Google on Tuesday released new search features intended to give more visibility to local news content when searchers are looking for information about their communities.

The company said it has expanded a feature previously rolled out for COVID searches that adds a carousel of local news stories when relevant to a searcher’s query. For example, a search on “football” may bring up stories on local sports.

Why we care. Local news organizations depend on organic search traffic and, according to Google, queries like “news near me” have tripled in the past five years. Unfortunately, that also comes as local news companies continue to struggle for survival. According to The Poynter Institue, a journalism advocacy group, more than 90 local news organizations closed during the pandemic. That’s on top of declines that have stretched back years. In 2019, the New York Times reported that 1 in 15 U.S. newspapers had closed in the past 15 years.

So, it’s certainly good that Google is finding ways to give the surviving local news ecosystem more visibility.

Read next: Google News app will display non-AMP content and send readers to publisher pages

Not just news sources. In addition to adding the local news carousel, Google also is adding a “Popular on Twitter” carousel for queries on local news topics. While local news organization tweets may be included, the feature will also pull in tweets from a range of sources it deems to have local authority on those topics.

Remaining questions. The new features are noble and timely, especially as COVID created closer bonds with homes and local communities. What will be interesting to see is whether the added visibility benefits the most vulnerable local publishers. While regional dailies and local TV affiliates have not been spared by declines in local publishing, community weeklies, alt-weeklies and other niche local publications struggle the most. Will they be able to compete for slots in these carousels?

“Any publisher’s content is eligible to rank within the carousel if their content is relevant to what a reader is searching for,” said Meghann Farnsworth, a Google spokesperson. “Publishers with more Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness for a given topic or location will rank accordingly.”

But Google acknowledged that the new carousel is not reserved for local publishers, just local content.

“Local news includes sources with news about the user’s location, which is often local publishers but can sometimes include national reporting as well,” said Farnsworth.

News SEO. These new features also highlight why good SEO is essential for local news organizations. Inclusion in Google News (if you can even get in), authoritative news content that demonstrates E-A-T and a speedy website with good UX all help determine SERP visibility, even for smaller local audiences.

Here’s what the local news carousel looks like.

The post Google adds local news features to search, giving publishers more exposure appeared first on Search Engine Land.

As part of the page experience update, Google News will be displaying both AMP and non-AMP web content, the company announced in an email to publishers on Friday. The platform will also no longer render article text from RSS feeds in the Google News app; instead, it will send readers directly to publishers’ webpages.

AMP no longer required. “In the coming weeks the Google News app will improve its support for web content, displaying both AMP and non-AMP web content with more regularity from sites worldwide,” the company said in the announcement. 

The AMP framework was previously a requirement to be included in Google News. Now that Google has gotten rid of the requirement, the platform may be a more viable way to attract readers for publishers that didn’t adopt AMP.

“We’ll send readers directly to publishers’ web pages.” Google News will also no longer render article text provided via RSS feeds. As such, the platform is sending readers straight to the publisher’s content hosted on their own site.

The company is also removing functionality in Publisher Center related to feed-based article rendering, including custom Analytics tracking IDs, third-party tracking pixels, custom RSS styling and feed ads. These functionalities are scheduled to be removed in early November.

No change to the way you track traffic. “You will still be able to track and measure all of your Google News traffic through your web site’s existing analytics tracking,” the company said, “Google News performance reports in Search Console will also be unaffected.”

Why we care. We’ve known for some time that the Top stories carousel would be open to non-AMP content, but now we know the same will go for the Google News app. The AMP requirement for Google News may have been a barrier for some publishers, but now that it’s going by the wayside, those publishers may want to get their content onto the platform to potentially attract more readers.

And, as Google stated in the announcement, the Google News performance reports in Search Console are unaffected and your ability to track and measure traffic from Google News remains unchanged.

The post Google News app will display non-AMP content and send readers to publisher pages appeared first on Search Engine Land.