Google news sitemaps
The Google news sitemap rules,
as documented
What Google documents, in its own words. Verified from Google's page on 2026-10-09.
Google's page explains how news publishers use sitemaps to tell Google about new articles. This page lists those statements with the exact wording from Google.
What Google says
| Topic | What Google says | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | “If you are a news publisher, use news sitemaps to tell Google about your news articles and additional information about them.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| Two options | “You can either extend your existing sitemap with news specific tags, or create a separate news sitemap that's reserved just for your news articles.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| Separate sitemap | “creating a separate sitemap just for your news articles may enable better tracking of your content in Search in Search Console.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| Fresh articles | “Update your news sitemap with fresh articles as they're published. Don't create a new sitemap with each update.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| Two days | “Only include recent URLs for articles that were created in the last two days.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| Older articles | “Once the articles are older than two days, either remove those URLs from the news sitemap or remove the <news:news> metadata in your sitemap from the older URLs.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| Empty sitemap | “You may see an Empty Sitemap warning in Search Console, but this is just to make sure it was intentional on your behalf.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| Empty file | “It won't cause any problems with Google Search if the file is empty.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| news:news | “Each url sitemap tag can have only one news:news tag (plus the respective closing tag) and a sitemap may have up to 1,000 news:news tags.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| Over 1,000 | “If there are more than 1,000 <news:news> tags in a news sitemap, split your sitemap into several smaller sitemaps.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| news:name | “It must exactly match the name as it appears on your articles on news.google.com, omitting anything in parentheses.”Required tag. | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| news:language | “Use an ISO 639 language code (two or three letters).”Required tag. | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| news:publication_date | “Specify the original date and time when the article was first published on your site. Don't specify the time when you added the article to your sitemap.”Required tag. | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| news:title | “Include the title of the article as it appears on your site. Don't include the author name, publication name, or publication date in the <news:title> tag.”Required tag. | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
How to apply it
A checklist built only from the guidance in Google's page.
- Choose between extending your sitemap with news tags and a separate news sitemap.
- Add news:news with publication name, language, publication date and title for each article.
- Match news:name to the publication name on news.google.com, without anything in parentheses.
- Keep only articles from the last two days, and split the file past 1,000 news:news tags.
- Check the sitemap in Search Console for errors.
Questions
Which tags are required in a news sitemap?
Google lists news:news, news:publication, news:name, news:language, news:publication_date and news:title.
How long should an article stay in a news sitemap?
Google says to include only URLs for articles created in the last two days.
Is an empty news sitemap a problem?
Google says it won't cause any problems with Google Search, though Search Console may show an Empty Sitemap warning.
How many articles can one news sitemap hold?
Google says a sitemap may have up to 1,000 news:news tags, and to split it into smaller sitemaps beyond that.
Which date goes in news:publication_date?
Google says to give the original date and time the article was first published on your site, not when it was added to the sitemap.
How current is this page?
Every quote was read from Google's page on 2026-10-09. The page showed "Last updated 2025-12-10 UTC". Google can change its documentation, so treat the linked page as the final word.
Sources
- News sitemaps (Google Search Central), read on 2026-10-09
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