Easier-to-use news sitemaps

Posted by Andy Golding, News Engineering Team

Hey news publishers, have you checked out Google's Webmaster Tools lately? Did you know that you can submit a sitemap listing specific articles you would like us to include in Google News? Recently, we announced that this capability is available to all publishers in all Google News editions.

Today, we're excited to tell you about a change that makes it easier for publishers to create sitemaps: you can now include articles from multiple hosts in the same sitemap. For example, if you own world.mynews.com, business.mynews.com, and sports.mynews.com, you can submit a single sitemap containing articles from all three hosts; it is no longer necessary to maintain a separate sitemap for each. The sitemap itself can reside on any of the hosts. The only requirement is that all articles in the sitemap be for the same news publication. This was announced on the Webmaster Central blog last month, and we're excited to make it possible for news publishers. This should simplify the process of sitemap submission for many of you.

Going forward, stay tuned for innovations both small and large to help make it easier for you to include your content in Google News. If you have feedback or suggestions for us, please visit our News Help group.