Our content and behaviour policies help ensure a positive experience for our users and publishers. To be eligible to appear in Google News or news surfaces, content should follow best practices for article pages and must not violate Google Search’s overall policies, Google Search’s spam policies or these policies for Search features:
- Dangerous content
- Deceptive practices
- Harassing content
- Hateful content
- Manipulated media
- Medical content
- Sexually explicit content
- Violent extremist content
- Violent and gory content
- Vulgar language and profanity
Google News also has these feature-specific policies:
Ads and sponsored content
Advertising and other paid promotional material on your pages shouldn’t exceed your content. We don’t allow content that conceals or misrepresents sponsored content as independent, editorial content. Sponsorship, including, but not limited to, ownership or affiliate interest, payment or material support, should be clearly disclosed to readers. The subject of sponsored content shouldn’t focus on the sponsor without clear disclosure.
Tip: Publishers should be aware of the new site reputation abuse policy that becomes effective as of 5 May 2024. Learn more here.
Misleading content
We don't allow preview content that misleads users to engage with it by promising details that aren't reflected in the underlying content.
Transparency
Visitors to your site want to trust and understand who writes and publishes the content that they read. That's why news sources on Google should provide:
- Clear dates and bylines
- Information about the authors, publication and publisher
- Information about the company or network behind the content
- Contact information
Learn more about our transparency policy for Google News.
When we find content or behaviour that violates these policies, we may remove the content from our news surfaces. In cases of repeated or egregious violations, a site may no longer be eligible to appear on our news surfaces.
We may make exceptions to these policies based on artistic, educational, historical, documentary or scientific considerations, or where there are other substantial benefits to the public.
Tip: These policies only apply to news surfaces. Content ineligible for news surfaces may continue to appear elsewhere in Search, as long as the content and behaviour comply with any relevant policies.
Find manual actions against your news site
If your site violates Google News content policies, you may find manual actions against your site in your Search Console account under 'Security and manual actions'.
Learn more about the types of violations and how to fix them.