Google has published a simple guide outlining best practices for websites that serve breaking news.
Specifically, this guide focuses on the tools news outlets can use to deliver data-rich and engaging experiences to their readers.
Here are some highlights from the guide.
Article structured data
Google strongly recommends adding article structured data to your AMP pages. This will allow those pages to be enhanced in search results.
Enhanced features include:
- Placement in the Top Stores Carousel
- Placement in the host carousel
- Articles rendered as visual stories
Google informs publishers that they can use the Rich Results Testing Tool to test and validate the markup of their AMP articles.
“When you enter a page’s URL or code snippet, the Rich Results Test will show you the AMP articles (and other rich result types) found on the page, as well as any errors or suggestions for the AMP articles. Save your test history and You can also share your test results.”
Finally, for article structured data, Google recommends providing a publication date. This lets searchers know how recent the article is.
Live stream markup
Sites that offer live streaming video during an event are eligible to display the “LIVE” badge in search results by marking up the video with BroadcastEvent structured data.
Google also recommends using the Indexing API for optimal crawling and indexing.
“We highly recommend using the Indexing API to ensure that your live streaming video content is crawled and indexed in a timely manner. The Indexing API allows site owners to add specific types of Google can be notified directly when a page is added or removed, so that Google can schedule the page for new crawling and, as content is updated, more relevant user traffic. We may be connected.”
Refresh the Google AMP Cache
A site can force a refresh of the Google AMP Cache by sending a refresh request. This is useful when the page changes in response to live news events.
Use news-related components on your AMP pages
Google recommends using the following news-related AMP components:
: Adds live content to the article and updates it based on the source document. : Run your own JavaScript inside an AMP page. This flexibility means that anything you publish on desktop or non-AMP mobile pages can be migrated to AMP.
See Google’s complete guide for more information.
