Create a Google News-compatible XML sitemap to help search engines discover and index your news articles efficiently.
Follow this step-by-step guide to create and submit your Google News sitemap effectively
Start by entering your website URL and publication name in the Basic Settings section. Your news sitemap needs this information to properly identify your publication to Google News. Select the appropriate language for your news content to ensure proper indexing.
Customize how our news sitemap generator crawls your website. Enable "Crawl article pages" to automatically discover news articles across your site. The "Include archive pages" option helps find older articles while "Only articles from last 2 days" focuses on recent content, which is essential for a Google News sitemap as Google typically only indexes news content published within the last two days.
Enhance your news sitemap with additional options. The "Extract keywords" feature adds keyword metadata to your news sitemap entries, improving topical relevance signals. "Include article images" adds image information to help Google News display featured images. "Mark stock content" is useful for financial news publishers who need to indicate stock ticker information in their news sitemap.
Click the "Generate News Sitemap" button to start the process. Our tool will scan your website according to your settings and identify news articles. The progress bar indicates the status of the crawling and generation process. Once complete, you'll see all discovered articles that will be included in your news sitemap.
After generation is complete, review your news sitemap XML. Use the "Download Sitemap" button to save the file to your computer, or "Copy to Clipboard" to copy the XML content. Upload the news sitemap file to your website's root directory (typically at yourdomain.com/news-sitemap.xml) and submit it to Google Search Console to ensure Google News can discover and index your news content effectively.
Google News prefers fresh content. Update your news sitemap regularly to ensure new articles are indexed promptly. Consider automating news sitemap generation for sites with frequent publications.
Google News typically only indexes content published within the last two days. Your news sitemap should prioritize recent articles for the best indexing results. Use the "Only articles from last 2 days" option for optimal performance.
Ensure your articles have clear, machine-readable publication dates. Our news sitemap generator will extract these dates, but your content should have consistent date formatting for the best results.
For large news sites, consider creating multiple news sitemaps organized by categories. This makes it easier to manage and update specific sections of your news content.
Discover how our specialized news sitemap tool empowers different content publishers
Enhance your news content visibility in Google News...
Learn MoreNews publishers and media outlets are the primary beneficiaries of our news sitemap generator. If you run a news website, digital newspaper, or online magazine, implementing a proper news sitemap is essential for Google News integration. Our tool automatically formats your content to meet Google's news sitemap specifications, helping your breaking stories and time-sensitive content appear in Google News results within minutes of publication.
Transform your blog into a recognized news source...
Learn MoreIndustry-specific blogs and publications that regularly cover current events and news can significantly benefit from implementing a news sitemap. If your blog produces timely, newsworthy content about your industry, a properly formatted news sitemap can help position your publication as an authoritative news source. Our generator helps blogs and niche publications meet Google's news content requirements, potentially increasing your eligibility for Google News inclusion.
Maximize the reach of your press releases and company news...
Learn MoreCompanies with dedicated newsrooms and press release sections can use our news sitemap generator to ensure their corporate announcements reach a wider audience. A properly configured news sitemap helps Google recognize and index your press releases, product launches, and corporate updates as news content. This increases the likelihood of your company news appearing in relevant Google News searches, business news sections, and industry-specific news aggregators.
Boost your local news discovery for community readers...
Learn MoreLocal news providers face unique challenges in gaining visibility alongside national publications. Our news sitemap generator helps local news websites properly signal the geographical relevance of their content to search engines. By implementing a structured news sitemap, your local news stories can be more effectively surfaced to readers in your community through Google News, local news carousels, and "Near me" search results, driving engaged local traffic to your site.
Optimize news delivery across different language markets...
Learn MorePublications that offer news content in multiple languages face additional complexities in search engine optimization. Our news sitemap generator simplifies this process by allowing you to specify the language for each news article, ensuring proper categorization in Google News across different regions. This targeted approach helps your multilingual news content reach the appropriate language-specific audiences and news sections, expanding your global reach.
Optimize time-sensitive stock and market news delivery...
Learn MoreFinancial news publishers require exceptional speed and accuracy in content indexing. Our news sitemap generator includes special features for financial content, such as stock ticker markup capabilities, helping Google News correctly categorize market updates, earnings reports, and financial analysis. The tool's ability to prioritize recently published content ensures your time-sensitive financial news gets indexed rapidly, delivering critical market information to readers precisely when they need it.
