Google News has completed its transition to automatically generated publication pages as of late March 2025. This significant update aims to enhance publisher workflows and provide a more streamlined experience for users.
Key Changes to Publication Pages
The transition eliminates the previous system that relied on RSS feeds and manually submitted web locations. As a result, manually created publication pages are no longer visible within the Google News ecosystem. It's important to note that some publications may not have an automatically generated landing page following this update.
Google has also removed several customization features from the Publisher Center that were deemed nonessential. The Google News tile, previously available in the Publisher Center, has been discontinued as part of this streamlining effort.
Content Eligibility and Ranking
Despite these infrastructural changes, content eligibility for Google News remains unchanged. Publishers who adhere to Google's content policies will continue to be automatically considered for inclusion.
Google News will rank content based on several key factors:
- Relevance
- Prominence
- Authoritativeness
- Freshness
- Location
- Language
Impact on Publisher Customization
The transition has significant implications for publisher customization options. Custom sections that were previously created in Publisher Center will no longer appear on landing pages, which further streamlines the publisher workflow.
Publishers have also lost the ability to customize logos and titles. Instead, Google News will now automatically use site favicons for logos and site names for titles. To optimize appearance in Google News, publishers should:
- Define a favicon for search results
- Provide a clear site name to Google Search
Distribution and Visibility Changes
Global distribution settings will now default to worldwide availability. The update removes publishers' ability to restrict content visibility by country, with the exception of News Showcase panels. Users will access content based on their language and region preferences rather than publisher-defined restrictions.
Google Assistant Integration
For publishers concerned about Google Assistant integration, news content can still be used in text-to-speech features. However, the topical news feature will soon be discontinued outside the United States. Publishers who wish to block their content from this feature can implement the nopagereadaloud HTML meta tag.
Additionally, publishers will no longer be able to submit YouTube content through Publisher Center for either Google News or Google Assistant. Content creators can still share video content directly on YouTube, which is automatically considered for Google Assistant features.
To help publishers navigate these changes, Google has introduced a new Publisher Center interface designed to assist in managing content across all Google News surfaces.
