Google News Publisher Center 2026: step-by-step application and E-E-A-T criteria

Getting featured on Google News brings a significant multiplier effect for news and information sites. But since 2024, Publisher Center approval has become much stricter. We spent 3 weeks preparing our memuratamalari.com application. This post is a summary of our experience.

1. Core requirement: E-E-A-T

Google updated E-A-T to E-E-A-T in March 2024. An additional "Experience" was added.

• Experience: Has the content creator actually lived through the topic?
• Expertise: Are they an expert?
• Authoritativeness: Are they an authority figure on the topic?
• Trust: Are they trustworthy?

These four pillars should be visible on every page. How?

2. Author profiles

Each author must have their own page. We created 7 author profiles.

Each profile includes:

• First + last name + photo (real, not stock)
• Biography (200-300 words, demonstrating experience in the topic)
• Social media links (LinkedIn stands out)
• List of their articles (automatically updated)
• Email or contact form
• Schema.org Person markup:

{
 "@type": "Person",
 "name": "Ayşe Kaya",
 "jobTitle": "Public personnel reporter",
 "alumniOf": "Ankara University",
 "sameAs": ["https://linkedin.com/in/ayse-kaya"]
}

3. Editorial policy page

/editoryal-politika page — News won't accept without this.

Content structure:

• News selection criteria: What topics you cover
• Source verification process: How you verify information
• Correction policy: How you correct errors if you make them
• Image usage rights: Where you source images from
• Sponsored content policy: How you mark advertised content

Minimum 800 words, with concrete examples. Saying "We make corrections" isn't enough; you need to say "Corrections are made within 12 hours, old text remains with strike-through, correction note is added at the end of the post."

4. Disclosure pages

• /kunye — Company/publication information (address, tax ID, ownership)
• /iletisim — Contact with editor
• /gizlilik-politikasi — Data processing
• /reklam-politikasi — Advertising relationships
• /duzeltme-politikasi — Error correction process

Every page must be accessible from the footer.

5. URL structure and sitemap

News sitemap must be separate: /news-sitemap.xml

Rules:

• News published within the last 48 hours
• Max 1,000 URLs
• Each URL has <news:news> tag
• Publication date is critical

Example:

<url>
 <loc>https://memuratamalari.com/kpss-2026-basvurulari-basladi</loc>
 <news:news>
 <news:publication>
 <news:name>Memur Atamaları</news:name>
 <news:language>tr</news:language>
 </news:publication>
 <news:publication_date>2026-04-18T10:00:00+03:00</news:publication_date>
 <news:title>KPSS 2026 başvuruları başladı</news:title>
 </news:news>
</url>

6. Article Schema.org on every page

In the JSON-LD of every news page:

{
 "@type": "NewsArticle",
 "headline": "...",
 "image": [...],
 "datePublished": "2026-04-18T10:00:00+03:00",
 "dateModified": "2026-04-18T10:30:00+03:00",
 "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Ayşe Kaya", "url": "/yazar/ayse-kaya" },
 "publisher": {
 "@type": "Organization",
 "name": "Memur Atamaları",
 "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "..." }
 }
}

7. Application process

1. Go to publishercenter.google.com 2. "Add new publication" 3. Site URL + name + logo + brand color 4. Select category (news / magazine / niche) 5. Verify feed (RSS or sitemap) 6. Wait: 7-21 days

If rejected:

• E-E-A-T deficiency
• Content originality (rejection if spun content is detected)
• Ad density
• Navigation problems

8. After acceptance

After acceptance:

• Visibility when searching in the Google News app
• "Top stories" in Google News widget
• Chance to be included in Android Discover feed

Traffic impact: our goal for memuratamalari is 1.5x organic growth after 3 months.

You can do it too

If you run a news, blog, or niche magazine site, Google News integration can be a traffic multiplier. Application preparation takes 2-3 weeks, acceptance process 2-4 weeks. Permanent traffic after a total 1-2 month investment.

We can review your site's status together with a free 30-minute audit.