(20)
There has been recent interest in how a site can be included into Google News. Ben covered a thread at DigitalPoint Forums a few weeks ago on the topic. I thought I would revisit it with my own personal experience on how I was accepted into Google News.
(1) It took me a long time to get included. I was rejected a couple times prior and I had to make a good case for me to be included.
(2) Technical requirements:
- In order for the Google crawler to correctly gather articles, each page that displays an article's full text needs to have a unique URL that does not change. Google cannot include sites in Google News that display multiple articles at the same URL.
- The URL for each article must contain a unique number consisting of at least three digits.
- Keep in mind that Google cannot include sites for which the URL of the main page includes a date. URLs with dates in them often change on a daily or weekly basis. This prevents Google from crawling the site for new content, as Google is unable to detect the most current URL to be crawled.
- Google's automated crawler is currently best able to crawl regular HTML links. Google is unable to crawl image links or links embedded in JavaScript.
- Provide a good historical background of the site
- Show awards the site received
- Give stats on the site
- Tell them about your editors and authors
- Tell them about who links to your site (if the Google blog links to you, that is a good thing)
- Make sure you are news related or mostly news related.
- Make sure your site complies with the technical requirements, and show them that is does.
Update: To clarify the URL aspect of the Google News inclusion requirements... The URL has to be unique, but the numbers within the URLs do not have to be unique. I new Google Groups thread clarifies this more:
As long as you have at least three digits in your URLs (and the digits don't resemble years), they can be anywhere - not necessarily at the very end.
The thing is, many sites are included using digits that do in fact resemble years. I am still trying to get to the bottom of this.
Update #2 A Google News representative said that you do not need digits in your URLs if you submit content to Google News in the Sitemaps format. You can find out more on the technical requirements of the URLs at this document and more on Google News Sitemaps.
Comments:
Psycho
07/13/2006 02:25 am
Thanks for the tips. I'm going to try this.
Allan Knox
10/19/2006 09:01 am
Just been rejected by Google News because the site is written and maintained by one individual.
hamptonblu
12/04/2007 05:07 pm
thanks for the tip. I will revisit this idea once my site has been up for 6 months to a year.
hamptonblu
12/04/2007 05:11 pm
thanks for the tip. I will revisit this idea once my site has been up for 6 months to a year.
ConnieTalk
12/06/2007 05:03 am
Getting into Google is hard - that is very true. It took me about 8 months and I was rejected the first time also. Great article.
Jon
01/14/2008 07:20 pm
Thanks!
No Name
05/23/2008 12:33 pm
Thanks! few and clear words, a useful blog guide to take into consideration especially if you want to create "ex novo" a news section.
sandossu
05/31/2008 08:03 am
I also was rejected a few times because they said the blog is written and maintained by one individual. The fact was there were two writers plus me and I told them, but they didn't care.
Chris Brodie
06/03/2008 09:44 am
Hi , I requested to be included in google news but didnt get a response from them. However now (Two weeks later) I am listed in google news. Woopie.. Because I didnt get the email from google , Probily because it was caught in a spam filter some where. What do I do now . Do i need to submit or does the site just get crawled in the same way.
George Tzenos
06/17/2008 01:27 pm
im going to try this thanks for the advice
Tony
08/23/2008 03:55 am
Great tips here. I have been trying without success. Thanks for the pointers.
No Name
08/23/2008 10:01 am
Well, not too sure about that. I did what was described but got no response from them. Guess got to wait....
Salil
11/06/2008 06:43 am
Thanx it was a really helpful post. just submitted my news page in News section.
No Name
04/19/2009 09:28 am
good info. i want to know how to get the menu links directly in the search results. i've had it happen with a couple of my projects, but i dont know what does or doesnt cause it. post something on that =]
bilal
01/29/2010 06:42 pm
Hey Thanks for the post.. I think unique content and pure posting would definately take you into the google news. I never been in Google News, is just because of not having what Google actually needed. Finally, it is all about luck, I have seen websites with low traffic but included in Google News Section. This really forced me to think about how it is done? Anyhow, you wrote an excellent article that for sure help us in best way. Thanks, Bilal Qayyum
Artful Dodger
03/13/2010 12:53 pm
Thankyou very much for this article. I've made all the technical requirements but now I just need a few more authors, that's the biggest problem I'm having at the moment, finding some authors who are trustworthy and reliable.
No Name
04/15/2010 12:55 pm
I have written a step by step guide to getting sites approved as a Google News Source again and again. It is available for instant download at http://www.gNewsNow.com The guide will give you the blueprint for getting approved and having all of your articles appear in Google News.
Tom Hooper
10/27/2010 12:57 am
Thanks a bunch, I really want to get on google news and was wondering how to go about it, you info, will help a lot. Thanks again Tom
Martin
11/09/2010 03:05 pm
For my is simple to get your site listed in google news, mail me if you wish.
Android
12/20/2010 07:15 am
Getting to listed in Google News is very hard. I just got reject two time. :( !