manifest / seo / google-news-helper

News SEO Helper self-updates

Google News optimization for news sites: news sitemap, NewsArticle structured data, Open Graph and Twitter tags, per-post and per-category search descriptions, redirects, robots.txt tools, and removal of AI/provenance metadata from images.

by Ioannis Kokkinis · github.com/upggr/google-news-helper · website

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Install

No release zip yet. The repository archive installs, but the folder name will carry the branch suffix and updates will not flow:

wp plugin install https://github.com/upggr/google-news-helper/archive/refs/heads/main.zip

Ships its own WordPress updater (built-in updater), so new versions show up under Dashboard → Updates.

Readme github.com/upggr/google-news-helper ↗

A WordPress plugin that fully optimizes your site for Google News indexing.

Author: Ioannis Kokkinis – buy-it.gr GitHub: upggr/google-news-helper

Features

Adds Open Graph meta tags (og:title, og:image, og:description, og:type=article, …)
Adds Article Open Graph tags (published time, modified time, author, section, tags)
Adds Twitter Card tags (summary_large_image)
Adds news_keywords meta tag (up to 10 post tags)
Adds robots meta: max-image-preview:large
Adds NewsArticle JSON-LD structured data (Schema.org)
Uses the post's featured image as the Google News thumbnail automatically
Admin dashboard with a live preview of how your last 5 posts appear on Google News
Conflict detection – detects Yoast SEO, Rank Math, and All-in-One SEO and skips duplicate og: tags
Auto-updates directly from GitHub releases — no manual uploads needed

Installation

From GitHub (manual)

Download the latest release ZIP from the Releases page.
In your WordPress admin go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
Upload the ZIP and click Install Now, then Activate.

Copy into wp-content/plugins

cd wp-content/plugins
git clone https://github.com/upggr/google-news-helper.git

Activate the plugin from Plugins → Installed Plugins.

Auto-updates from GitHub

The plugin checks the GitHub releases/tags of this repository on every WordPress update check. When a new tag (e.g. v1.1.0) is pushed, WordPress will show the standard "Update available" notice in the Plugins screen and you can update with one click — exactly like a plugin from the official directory.

How to publish a new release:

Update GNH_VERSION in google-news-helper.php (e.g. '1.1.0').
Commit and push.
Create a Git tag that matches the version:
```
git tag v1.1.0
git push origin v1.1.0
```
WordPress sites running the plugin will detect the new version on their next update check.

Admin Dashboard

Navigate to Google News in the WordPress admin sidebar.

Enable toggle – activates or deactivates all meta tag output site-wide.
Post previews – shows the last 5 published posts as they would appear in Google News, including:
- Thumbnail (featured image)
- Headline (truncated to 110 chars, matching Google's NewsArticle spec)
- Category, site name, and publication time
- Status badge: green "Ready for Google News" or amber warning with details (e.g., missing featured image)

Requirements

WordPress 5.5+
PHP 7.4+
Posts must have a featured image for the best appearance in Google News

Compatibility with SEO Plugins

If Yoast SEO, Rank Math, or All-in-One SEO is active, this plugin will skip its own og:* and Twitter Card output to avoid duplicate tags — those plugins already handle them. The NewsArticle JSON-LD block is always output because the SEO plugins typically emit a generic Article type, not NewsArticle.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later