Dave

Simple News XML Sitemap Generator creates an XML sitemap optimized for news services like Google News, making it easier for your content to be indexed by news search engines.
The plugin is easy to use: once activated, the sitemap is automatically generated and updated every time you publish a new post.
<h4>Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Generates an XML sitemap compliant with news service specifications </li>
<li>Automatically updates when new posts are published </li>
<li>Full support for standard WordPress posts </li>
<li>Automatically includes articles from the past 2 days </li>
<li>Automatically pings Google and Bing when new content is published </li>
<li>Optimized for performance and security </li>
</ul>
<h4>How to use the plugin</h4>
<ol>
<li>Activate the plugin </li>
<li>Go to the “News XML Sitemap” page in the dashboard menu </li>
<li>Copy the sitemap URL </li>
<li>Add the URL to your Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools panel </li>
</ol>
<h4>Pro Tip</h4>
After updating the plugin, it’s recommended to go to Settings > Permalinks and click “Save Changes” to ensure the sitemap works correctly.
<h3>External Services</h3>
This plugin automatically notifies Google and Bing whenever a new News XML sitemap is generated or updated.
<ul>
<li>Data sent: the URL of the News XML sitemap. </li>
<li>Data is sent via HTTP GET requests to the following addresses:
<ul>
<li>https://www.google.com/ping?sitemap= </li>
<li>https://www.bing.com/ping?sitemap= </li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>This helps search engines discover newly published news content more quickly.</li>
</ul>
Service policies: 
– Google: https://policies.google.com/terms, https://policies.google.com/privacy 
– Microsoft Bing: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/servicesagreement/, https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement

Simple News XML Sitemap Generator

Generates an XML sitemap optimized for news services following official guidelines for advanced indexing.

Olav Kolbu

Google aggregates news from over 4500 news sources, updated 
continously. The results can be retrieved as a number of 
RSS feeds, where you can create your own specific feed by 
specifying one of more than 40 regions/languages, and an 
optional topic ranging from Domestic to Most Popular to 
Entertainment. Currently there are nine topics, including, 
of course, All. In addition to this, any feed can be filtered 
through a search query so that only news items matching your 
query will be shown. Note that not all combinations of 
region/language and topic has been enabled by Google but 
it should degrade gracefully.
This plugin works both as a widget, as inline content 
replacement and can be called from themes. Any number of 
inline replacements or theme calls allowed, but only one 
widget instance is supported in this release.
For widget use, simply use the widget as any other after 
selecting which feed it should display. For inline content 
replacement, insert the one or more of the following strings in 
your content and they will be replaced by the relevant news feed. 
For theme use, add the do_action function call described below.
<ol>
<li><code></code> for the default feed</li>
<li><code></code></li>
</ol>
Shortcodes can be used if you have WordPress 2.5 or above, 
in which case these replacement methods are also available.
<ol>
<li><code>[google-news]</code> for the default feed</li>
<li><code>[google-news name="feedname"]</code></li>
</ol>
Calling the plugin from a theme is done with the WP do_action() 
system. This will degrade gracefully and not produce errors 
or output if plugin is disabled or removed.
<ol>
<li><code><?php do_action('google_news'); ?></code> for the default feed</li>
<li><code><?php do_action('google_news', 'feedname'); ?></code></li>
</ol>
Enable plugin, go to the Google News page under 
Dashboard->Settings and read the initial information. Then 
go to the Google News page under Dashboard->Manage and 
configure one or more feeds. Then use a widget or insert 
relevant strings in your content or theme.
Additional information:
The available options are as follows.
Name: Optional feed name, that can be used in the 
widget or the inline replacement string to reference 
a specific feed. Any feed without a name is considered 
“default” and will be used if the replacement strings do 
not reference a specific feed. If there are more than 
one feed with the same name, a random of these is picked 
every time it is used. This also applies to the default 
feed(s).
Title: Optional, which when set will be used in the 
widget title or as a header above the news items when 
inline. If the title is empty, then a default title 
of “Google News : <region> : <feed type>” is used. Note 
that as per Google Terms of Service it is a requirement 
to state that the news come from Google.
News region: A dropdown list of 40 choices, determining 
the region/language of the feed.
News type: Another dropdown list, determining what type of 
news you are after. Sci/Tech, Business, Health etc.
Output type: Some Google feeds come with just text, 
some pictures or pictures on nearly every news item. Chose 
which one you want here.
News item length: Short or long. The short version is really just 
the news item title as a one liner but probably the one most 
WP admins will use. The long version is a 3-4 line teaser that 
has been severely stripped of useless markup that Google insists 
on passing along, including tables, links, colour/font/style 
settings etc. I’ve tried to clean it up so it won’t mess up your 
theme. For the short version, the long text without html tags is 
available as a mouse rollover/tooltip.
Max items to show: As the title says, if the feed has 
sufficient entries to fulfil the request.
Optional query filter: One of the most important parts of 
the Google News RSS Feed is the ability to filter the news 
with your very own search query. Get relevant, up to date 
news on the exact topic you want. Note that if you add a 
search query, then the short item length will include an 
“all N news articles” link curtesy Google. If you choose 
to add a query, then you most likely want to set a title 
as well. To explain to the viewer what kind of news you have 
selected for them to see. The News Query isn’t like a standard 
Google Query, so you can’t use || between words to search 
for one or the other. So IFF you start your query with 
the word OR then the rest of the words will be or’ed 
together. I.e. a query string of ‘OR this that’ will look 
for news containing either this or that. This is really 
just a test, so the actual query language used here may change in 
future versions.
Cache time: The feeds are now fetched using WordPress 
builtin MagpieRSS system, which allows for caching of feeds 
a specific number of seconds. Cached feeds are stored in 
the backend database.
Clicking on a news item will of course take you via Google to 
the news site with the relevant article, as per Google Terms of Use.
If you want to change the look&feel, the inline table is 
wrapped in a div with the id “google-news-inline” and the 
widget is wrapped in an li with id “google-news”. Let me 
know if you need more to properly skin it.
<a href="https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/google-news.zip" rel="nofollow ugc">Download now!</a>
<a href="http://www.kolbu.com/2008/04/07/google-news-plugin/" rel="nofollow ugc">Support</a>
<a href="http://www.kolbu.com/donations/" rel="nofollow ugc">Donate</a>

Google News

Displays news items from selectable Google News RSS feeds, inline, as a widget or in a theme. Multiple feeds allowed. Query filters and caching.

Simple News XML Sitemap Generator vs Google News