News sitemap format requires specific tags that don't exist in standard XML sitemaps — <news:news>, <news:publication>, <news:publication_date>, and <news:title> — and Google's news crawler (Googlebot-News) uses this separate sitemap to decide which articles to consider for Google News inclusion, independently of the standard organic indexing process
The previous articles on this site covered XML sitemap basics, why Google doesn't index all submitted URLs, image and video sitemaps, sitemap priority vs changefreq, and sitemap quality over quantity. This article addresses news sitemaps — the specialized sitemap format for publishers, how it differs from standard XML sitemaps, and what publishers need to know about Google News inclusion.
The news sitemap format: required fields and structure
A news sitemap uses a different XML namespace from standard sitemaps, with additional required fields specific to news content:
<?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://www.example.com/breaking-story-20241115</loc>
<news:news>
<news:publication>
<news:name>Example News</news:name>
<news:language>en</news:language>
</news:publication>
<news:publication_date>2024-11-15T14:30:00Z</news:publication_date>
<news:title>Breaking Story Title Here</news:title>
</news:news>
</url>
</urlset>
Required fields:
<news:name>: the publication's name (must be consistent across all news sitemap entries)<news:language>: two-letter language code (ISO 639)<news:publication_date>: ISO 8601 format, including time and timezone<news:title>: the article's headline
Optional but useful fields:
<news:keywords>: comma-separated topic keywords<news:genres>: classifications (PressRelease, Satire, Blog, OpEd, Opinion, UserGenerated)
The 48-hour rule: what qualifies for news sitemaps
Google's news sitemap specification requires that articles in the news sitemap were published within the last 48 hours. Articles older than 48 hours should not be included.
This reflects how Google News works: it's a near-real-time news service. Google crawls news sitemaps frequently (every few minutes for major publishers) to discover newly published articles. The 48-hour limit prevents news sitemaps from becoming a mechanism for re-surfacing old content as if it were news.
Practical implementation: a dynamically generated news sitemap that queries for articles published in the last 48 hours and generates the sitemap on request — rather than a static file that would become stale immediately after generation.
The corollary: don't include evergreen content, guides, or reference articles in your news sitemap even if they were recently updated. These belong in the standard XML sitemap. The news sitemap is exclusively for time-sensitive news content.
Google News inclusion vs organic indexing: different processes
Two distinct Google systems process news content:
Standard organic indexing (via standard sitemap or crawl discovery): Googlebot discovers and indexes content through normal link-following and standard sitemaps. Articles indexed this way appear in regular web search results (google.com/search).
Google News inclusion (via news sitemap): Googlebot-News crawls news sitemaps to discover content for potential inclusion in Google News (news.google.com and the News tab in Google Search). This is a separate process with additional requirements.
What's required for Google News inclusion:
- A publisher page registered in Google Search Console (confirming you're a news publisher)
- A news sitemap pointing to recent articles
- Meeting Google News content policies (original reporting, bylines, clear publication dates)
- Not being excluded by content policy violations
Simply having a news sitemap doesn't guarantee inclusion in Google News — Google's algorithms evaluate whether the content is newsworthy, whether the publisher is authoritative for the topic, and whether the content meets quality guidelines.
News sitemap and AMP: the historical connection
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) was Google's initiative (launched 2015) for mobile-optimized, fast-loading article pages. For several years, AMP pages received preferential placement in the "Top Stories" carousel in mobile search results.
The news sitemap and AMP connection: publishers who wanted top stories placement needed both a news sitemap and AMP pages. The <loc> in the news sitemap pointed to the canonical article URL; a separate <xhtml:link rel="amphtml"> or the canonical/AMP relationship was established separately.
Current status (2024): Google removed the AMP requirement for Top Stories in June 2021. Top Stories placement now requires meeting Core Web Vitals thresholds (the Page Experience signals) rather than specifically AMP. News sitemaps remain important for Google News discovery independent of AMP.
Large publisher news sitemap considerations
Publishers with high article volume have specific considerations:
Multiple news sitemaps via sitemap index: a standard XML sitemap supports 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed. A major news publisher publishing hundreds of articles daily over 48 hours stays well within this limit — but using a sitemap index to separate news from standard content is cleaner.
Publication name consistency: the <news:name> field must exactly match the publication name as registered with Google. Inconsistencies between the sitemap's publication name and the registered name can cause crawling issues.
Timezone precision in dates: <news:publication_date> should include timezone information (Z for UTC or explicit offset). Ambiguous dates without timezone can cause ranking within news searches to be less accurate (recency is a significant factor in news ranking).
How to use the XML Sitemap Generator on sadiqbd.com
- Standard content vs news content: use the tool to generate your standard XML sitemap for evergreen content; for news content, the specific
<news:news>namespace tags require either the tool's news sitemap option or manual construction - Dynamic generation: note that news sitemaps must be regenerated frequently (at minimum daily, ideally every few minutes for active publishers); static file generation is less appropriate than a server-side script that queries recent articles
- Submit to Search Console separately: news sitemaps should be submitted via Google Search Console in addition to standard sitemaps — they're processed by different crawlers and tracked differently in coverage reports
Frequently Asked Questions
If I publish one article per week, does it still make sense to have a news sitemap? For Google News inclusion purposes, yes — but your articles only appear in the news sitemap for 48 hours each. For low-frequency publishers, the news sitemap is mostly empty most of the time. Google News inclusion also tends to favour publishers with consistent publication frequency — a once-weekly publisher is less likely to appear in Google News than a daily publisher, simply because Google News prioritises recency and consistent news output. If Google News inclusion isn't a goal (most non-news sites don't need it), a standard sitemap is sufficient.
Is the XML Sitemap Generator free? Yes — completely free, no sign-up required.
Try the XML Sitemap Generator free at sadiqbd.com — generate standard and structured XML sitemaps for any website.
