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Google News Sitemap Generator

Build a valid Google News XML sitemap from a pasted list of articles, with publication name, language, W3C publication dates and the 1,000-URL limit checked.

news-sitemap.xml

news:keywords is still valid in the 0.9 news schema but Google no longer uses it — leave the column blank if you do not need it. Everything is generated in your browser; no URL is fetched or uploaded.

What is the Google News Sitemap Generator?

A Google News sitemap is an ordinary XML sitemap with the news namespace added, so every URL carries the publication name, the publication language, the article headline and a machine-readable publication date.

  • Correct sitemap 0.9 and news 0.9 namespaces with a valid XML declaration
  • W3C datetime publication dates built from your own UTC offset
  • Every value XML-escaped, including ampersands and angle brackets in headlines
  • Warns past 1,000 URLs and flags articles older than Google News' two-day window
  • Accepts comma, tab, semicolon or pipe separated rows with quoted fields
  • Copy or download news-sitemap.xml — nothing is uploaded

How to use the Google News Sitemap Generator

  1. 1

    Enter your publication name and its ISO 639-1 language code, plus the UTC offset your publishing times use.

  2. 2

    Paste one article per line: URL, headline, publication date, and optional keywords.

  3. 3

    Read the issue list — invalid URLs, missing headlines and unreadable dates are called out per row.

  4. 4

    Check the article count against the 1,000-URL limit and the stale-article warning.

  5. 5

    Copy the XML or download news-sitemap.xml and upload it to your site root.

About the Google News Sitemap Generator

A Google News sitemap is an ordinary XML sitemap with the news namespace added, so every URL carries the publication name, the publication language, the article headline and a machine-readable publication date. Paste your articles as a simple table and this generator writes the file for you, escaping every value so a stray ampersand cannot break the XML.

It also watches the two rules publishers trip over most: a news sitemap may list at most 1,000 URLs, and Google only crawls articles published in the last two days. Both are reported as you type, along with unreadable dates, missing headlines and URLs that are not absolute.

Everything runs 100% locally in your browser. Your unpublished headlines and URLs are never uploaded, and no site is crawled — the tool works purely on the rows you paste in.

Frequently asked questions

How many URLs can a Google News sitemap have?

A news sitemap may contain a maximum of 1,000 URLs. If you publish more than that in a two-day window, split the articles across several news sitemaps and list them all in a sitemap index file.

How old can articles in a news sitemap be?

Google News only crawls articles published in the last two days, so anything older should be removed from the file. This tool counts how many of your rows fall outside that window and warns you before you upload.

Do I still need news:keywords in a news sitemap?

No. Google removed news:keywords, news:genres and news:access from its documented requirements, so the tag is optional. It remains valid in the 0.9 news schema, so the column is emitted only when you fill it in.

Should a news sitemap replace my regular sitemap?

No, it sits alongside it. Keep your normal XML sitemap covering the whole site and add a separate news sitemap listing only recent articles, then reference both from your robots.txt or a sitemap index.

What date format does news:publication_date need?

It needs W3C datetime: either a complete date like 2026-01-05 or a full timestamp with an offset like 2026-01-05T09:30:00+00:00. This generator writes whichever form matches what you entered.

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