Table of Contents
The WordPress News Plugin gives you the ability to build and generate a human-readable Google News Sitemap to submit to Search Console for News Publisher. It is easy to use and well-documented.
Instructions
The News sitemap details page in the Search Console displays errors and warnings about potential issues Google found. The table below explains common Google News Sitemap errors and warnings defined by Search Console and how to resolve them.
News publishers should attempt to address errors as soon as possible using these instructions. After you fix an error, rebuild your news sitemap by updating or publishing a post and re-submit it to Search Console.
Note: It can take up to a day for Google to crawl and process the re-submitted sitemap, so you might continue to see error messages during this time.
News Sitemap Errors
Note: For general sitemap issues, read the Search Console article on sitemap errors.
| Error | Description | How to fix |
|---|---|---|
| Too many News URLs | More than our specified maximum number of URLs (1,000) appear in the sitemap file. | Break your sitemap into several smaller sitemaps, and list these in a sitemap index file. Then, upload and submit these files. You can email us to hire WP News Plugins for news sitemap customizations, including this feature. |
| Unknown news site | Your sitemap is on a site that isn’t in the Google News database. Google News can only accept sitemaps from sites that we crawl. | Check that the URL of your sitemap matches the URLs of your articles as they appear on Google News, including any leading “www.” If you’d like to request inclusion of your site in Google News, apply for inclusion within the Google News Publisher Center. You can email us to hire WP News Plugins for news site optimization, and to ensure you meet the technical guidelines. |
| Unresolved news source | At least one URL in your sitemap is on a host that isn’t in the Google News database. Google News can only accept sitemaps from hosts that we crawl. | Check that the URL of your sitemap matches the URLs of each of your articles as they appear on Google News, including any leading “www.” |
| Unresolved news section | At least one URL in your sitemap can’t be matched to a section in the Google News database. Google News sitemaps can only contain URLs from sites that we crawl. | Check that the URL of your sitemap matches the URLs of each of your articles as they appear on Google News, including any leading “www.” |
| Unexpected publication name | The publication name specified in your sitemap doesn’t match the publication name we have for your site in our database. | Make sure the publication name in your sitemap <news:name> tag exactly matches the publication name displayed for your articles in Google News. To check your site’s publication name, run a site search [site:example.com] on the Google News homepage. 1. If your publication name is outdated, update your site name. 2. In the WP Menu, go to WPNews => Publisher => General => Publication Source Details. Ensure your Publication Name exactly how it appears on Google News. |
| Unexpected language | The language specified in your sitemap doesn’t match our record of your news source information. | Check that you’ve specified your language code correctly for each article. Language should be in Language Code (2 or 3 letters).Exception: For Simplified Chinese, use “zh-cn,” and for Traditional Chinese, use “zh-tw.” You can also check our record of your site language in the Google News Publisher Center under Details > Language.Your source was originally accepted into News for a given language, so you cannot update your site language within the Publisher Center. If your edition has changed languages, re-apply for inclusion within the Google News Publisher Center. |
Missing <publication>tag | Each URL in a News sitemap must have a <publication> tag. | Add a publication tag to each of the article URLs in your news sitemap. In the WP Menu, go to WPNews => Publisher => General => Publication Source Details. Enter your Publication Name exactly how it appears on Google News. |
| Invalid publication label | The publication label that you selected when submitting this sitemap doesn’t correspond to a known publication in the Google News database. | To check your site’s publication name and language, run a site: search [site:example.com] on the Google News homepage and review your articles. Include this publication information in your sitemap by updating to the new format, which involves attaching a <publication>tag and other relevant tags to each URL in your sitemap. In the WP Menu, go to WPNews => Publisher => General => Publication Source Details. Ensure your Publication Name exactly how it appears on Google News. |