Guid permalink is false

  • Hello. I am working for a local magazine and we prepared our website(s) with the goal of appearing in Google News. We have published a lot of pages ready, but since months there are no results in search. We asked Google for support about the issue and they pointed out at the RSS which is being generated having <guid isPermaLink=”false”> while it should be <guid isPermaLink=”true”> since we use full links.

    Google also points out how both <description> and <content:encoded> are being used while only one should be picked.

    Is there anything we can do with the plug-in to solve this issue? We do not have any coding expertise so it is hard to change anything related to PHP.

    Thank you for your attention.

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

  • Hi Notipedia,

    I’m sorry and embarrassed for Google to say this, but they are incorrect. The plugin is fine.

    It is working on thousands of other sites without problems.

    A couple of things to know – there are basically two parts of Google News:

    1) Newsstand – this is what you apply for and provide a feed for. When you are approved, that gives you a followable Publication in Google News.

    2) Google News – as in the home (https://news.google.com), sections and search results pages.

    Being in Newsstand does not make your articles rank in Google News (home/section/search-results pages). It used to be that you applied for Google News and would rank in Google News if approved. That is no longer the case.

    According to Google, ranking in Google News is now determined automatically by an algorithm. You don’t even have to apply anymore to be included.

    However, many publishers have struggled mightily to be included in the rankings and have not been successful. Some are pretty good news sites, and they still can’t get in. It’s really hard to break into right now. As a Platinum level Google News Product Expert, I have been advocating for them to improve the current system. It stinks right now.

    Ranking in Google News is not dependent on the rss feed at all. The rss feed is for use in the Publisher Center, which sets up your Publication in Newsstand.

    Now, let’s talk about your Publication. Currently it just says “no items to display”.

    If you are seeing articles in your preview pane in the Publisher Center, but getting that “no items” on the front end, this is an issue on Google’s end. The problem has been widely discussed on the Google News Publisher forum . The experience you are having is not limited to publishers that are using GN Publisher.

    In fact, there seems to be a growing number of issues related to articles not being indexed, not being refreshed, and not being displayed on publications. More and more publishers are complaining about this – which is a good thing… the more it breaks down and publishers complain, the more likely they are to fix it.

    I have been in touch with the Google News team about all of these issues, I have not received a timeline for when they might fix it.

    So… right now, there’s nothing you or I can do about it. We are waiting for the engineers to address it,

    Chris

    Thread Starter notipedia

    (@notipedia)

    I don’t want to contradict you, but going to see the feed (cinemalefica.it/feed/gn) You can clearly see that the guid url is a stylized permalink

    I compared my feed with others, and indeed the error is there. Please, can you take a deeper look?

    Sorry I was unclear – it’s okay that it’s a permalink. That isn’t what is causing the problem. The guid is simply an identifier of the article and can be a url, the ‘false’ simply tells rss readers not to use it as a url, as the <link> tag (the same url in your case) is the link to the article. The guid can be any string.

    I am giong to change that in the next version, not because it causes any problems, but just that Google News Publisher Support has an incorrect script that they are operating off of and keeps telling people it is wrong when it’s really not.

    I have an NDA with Google News and can’t go into all of the details, but this issue has been discussed with them and I’ll follow up with them again.

    Would you mind if I share your url with them? Also, if you don’t mind, there should be a case number at the bottom of the email they sent to you. If you don’t mind sharing that with me as well, I will use that as an example of the incorrect information that support is providing to publishers. If you would prefer to email it to me rather than post it publically, my email is [email protected]

    Chris

    Thread Starter notipedia

    (@notipedia)

    There’s absolutley no problem in sharing it, and i thank you for your help: it’s precious! Core update literally destroyed 3 of my sites, that dropped from 200k day to zero…

    Anyway, this is the case number 00457857

    Thanks again!

    Got it, thank you, I’m sending that to them along with some additional information that publishers are sending me,

    Chris

    Peace be upon you friends
    I sent my site to Google News and it was accepted
    But the problem is that my website does not appear in the news portal
    I emailed the Google News support team
    They told me you have some problems, fix them
    The problem is, I don’t know how to fix these problems
    Can you give me the steps, thank you
    Here is a message from Google News
    *****************************************************************
    Hello Amar,

    Thank you for contacting the Google News Team.

    We took a look into your query and have checked your feed of your publication related to the domain:’s-ky**********.com’ and see that you are not using the guid tag properly. We would like to inform you that in the <guid> tag if you are not using the isPermaLink attribute kindly provide the full URL. However, if you are using <guid isPermaLink> tag, if you set isPermaLink attribute as “False”, then kindly provide the unique identifier for it. If you want to provide a full URL then please select the value isPermaLink as “True”. We have attached screenshots for your reference.

    For more information please visit the Technical Feed Requirements and Feed content guidelines Help Center articles. We suggest that you get in touch with your web developer or web master to resolve the issue.

    Regarding the publication associated with the domain: ‘t**********24.com’ we would like to inform you that when we checked from our end, no issues were detected. Hence, we could not replicate the issue from our end.

    If you have further queries about Google News, please consult our Help Center or connect with other publishers in our Google News Help Forum.

    best regards,
    Susmitha
    The Google News Team

    Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA
    If you received this communication by mistake, don’t forward it to anyone else (it may contain confidential or privileged information), please erase all copies of it, including all attachments, and let the sender know it went to the wrong person. Thanks.

    **Please don’t share sensitive information in support exchanges with the Google News team.**

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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