The Google News Advanced plugin for WordPress offers, since version 1.4, the option to send automatic notifications to Google on each news publication. This feature can be compared to Sitemap Pings, which was abandoned by Google in 2023.

Google Search Console connection

To allow automatic Sitemap Notification, a connection between your site and the Google Search Console API needs to be created. This is a one-time setup that should remain active as long as you regularly post news on your site. Only if the connection is left unused for a long time, you might need to refresh or reconfigure.

If you have not already created the connection, please follow the steps on Connect your site to Google Search Console

Activate automatic notifications

If all went well connecting your site, you can go to Settings > Google News > Advanced tab and activate the Sitemap notifier option. From then on, your news sitemap will get sent to Google on each news publication.

There is a Submit Now button for manual submission on the Google Search Console tab. You can keep track of the most recent notifications (successes and possible errors) in Log section.

Possible errors

If you encounter errors, some details in the setup process where likely skipped or gone wrong or your Google Cloud Project OAuth credentials expired or got corrupted. Here are some possible errors and solutions.