With a properly structured news sitemap, search engines can discover and index your news content significantly faster—often within minutes rather than hours or days with standard sitemaps. This accelerated indexing is crucial for breaking news and time-sensitive content.
News sitemaps enable your content to appear in specialized news sections like Google News, Top Stories carousels, and news tabs in search results. This dedicated visibility can drive significant additional traffic beyond standard organic search results.
News sitemaps allow for the inclusion of specialized metadata such as publication dates, titles, keywords, and stock tickers. This detailed information helps search engines properly categorize and present your content in relevant news contexts.
Many publishers neglect to implement news-specific sitemaps, relying solely on standard XML sitemaps. By properly configuring a news sitemap for your time-sensitive content, you gain a significant competitive advantage in the news search ecosystem.
Generate a customized news sitemap for your website and start getting your content discovered faster by Google News and other news aggregators.
Discover how our News Sitemap Generator has helped publishers improve their visibility
Essential specifications your news sitemap must meet for Google News inclusion
Articles must be published within the last 2 days to be considered for Google News inclusion.
Must include the news-specific namespace (xmlns:news="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-news/0.9") in the sitemap.
Each article must specify its language using a two or three-letter ISO 639 language code.
Must include accurate publication dates in W3C format (YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZD).
Must include your publication name exactly as it appears in Google News.
Maximum 1,000 URLs per news sitemap and file size limited to 50MB uncompressed.
Our News Sitemap Generator automatically ensures compliance with all these requirements, simplifying the process for you.
Get answers to common questions about news sitemaps and our generator tool
A news sitemap is a specialized XML file that helps search engines discover and index your news content more efficiently. Unlike standard sitemaps, news sitemaps include additional metadata specific to news articles such as publication dates, titles, and keywords. They are essential for any website that publishes time-sensitive news content and wants it to appear in Google News and other news aggregators. News sitemaps significantly speed up the indexing process for news articles, helping your breaking stories get discovered within minutes rather than hours or days.
For optimal results, your news sitemap should be updated each time you publish a new article. Since Google News prioritizes fresh content published within the last 48 hours, maintaining an up-to-date news sitemap is crucial. For high-volume news sites, we recommend automating the news sitemap generation process to ensure immediate indexing of new content. You can schedule regular updates using our tool or implement a dynamic sitemap generation solution that automatically adds new articles as they're published.
While you can technically include older articles in your news sitemap, Google News typically only indexes content published within the last 2 days. Including older articles won't harm your sitemap but won't provide the benefits of expedited indexing for those specific articles. For evergreen or older content, we recommend using a standard XML sitemap alongside your news sitemap to ensure comprehensive indexing of all your website content. Our news sitemap generator includes an option to filter content by publication date to help you focus on recently published articles.
To submit your news sitemap to Google, follow these steps:
Google will process your news sitemap and begin indexing your content accordingly. You can also add a reference to your news sitemap in your robots.txt file for additional discovery.
While having a news sitemap is beneficial regardless of your Google News status, to fully leverage its capabilities, your website should be included in Google News. Google News inclusion involves meeting specific content quality and technical requirements. Even without formal Google News inclusion, implementing a news sitemap can still help your time-sensitive content be discovered more quickly and may improve your chances of appearing in news-related search features. If you're interested in Google News inclusion, implementing a proper news sitemap is a great first step toward meeting the technical requirements.
While both news sitemaps and RSS feeds provide information about your latest content, they serve different purposes:
For optimal news content distribution, we recommend implementing both: a news sitemap for search engine discovery and an RSS feed for syndication and subscriptions.
Yes, you can include references to images and videos in your news sitemap, and it's highly recommended for multimedia news content. Our news sitemap generator offers an option to include image information when creating your sitemap. Adding image metadata helps search engines display featured images alongside your news articles in search results, potentially increasing click-through rates. For video content, consider using a dedicated video sitemap in addition to your news sitemap for more comprehensive video metadata support. This multi-sitemap approach provides the best visibility for all content types.
Errors in your news sitemap can prevent proper indexing of your content in Google News. Common issues include missing required elements, incorrect date formats, or malformed XML. If Google detects errors in your news sitemap, it will report them in Google Search Console under "Sitemaps" and may partially or completely ignore the sitemap until the errors are fixed.
Our news sitemap generator automatically validates your sitemap structure and ensures compliance with Google's requirements, minimizing the risk of errors. For existing sitemaps with issues, we also offer a sitemap validator tool that can identify and help you fix problems before submitting to Google.