News sitemap generator
List your fresh articles for Google News with the publication details it expects, and none of the stale ones it doesn't want.
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How it works
A news sitemap is a separate sitemap that lists only articles published in the last two days. Google News uses it to find new stories quickly. Older articles should drop out of the news sitemap (they stay in your regular sitemap).
The publication name must match the name Google News shows for your site, exactly, and the language is an ISO 639 code.
The rules
- Declare xmlns:news="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-news/0.9".
- Only articles from the last 2 days; at most 1,000 <url> entries per news sitemap.
- Required: <news:publication> with <news:name> and <news:language>, <news:publication_date>, <news:title>.
- Update the file as you publish, and don't create a new sitemap per update.
Source: Google: News sitemaps. Check the finished file with the sitemap validator; it recognises all four extensions.
Questions people ask
Do I need a news sitemap to be in Google News?
No. Google News finds articles by crawling too. A news sitemap speeds up discovery for publishers who publish often.
What happens to articles older than 48 hours?
Remove them from the news sitemap. They can and should stay in your normal XML sitemap.
Which date format should publication_date use?
W3C Datetime, ideally with time and timezone, e.g.
2026-09-27T08:30:00+00:00.