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News Sitemaps
What are News Sitemaps?
News sitemaps are special XML sitemaps that are exclusively optimized for Google News. They enable news websites to submit their current articles to Google in a structured way, allowing them to appear faster in Google News results.
Benefits of News Sitemaps
News sitemaps offer several crucial advantages for news websites:
1. Faster Indexing
- Articles appear within minutes in Google News
- No waiting time for regular crawling
- Immediate visibility for breaking news
2. Better Categorization
- Automatic assignment to news categories
- Improved relevance rating
- Geographic targeting options
3. Extended Metadata
- Detailed article information
- Publication time and updates
- Author and category assignment
XML Structure of News Sitemaps
The XML structure of news sitemaps follows a specific schema defined by Google:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
xmlns:news="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-news/0.9">
<url>
<loc>https://example.com/article-url</loc>
<news:news>
<news:publication>
<news:name>Website Name</news:name>
<news:language>en</news:language>
</news:publication>
<news:publication_date>2025-01-21T10:30:00+01:00</news:publication_date>
<news:title>Article Title</news:title>
</news:news>
</url>
</urlset>Required Elements
- XML Declaration - UTF-8 encoding required
- URLset Namespace - Standard sitemap schema
- News Namespace - Google News-specific schema
- URL Location - Complete article URL
- Publication Name - Official website name
- Language Code - ISO 639-1 language code
- Publication Date - ISO 8601 timestamp
- Article Title - Complete article title
Optional Elements
Additional metadata can improve visibility and categorization:
- Keywords - Relevant search terms
- Genres - Article categories (PressRelease, Opinion, etc.)
- Stock Tickers - Stock symbols for financial news
- Access - Access restrictions (Subscription, Registration)
Best Practices for News Sitemaps
1. Freshness Management
Important: News sitemaps have a validity period of only 2 days!
- Add articles within 2 days of publication
- Automatically remove old entries
- Regular sitemap updates (at least hourly)
2. URL Optimization
- Use unique, descriptive URLs
- No session parameters or tracking codes
- HTTPS encryption required
- Canonical URLs without redirects
3. Content Quality
Warning: Only include high-quality, editorial content in news sitemaps!
- Original, editorial articles
- No press releases without editorial processing
- At least 80 words per article
- Current and relevant topics
4. Technical Optimization
- Enable Gzip compression
- Configure robots.txt correctly
- Sitemap index for large websites
- Error-free XML validation
Common Errors and Solutions
Question 1: Why don't my articles appear in Google News?
Answer: Check the validity period (max. 2 days), XML validation and content quality.
Question 2: How many URLs can a news sitemap contain?
Answer: Maximum 1,000 URLs per sitemap. Use a sitemap index for more URLs.
Question 3: Which timezone should I use for publication_date?
Answer: Always use UTC or local timezone with offset (e.g. +01:00).
Question 4: Can I include press releases in news sitemaps?
Answer: Only if they have been editorially processed and published as independent articles.
Question 5: How often should I update the news sitemap?
Answer: At least hourly, ideally with every new publication.
Monitoring and Analysis
Google Search Console Integration
- Submit news sitemap to GSC
- Monitor indexing status
- Analyze errors and warnings
- Track performance metrics
Automation
Statistics: Websites with automated news sitemaps have 3x higher indexing rates
- CMS integration for automatic updates
- Webhook-based sitemap generation
- Monitoring alerts for errors
- Implement backup strategies