.jpg"],
And Google selects the initial 1x1 crop to showcase on Discover. However, since our publisher already applies considerable cropping for the 1x1 format, the image ends up being even more cropped when displayed on Discover.
You may be better off defining the three images with appropriate width & height attributes, like so:
"image":[
{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://image-1x1.jpg","height":1200,"width":1200,"},
{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://image-4x3.jpg","height":900,"width":1200,"},
{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://image-16x9.jpg","height":675,"width":1200,"}
]
That should make it clear to Google which is the 16x9 that it can use in Discover.
Nice!! Thank you Barry!