Google News shifts to automated publication pages

Google has completed its transition to automatically generated publication pages in Google News, a move announced 11 months ago that fundamentally changes how publisher content appears on the platform. The shift, which was finalized in late March 2025, eliminates several publisher controls previously available through the Publisher Center interface.

According to Google's announcement published on February 10, 2025, "All publication pages in Google News will be generated automatically. Google News will no longer use RSS feeds or web locations that were submitted in Publisher Center." This marks the culmination of changes that began with an earlier announcement in April 2024.

The transition impacts multiple aspects of publisher presence on Google News. Publication pages that publishers manually created will no longer appear to users, with Google's algorithms now determining content presentation. Some publications may not have an automatically-generated landing page at all, potentially affecting their visibility in Google's news ecosystem.

Google's official documentation states that Publisher Center will "discontinue nonessential customization features for publication pages in Google News, and the Google News tile will no longer appear in Publisher Center." This represents a significant shift in how news publishers interact with Google's news services.

Impact on publisher content visibility

The changes do not alter the fundamental eligibility criteria for content to appear in Google News. Content from publishers remains automatically eligible for consideration across news surfaces if it adheres to Google's content policies.

According to Google's documentation, "Our systems automatically identify and rank eligible content based on factors like relevance, prominence, authoritativeness, freshness, location, and language." The company maintains that its algorithmic systems will continue to surface quality news content.

Publishers previously controlled various aspects of their Google News presence, including custom sections, logos, publication titles, and geographic distribution settings. All these publisher controls have been eliminated or significantly altered.

Custom sections previously created in Publisher Center will no longer appear on publisher Google News landing pages. Publishers who invested time in organizing content into topic-based sections must now rely on Google's automated systems to categorize their reporting.

The changes extend beyond mere organizational structure. Publishers can no longer use Publisher Center to customize how their logo and publication title appears in Google News. Instead, Google News will automatically use site favicons for publisher logos and site names for publication titles.

Google recommends publishers follow best practices for favicons and site names to ensure proper representation. This includes defining a favicon to show in Google Search results and providing a site name to Google Search through appropriate metadata.

Distribution changes and limitations

The transition also impacts publishers' ability to control geographic distribution of their content. Previously, publishers could restrict content distribution to specific regions through Publisher Center settings. The new system eliminates this control mechanism for standard news content.

According to Google's announcement, "By default, links to your content in Google News are available to users worldwide. To streamline publisher setup, starting next month, publishers will no longer be able to use Publisher Center to restrict their content from appearing in certain countries, with the exception of News Showcase panels."

The only exception to this change involves News Showcase publishers, who will retain the ability to use Publisher Center to allow or block users in specific countries from seeing News Showcase panels. All other publishers lose geographic distribution controls.

Users will now find content in Google News according to their language and region preferences, rather than publisher-defined geographic boundaries. Google directs users to learn how to check or change their Google News settings to control what content they see.

Technical changes affecting voice assistants

The transformation extends to voice assistant integration as well. Google Assistant's text-to-speech feature, which responds to user queries about specific news topics by reading article snippets, will undergo significant changes.

News content on the web may be used in Google Assistant's text-to-speech feature to respond to user queries about specific news topics (example: "Play news about bitcoin") within the US. However, Google is discontinuing this feature outside the United States.

Publishers wanting to block content from being part of this user experience must implement technical solutions on their websites. According to Google's documentation, "To block your content from being part of this user experience, you can use the nopagereadaloud HTML meta tag on your website."

Video news considerations

The changes also impact video news distribution. Publishers will no longer be able to use Publisher Center to submit YouTube content for consideration in Google News or Google Assistant.

Google notes that "publishers can continue sharing their video content on YouTube" and that "YouTube content is also automatically considered for Google Assistant." This effectively consolidates video news distribution through YouTube rather than allowing separate submission through Publisher Center.

Industry observers documented the transition as it unfolded. Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable reported on March 31, 2025, "Last month we reported that Google News Publisher Center changes are coming, well those changes should have happened and been fully completed by today."

The Search Engine Roundtable further noted, "In fact, that help document page was significantly updated, so those who do SEO for news publishers are a news publisher themselves, should review it."

Evolution of publisher tools at Google

This transition represents a continuation of Google's efforts to streamline how news content appears across its platforms. The company has made multiple changes to its publisher tools in recent years.

According to industry reports from February, Google said the confusing changes made in 2019 for inclusion in Google News that upset publishers will not change, although the company indicated they would improve it. Revenue manager functionality will remain available in Publisher Center.

For Google News Showcase and Reader Revenue Manager, publishers will continue to submit logos through Publisher Center, indicating that these particular services will maintain some level of publisher customization.

The changes come amid ongoing discussions about the relationship between technology platforms and news publishers globally. While Google frames these changes as improvements to publisher workflow and user experience, they effectively reduce publisher control over how their content appears on Google News.

Google's optimization of its news ecosystem continues to evolve as the company balances algorithmic distribution with publisher needs. The full impact of these changes on news publisher visibility and traffic remains to be seen as the industry adapts to the new automated publication pages system.

Timeline

• April 2024: Google announces future transition to automatically generated publication pages
• February 10, 2025: Google publishes detailed announcement about upcoming changes
• March 20, 2025: Google updates documentation with implementation details
• Late March 2025: Full transition to automatically generated publication pages completed
• March 31, 2025: Industry confirmation that transition has been implemented