Google added new documentation to Search Central covering their Preferred Sources program that helps news websites get into the Top Stories feature. The documentation explains what publishers can do to make it more likely to be ranked in Top Stories and get more traffic.
Top Stories
Given that Top Stories is about breaking news, freshness may be a factor for ranking.Top Stories surfaces local news as well as breaking news. Schema structured data is not necessary to rank in Top Stories but adding Schema.org Article structured data helps Google better understand what the page is about. While the Top Stories display resembles Google’s carousel feature, the ItemList structured data for Carousel displays has no effect.
Source Preferences Tool
The preferred sources program is available only to English language web pages globally. Google also states that sites that are already in the Preferred Sources tool are eligible to deep link to encourage users to add your site as a preferred source. https://www.google.com/preferences/source
If your site appears in the source preferences tool, you can use the following methods to guide your readers to select your site as a preferred source:
Add the deeplink to your social posts or promotions. Use the following URL format, which takes users directly to your site in the source preferences tool:
https://google.com/preferences/source?q=Your_Website's_URLFor example, if your site is https://example.com, use the following URL:
https://google.com/preferences/source?q=example.com
Do What You Can For More Traffic From Top Stories
Getting traffic out of Google appears to be getting increasingly difficult. So it’s useful to take advantage of every available opportunity.
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