News Publisher Requirements: The Complete 2026 Guide

Before applying for Google News inclusion, your site must meet these baseline technical criteria:

• A working news sitemap submitted through Google Search Console with articles from the last 48 hours
• Each article page must contain valid NewsArticle structured data
• The site must have a clear, consistent URL structure with permanent, unique URLs per article
• Server response times under 2 seconds, with Core Web Vitals passing on mobile and desktop
• A published contact page with physical address, email, and phone number

Your site must also demonstrate that it is an established publication with a history of regular publishing. New domains may be placed in a review period before full inclusion (Google Publishing, "Publisher Requirements", 2025).

Google enforces content policies that go beyond standard webmaster guidelines. Articles must be clearly written by identifiable authors or a reputable editorial team. Byline pages or author bios are strongly recommended. Content generated primarily through automation without human editorial oversight may be excluded.

Misleading headlines, deceptive content, and articles that misrepresent the source of information are grounds for removal. Google's 2025 policy update expanded its definition of misleading content to include AI-generated articles that lack clear disclosure (Google News, "Publisher Policies", 2025). If your publication uses AI-assisted writing, disclose this clearly in each article or in your site's general disclosure notice.

Google evaluates publisher authority using several signals. These include the accuracy of your reporting, the presence of corrections and retractions, citation practices, and external references to your content from established news organizations. Original reporting that includes firsthand accounts, original data, or expert interviews carries more weight than aggregated content.

Implement author structured data with links to author bio pages. Use the sameAs property to link to professional social media profiles. These signals help Google associate articles with real, credible individuals.

If Google News excludes your content, you can appeal through the Google News Publisher Help forum or your Search Console account. Common exclusion reasons include policy violations, duplicate content issues, or technical failures like broken sitemaps. Address the specific issue cited in the exclusion notice before appealing. Submit a reconsideration request with documentation of the corrective actions taken.

• Submit news sitemap to Google Search Console and verify it is indexed
• Confirm each article has valid NewsArticle JSON-LD with author and publisher
• Verify contact page includes physical address, email, and phone number
• Add author bios with bylines and structured data markup
• Review content for compliance with Google News Publisher Policies
• Disclose AI-assisted content clearly on article pages or site-wide
• Correct any duplicate content or thin article pages
• Set up monitoring for manual action notifications in Search Console

Citations

1. Google Publishing. "Publisher Requirements." Google News, 2025. https://news.google.com/publisher-requirements
2. Google News. "Publisher Policies." Google News Help, 2025. https://support.google.com/news/publisher-policy
3. Google Search Central. "Google News Content Policies." Google Developers, 2025. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/news/content-policies