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How to Get A Website/Blog Approved and Listed in Google News

by 142 Comments

Google News has been an abundant source of Traffic for many websites since few years. Previously there were only a few publishers on Google News so things were pretty easy, back then. But now many sites got into google news to drive traffic to their blog/websites. However, Google News still acts as a good source of traffic for websites that produce good quality content in large volumes.

If you are new here you should check out my article on Things you need to know about Google News.

In this article, I will explain you the step by step process to get your website/blog into Google News. Things are not that easy but if you follow all the steps properly then the chances of your website getting into news would increase.

Steps to get your Website into Google News:

1.Your Website Theme/Look

Your website theme plays a key role in getting you approved for google news. It should be of Magazine Style with proper section wise news on various topics like Politics, Education, Entertainment, Technology etc.

As the name says the theme must look like a news website. There are many themes out there, if in case you are a WordPress user you can go ahead with some popular Magazine Style Theme.

You can have a look at popular news sites India Today, Times of India, All India Roundup etc

2. Your Website must be complete with all required info:

Your website must have pages like About Us, Contact Us, Media Kit and an Authors page as well. Of all these, you must have an about us page where you have to list all your authors with a brief bio.

3. Website must be Multi-Authored:

This is quite obvious. A single person alone cannot produce lots of content daily. So, it should have a minimum of 2-3 authors who covers on various topics each and every single day.

4. Do not post about Job Updates, Notifications, and How-To Guides:

This is one of the biggest mistakes people do, posting about jobs and job notifications is completely against Google News TOS. So, if you have any articles about Job updates and notifications you have to remove them immediately before you apply for Google News.

However, you can post few job updates after your site gets a full approval for Google News.

Along with that do not post How-To guides, a website with how to guides doesn’t get a news approval as the name says the website must be updated with latest news stuff and not how to guides. If in case you are posting How to guides exclude them for the news sitemap.

5. Author bio on Post Pages

The author name is a must, but bio is generally optional. But if you are applying for an approval then having an author bio will increase your chances of getting approved.

6. You must divide content into sections/categories

Every news website has some categories so divide content into different categories because Google News will ask you for different sections like Headlines, Technology, Entertainment etc while you are applying for Google News.

7. You must publish good number of articles per day

Generally they say you can get into news if you publish 3 articles per day. But believe me, that wouldn’t be sufficient enough. You must publish at least 10 articles per day and before few days of applying publish at least 15+ articles per day.

8. Grammar plays a key role

Your application will be reviewed manually by someone from Google News team. They will verify the complete website to the best possible extent and they will manually read few articles posted on your website. So, no matter even if you have satisfied all the above guidelines if your website doesn’t have proper grammar then your application will be declined without any hesitation.

9. Google News Sitemap and News Keyword Tag

Google News sitemap is a little different from the sitemap which you generally have on your blog. A Google News sitemap will have only a maximum of 1000 URLs in the index at a time.

Also, you need one more additional tag called news_keywords tag, however, this is optional initially but if you have one for your blog the chances of getting approval would increase.

For these two I would highly recommend you to go for Yoast SEO News Plugin if you are a WordPress user which is a premium plugin and you have to pay for it.

Alternately you can also use Google News XML Plugin for Sitemap and Google News Keywords from Tags plugin for news_keywords tag.

10. If you cannot do all the above steps then do this

If you follow all the above steps properly then you can definitely get into google news but I know the above-mentioned steps are a little difficult to achieve and takes some time.

Also, sometimes even though you have followed all the above steps, still your application might get rejected due to some unknown reasons.

Alternately you can buy a website/domain which is already listed in Google News. There are quite a few brokers on Flippa and few other marketplaces who sell expired/parked domains that are already listed in Google News. It would cost you anywhere between $500 to $5000 based on the demand for the domain/website.

  • One you are done with all the steps head over to this page and click on Google News Publisher Center at the bottom of the page. Generally it takes 2-5 days to know whether your application is accepted or rejected. If in case its rejected you have to wait for 90 more days. So, give your best on the first attempt itself.

So, I guess it’s very clear on how to get your site listed on to Google News. It’s not easy at the same time it’s not impossible as well. Do contact me if you need any help in getting your site listed on Google News, I can help you out with the same.

My next article would be on optimizing a Google News website stay tuned.

If you need any help in buying/selling/optimizing Google News website feel free to hit me a mail at [email protected] or [email protected]

Comments

Comments

  1. Nice post Sir Ji, Please Tell me something more about: Before Apply Requirement
    1 – Minimum Site Age ?
    2 – Minimum Site Traffic (Organic and Social) ?
    3 – Minimum post?
    4 – Hosting I means we can run it on Blogger?
    5 – Most News Sites just rewriting NEWS from other big news sites, Its ok ?
    Thank You

    Reply

    • Your answers.
      1. 3 months would be fine.
      2. No traffic requirement as of now.
      3. 500+ posts would be a good count.
      4. You can run it on blogger but I would suggest self hosted wordpress only.
      5. You can if you have permission from other website from where you are copying.

