Google News automated publication pages to start in March

Google will soon fully transition to automatically generated publication pages next month, in March. Back in April 2024, Google told us Publisher Center will soon stop allowing you to add publications and now this is the next step. This means that all publication pages in Google News will be generated automatically by Google.

What Google said. Google wrote:

Following our announcement in April 2024 last year, Google News will fully transition to automatically generated publication pages in March. This change improves our existing publisher workflow and simplifies our current product experience.

Moving forward, all publication pages in Google News will be generated automatically. As a result, publication pages that had been created by publishers manually will no longer appear to users in Google News. Publisher Center will discontinue customization features for publication pages in Google News, and the Google News tile will no longer appear in Publisher Center.

What is not changing. Google said this has no impact on what content is eligible to appear in Google News or other Google News related surfaces. “Content from publishers that adheres to our content policies is automatically eligible for consideration in Google News and across news surfaces,” Google wrote.

Google will still use its confusing automated methods for determining what is included and not included in Google News.

Also, for Google News Showcase and Reader Revenue Manager, publishers will continue to submit logos through Publisher Center.

What is changing. Here is what is changing:

• Custom sections that were previously created in Google Publisher Center will no longer appear on publisher Google News landing pages.
• Publishers will no longer be able to use Google Publisher Center to customer their logos and publication titles.
• Google News will use a site’s favicon for the publisher logo instead.
• Google News will use the site names for publication titles instead.

Why we care. Google Publisher Center, which was once a really great place for news publishers to control and maintain their publications in Google News, is becoming less and less value to news publishers.

Google wants to automate the process and claims, “This change improves our existing publisher workflow and simplifies our current product experience.” However, I know that news publishers continue to miss the old method for Google News and Publisher Center.