Ranking in Google News: A News & Video Sitemap Strategy
Client: A high-volume digital news publisher.
Challenges We Faced
The client produced great content but wasn’t appearing in “Top Stories” or Google News:
Slow Indexing
Breaking news articles took 4-5 hours to get indexed, by which time the story was old news.
Video Content Invisible
Their high-quality video reports weren’t appearing in the “Video” tab of search results.
Missing “Google News” Sitemap
They were using a standard XML sitemap, not the specific News Sitemap required for the carousel
Crawl Errors
GSC showed thousands of “Submitted URL not found (404)” errors due to an old sitemap plugin.
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Our Approach – How We Solved These Challenges
XML Sitemap Creation & Optimization (News Specific)
We installed and configured a dedicated Google News Sitemap plugin that only included articles published in the last 48 hours (per Google guidelines).
Image & Video Sitemaps
We implemented a Video Sitemap that included the thumbnail, title, description, and duration for every video, submitting it to GSC.
Crawl Error & Indexing Audits
We fixed the plugin error that was generating 404s in the sitemap, ensuring 100% of submitted URLs were valid 200 OK pages.
Technical SEO (Indexation)
We set up IndexNow protocol to instantly ping Google/Bing whenever a new post went live.
Results
| Metric | Before | After | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to Index (New Articles) | 4.5 hours | < 10 minutes | 96% Faster |
| Impressions from “Top Stories” | 50,000/mo | 450,000/mo | +800% |
| Video Search Traffic | < 100/mo | 15,000/mo | +14,900% |
Free Sitemap Audit
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Advice for Marketers & Brand Owners
- News sites need News Sitemaps. A standard sitemap isn’t enough to get you into the “Top Stories” carousel.
- Speed is everything. Use IndexNow or instant indexing APIs to alert Google the second you hit publish.
- Don’t ignore video. A Video Sitemap is the only way to tell Google exactly what your video content is about.
Extra Factors That Made It Work
- The dedicated Google News Sitemap was the key to unlocking the “Top Stories” carousel.
- The Video Sitemap allowed their content to rank in the less-competitive “Video” tab on Google.
- Fixing the 404 errors in the sitemap restored Google’s trust in the site’s technical health.