      Reply

      • Thanks sir one thing I forget about Ranking Factor.
        Please Tell me about NEWS sites’s SEO, Means
        How to do best SEO of NEWS sites?
        What Backlinks Needed for rankling?
        How Many Backlinks Needed?
        What Kind Backlinks Needed?
        How to get ranked?

        Reply

  2. Thanks for great article Imran,

    My website http://www.apnewscorner.com automatically approved for google news,

    Here my doubt is how its happen and my website is not responsive design thats why my SEO friends suggest to change site to wordpress, right now I’m doing that, bur i need some suggestions and tips to develop my website more effectively.

    Thanks,
    Ramana.

    Reply

  4. Hey Imran! Really usefull information that you shared with us. But one thing i want to ask. My site is http://www.whatsuch.com . But the Landing page does not have the News. Suppose i make the Sub domain like News.whatsuch.com. After than can i use Google News for that..
    Thanks!!

    Reply

  6. How to find news approved domains from the expired domains.

    As some people don’t know that their websites are approved for google news how to get to know about these websites

    Reply

      • Hello Imran,
        As after 6 months we can reapply for Google News so I can see Request Inclusion In Google News button in Google News Publish Center. But can you please please review my website before applying. I don’t want to wait for more 6 months. Please my website is http://www.ebloggertimes.com/

        THANKS in Advance

        Reply

  12. hi Imran

    Great article thanks for explain breifly, i have entertainment niche site like koimoi, You tell me Imran single niche site liek (review, boxoffice, and songs ) easy for google news approval or not ? and permalinks play any role for approval ? many people use http://www.domain.com/2015/10/post.html like this

    Again thanks

    Reply

    • You can get approval for even a single topic site.

      Permalinks doesn’t play a key role. Google news just want you to have a proper sitemap or add a unique number to permalink. Any one of these would work. But adding a sitemap would solve the problem.

      Reply

  13. Awesome .. This is what i was looking for..
    but i have a doubt

    How to change the url to like this ” xyz.com/any-keyword/4563/ ”

    i read in the news publishers policy that site’s url need to have a four digit unique number which should now match any year or it will not crawl that ….
    is it ??
    and in maximum new publisher’s site i have seen that thing common.
    it would be great if you tell me how one can do that .. ??
    &
    in the “News sections information” what URL to give

    Thanks in Advance
    wanted it for my this blog : http://www.techvilla.net
    i got rejected when for the first time when i applied.

    Reply

  14. Hi Imran,
    This is indeed a very good insight about getting Google news approval. I have submitted my site times without number but all to no avail, hopefully with these tips my site will have an edge way into Google news

    Reply

  18. Hello imran ji while starting the blog do you have any Knowledge about blogging and if you have take any coaching in any institution for blogging. How do you know about bloggig internt money buy publishing post and ads

    Reply

  19. I have an doubt on blogging if i want an programmer or not. Can i ask an question on your blog income for month i am going to apply for the blog permission how much money takes by google and how many day it takes

    Reply

  21. Hi Imran ! Thanks for your wonderful articles. You are the who is being inspiration for many of the bloggers from south India. Hope you will teach all of us more and more with your Talent. Expecting more best articles from you.
    Your Follower .. Vishnu Vardhan Reddy

    Reply

  26. Thanks for the information. Everyone will like to have their blog in google news. Following your steps will make it easy.

    Reply

  27. There are lots of websites who claims that they will publish your site in google news and other top search engines. Should we go for a try or it will affect our google page ranking?

    Reply

  29. We have received the same following message for our site.

    Today when checking my I got this following error on my PlusNews Site : http://www.plusnews.in

    “Your Sitemap is on a site that is not in the Google News database. Google News can only accept Sitemaps from sites that we crawl. If your site is crawled by Google News, please check that the URL of your Sitemap agrees with the URLs of your articles as they appear on Google News, including any leading “www”. If you would like to request inclusion of your site in Google News, please contact the Google News support team.”

    Required your assistance in solving the above issue
    Thanks and regards
    Rajesh

    Reply

  30. Hi Imran,

    Well explained post. My previous attempt to apply for the news site failed. I was searching for a solution and landed here. Now, I learned about the mistakes I did on the site. I will rectify it and apply it again. Will share good news once it is approved.

    Reply

  31. This is really helping, I’ll do all above mention steps to get my website approved and listed in google news, Thanks for sharing such a great information.

