Automatic Generation of Google News Pages: Publishers to Lose Control Over Customization
As of March 2025, all publication pages on Google News will be automatically generated, and publishers will no longer be able to personalize their presence via the Publisher Center. This evolution, which follows the changes launched in April 2024, raises questions about the loss of control of media outlets over their presentation in the Google ecosystem.
Until now, publishers could organize and customize their pages via the Publisher Center, including defining their logo and title. As of March 2025, this option will be removed. Pages will be automatically generated by Google, and users will no longer see manually configured pages.
Google will standardize the display of publications: logos will be automatically retrieved via the site's favicon, and the title will be determined based on the site's name on Google Search. Publishers will need to optimize these elements to match the image they want to display.
These changes will not affect the selection of articles, which will remain based on relevance, freshness, authority of the source, location, and language criteria. Publishers will not need to take any specific action for their articles to be considered. However, programs like Google News Showcase and Reader Revenue Manager will still allow submitting logos via the Publisher Center.
