Best SEO Checklist
ONE FOCUSED ACTION

Implement News-Specific Sitemap for Fresh Content Crawl Priority.

Crawl-budget optimization

1 checklist items

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    Why this matters

    Using a dedicated news sitemap helps search engines prioritize crawling of timely news articles, improving indexation speed and ensuring critical news content is discovered quickly.

    A STARTING-POINT EXAMPLE

    Hypothetical standard operating procedure

    Adapt this example to your site, access, tools, and change process. It is our suggested procedure, informed by the sources below.

    1. Create a news sitemap XML following the Google News sitemap specification.
    2. Include only articles published within the last 48 hours in the news sitemap.
    3. Remove or move articles older than two days from the news sitemap to the regular sitemap.
    4. Submit the news sitemap URL to Google via Search Console and ping the sitemap to notify changes.
    5. Monitor crawl frequency and index status for news URLs using Search Console crawl stats and coverage reports.

    Watch for

    Including outdated articles in the news sitemap can dilute crawl priority from fresh content; remove articles older than two days from the news sitemap promptly.

    Definition of done

    Googlebot regularly crawls entries in the news sitemap, and fresh articles appear indexed within days.

    Sources & attribution

    1. Crawl Budget Optimization Guide ↗

    Original checklist wording and example SOP by Best SEO Checklist, using source-grounded AI assistance. Editorial contact: Ted Kubaitis, @tedkubaitis on Teams. Check current source guidance before implementation.