Question about Google News Sitemap

[craven22]

I'm submitting my site to Google News, have a few questions for creating my sitemap.

The majority of my articles (800) are in a category called 'Disability News' (which is one of my main keywords). Around half of these posts are we're automated RSS feed posts (first 200 words of an article directly copied with a link thru to the original).

The past few weeks I've been posting tons of unique content so I was thinking about moving all duplicate content into a category called 'Syndicated News' and excluding that from my Google News sitemap.

Is this advisable? or should I just leave it as is?

[StalkerB]

I'm pretty sure you won't get in with just aggregated news, but can have some (though I'm thinking far less than half).

This - http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/news/thread?tid=73066884b4c853e1&hl=en - suggests to only submit original content.

Alternatively - http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/credit-where-credit-is-due.html - says you can add the source or canonical tag to give credit back to the originating site (and likely look far more trustworthy when someone checks.

I had a dig around for when I last got a site into Google News but couldn't find actual content guidelines.

Here's the guidelines I could find about when making a submission:
Provide a good historical background of the site
Show awards the site received
Give stats on the site
Tell them about your editors and authors (I think you need 3 editors :s)
Tell them about who links to your site
Make sure you are news related or mostly news related.
Make sure your site complies with the technical requirements, and show them that is does.

Having author bio pages I believe is also a plus.

You can always submit it and see what feedback you are given.

[craven22]

'rehashing' ? So even if I write a intro to an article and link through google will reject me?

Here is my website;

http://ablemagazine.co.uk/

Should I maybe only submit a sitemap of my Feature Stories (100% original and written by us?)

http://ablemagazine.co.uk/articles/feature-story/

There's only 16 articles in here at the moment (last issue) but we have another 17 years of issues (6 issues per year/ 10-20 articles per issue) I have access too.

[StalkerB]

News sitemaps only look at the last 3 days worth of stuff, however you will probably get a real person have a look to see if you qualify so could be worth moving them if it just looks like you're simply rehashing material.

You'll also probably get rejected the first time you submit, so always double check you conform to the guidelines and submit again (it's really a way to weed out people that know they shouldn't be in there).