We're in the midst of a six month transition period for Google News Sitemaps. We have introduces updates to the Google News Sitemap infrastructure and format to help you more easily manage your Sitemap.
If you have already created a Google News Sitemap, we will need your help to avoid interruption in crawling articles in Google News. Note that Sitemaps submitted under the previous format will need to be re-submitted following the new format in order to to be crawled in Google News. If you haven't moved to the new format, then we will not be able to crawl any of the articles listed on your Google News Sitemap at the end of these six months.
If this is your first time submitting a Sitemap for Google News, please simply follow the instructions available on the Sitemaps section of our Help Center. The FAQ below is intended to walk you through the transition to our new Google News Sitemap format.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's this transition about?
We have redesigned Google News Sitemaps to allow for an easier process to submit a Google News Sitemap. We need your help to make sure we don't drop any of the articles we crawl from your Sitemap.
Although we will support your current Google News Sitemap during the transition period of six months, you will have to re-submit it under the new format as soon as possible. For more details on how to submit your Sitemap under the new structure, please visit the Sitemaps section of our Help Center.
Once the transition period is over, we will no longer allow for Sitemaps created under the old format and any old Sitemaps in your Webmaster Tools account will be rejected.
What will happen to my current Google News Sitemap during the transition period?
We will maintain your current Google News Sitemap and continue to crawl your articles. However, you need to update your Sitemap during this transition period in order for Google News to continue crawling your articles in the future. Please follow the instructions on this page on how to create an updated Sitemap.
How much time do I have to make the switch?
The transition period will last for six months. We encourage you, however, to make the changes as soon as possible in order to avoid interruptions in crawling your content in Google News.
What happens if I don't make the switch?
You have six months to re-submit your Sitemap for Google News under the new format. Once this period is over, we will no longer support the old structure of Google News sitemaps and will reject it causing the articles from your sitemap not to be crawled in Google News.
I never had a Sitemap before, what should I do?
It's optional to create a Sitemap, but it's definitely encouraged. Please follow the instructions on this page to start the process of creating a Google News Sitemap.
Where did the Publication Label pull down menu go?
The Publication Label pull down menu no longer exists under the new structure. However, during the transition period the publication label you had selected will be the "permanent" default for that sitemap. This means you can continue to use the old format for any sitemap that was originally submitted using the pulldown menu. However, this will expire once the transition period is over. By then, you will have to have switched over to the new structure. Please follow the instructions on this page on how to create your updated Sitemap.
What are some of the obvious changes?
The updated format allows you to add new tags to each entry in your Sitemap, to provide more information about individual articles. For example:
- Publication tags: Will include two child tags <name> and <language> which should be added to each of your Sitemap's news articles.
- Title tags: Article titles can be added using the <title> tag to help us identify the correct title for your articles.
- Genres tags: the <genres> tag helps identify the different types of content within your articles, such as PressRelease, OpEd, Blog or UserGenerated.
- Access tags: the <access> tag tell us about the access level of your articles, whether they're under a subscription wall, or free.
What's the Unsupported Sitemap Format error?
You received this message because you may have previously submitted your sitemap under Type Web which is no longer supported. Please update your News Sitemap to follow the format on this page. This will allow our system to start crawling your content for Google News.
Is there a way for me to test my new sitemap under the new structure?
Sorry, we currently don't provide a platform to help you test your Google News Sitemap.