    Reply

  40. Google News is trending a lot since last year. I have been hearing about this a lot. Your tips are very useful for a beginner. Thanks for sharing it.

    Reply

  43. Here i am begineer my site i have completly created with Your help Thanks For Supporting Us anna. meru elagey inka inka chala manchi posts lu chaiyali

    Reply

  55. I never heard about Google news before, thank you Imran for this update. If we follow all these steps immediately then Google will find out this development is unusual for the time being, so Is there any problems from Google for doing all these so quick?

    Reply

  57. I had few confusion about the Parameters for blog to get approved for Google News listing. You have explained everything very clear here. Thanks buddy.

    Reply

  58. Hello my family member! I wish to say that this article is awesome, nice written and include almost all important infos.
    I would like to see more posts like this .

    Reply

  62. hai imran,
    i submitted my adsense application in that forum i kept NO for newsletters (email preference) is that cause any problem to mee in receveing payment ..

    all are saying ur payment is received through letter ..(and pin)
    is there is any solution..

    Reply

  67. Hi Imran,
    Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us, I am glad and happy that you shared such informative post. It will help many bloggers including myself to understand more about Google news in depth.
    Best Regards
    Paul

    Reply

  72. Hey Imran,

    Very informative and helpful article, we have tried to follow all the steps you have mentioned on above article.
    i had started news website under the name of http://www.langur.in/ we want to submit our site to google news. can you let us know any other recommendation on our website. that will be very helpful,

    pl. check the website if you can spare some time .

    once again thank you for the beautiful written article

    Reply

  74. Hi Imran Uddin,

    I am getting problem while submitting news sitemap in Google Webmaster generated from XML Sitemap & Google News Feeds.
    It is showing error – Issue: Missing XML tag – Description: This required tag is missing. Please add it and resubmit – Example: Parent tag: urlset Tag: url – Now what should i have to do?
    Are you getting this problem while using NEWS SEO YOAST Plugin? or i have to buy Yoast News Seo plugin..

    Reply

  75. Hey Imran thank you bro for sharing this post, But I want to mention one more thing and that is website or blog owner should keep his website updated as google may notice whether the website gets keep updated or not

    Reply

  76. Hi, recently I have started one blog and I am in little confusion how to move forward. your article cleared some of my doubts. In this article you mentioned some plugin like Yoast SEO News Plugin but at this time I can’t bare premium one. Can you please suggest me some plugins which are at free cost.

    Reply

  85. Hi Imran, very nice article.
    Thanks for all the information provided here.
    Is there any requirement for the categories? I.e. Is that fine if a news belong to more categories? Is there a minimum number of categories on shall use?
    Cheers,

    Robert

    Reply

  89. Sir after checking all the steps, I have applied to ‘Google News’ but still they rejected the application. My website is a news website but still they don’t accept, any suggestion Imran sir?

    Reply

  98. Hello Imran,
    I was searching posts related to Google news approval but never found a great one like this with in depth details. You have mentioned all the points and now me and my team are working hard to get approval by following your tips.
    Thank you so much man, keep rocking.

    Reply

  101. Hello there

    Thank you very much for all the information you apre providing

    How can I check that an existing Google News site will not lose the approved status or is having possibly some problems?

    Thank you

    Marco

    Reply

  102. Can I get approval on my blog
    AponTips.com ? I shared tips and
    tricks and shared tech news also. I
    am waiting for your reply bro

    Reply

  105. is that true that if we have to approve the site from google news than we have to get VPS hosting..??
    shared hosting don’t work??
    reply

    Reply

  109. My spouse and I stumbled over here coming from a different web address and thought I may as well check things out.
    I like what I see so now i’m following you.
    Look forward to checking out your web page repeatedly.

    Reply

  110. Hi, Imran. You’ve done a great job writing this article which is useful for many buddies out there. I have few doubts regarding the inclusion of my site in google news. Will you pls try to help me?
    1)Minimum no. Of posts before applying.
    2)My site doesn’t even get a 100 visitors/day. Is this going to affect the inclusion process?
    3)Will you please put on your traffic stats and no. Of blog posts of your site all india roundup at the time of request for inclusion?
    Thank you

    Reply

  113. Hi Imran, we are GearPQ, we are someone who follows your SEO techniques and other blog maintaining Tips. We appreciate your effort for this great information, but can you suggest us on how a Complete Gear & Gadget blog that can get into Google News ?

    Thank you,
    GearPQ.

    Reply

  114. A motivating discussion is definitely worth comment. I do think that
    you ought to write more about this subject, it might not be a taboo matter
    but typically people do not speak about such topics. To the next!
    Best wishes!!

    Reply

  117. Amazing Article, I’m a regular visitor of your, This website is like an SEO guide for me. thank you for posting.

    Reply

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