A new report in Google Search Console will help news publishers measure the performance of their content with greater accuracy.
“Today we are launching Google News performance reporting to help news publishers better understand user behavior on Google News on our Android and iOS apps, as well as on news.google.com.”
Site owners can access the new performance report by logging into Search Console and clicking Google News in the navigation menu on the left.
The report is similar to other Search Console reports and includes metrics such as impressions, clicks, and click-through rate (CTR). Data can be segmented by country, devices, and filtered by date.
Search Console’s Google News report can be used to determine how many times a website’s articles have been shown to users in Google News, and how many times those articles have been clicked on.
Previously, it was not possible to isolate this specific set of data, which makes this a meaningful update to publishers.
This report is now active in Search Console for any site that appears in Google News. If you do not see this report for your site it likely means your articles do not frequently appear in Google News.
Publishers used to be required to submit their site to be eligible for the Google News app and website, but that is no longer the case.
All publishers are automatically considered for Google News, the company says, “they just need to produce high-quality content and comply with Google News content policies.”
Publishers aiming to improve their performance in Google News may benefit from signing up to the Google Publisher Center. This is by no means required to appear in Google News, but it does provide a number of benefits which I’ll go over in the next section.
Improve Your Google News Performance With Publisher Center
Now that you can analyze your Google News performance more accurately, it’s time to start looking at ways to improve that performance month over month.
One way you can do that is by signing up to Google Publisher Center. Publisher Center is a tool that allows websites to share content directly with Google News by submitting RSS feeds, website URLs, or videos.
Google will find your news content through normal web crawling, so there’s no need to submit it directly. What Publisher Center offers is greater control over how the content appears, which in turn could improve performance.
Key benefits offered by Publisher Center include:
Content and branding control: Design, brand, and customize your publication’s sections and content in Google News.
Monetization: Run ads inside your content area in the Google News app. The app supports ad serving via Google Ad Manager, including premium solution ads.
Newsstand eligibility: Publications with business terms are eligible to be in the Newsstand section of the Google News app in applicable countries/regions.
Note that submitting a feed through Publisher Center does not guarantee content will be surfaced in Google News, nor will it improve a site’s ranking in Google News.
Source: Google Search Central Blog