With the launch of the AI-powered Google News on the evening of May 15, Google has also pulled support for two webmaster and SEO features for Google News publishers:
- The standout meta tag and
- the Editors Pick section
On Twitter, Google posted about this change on the same evening, saying:
As part of the new Google News, we have ended support for Editors’ Picks feeds & the standout meta tag. We’ll have more to share on other ways publishers can optimize visibility in the near future.
As part of the new Google News, we have ended support for Editors’ Picks feeds & the standout meta tag. We’ll have more to share on other ways publishers can optimize visibility in the near future. You can learn more about the new Google News here: https://t.co/64VB1PRmxi
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 15, 2018
After this update, if you’re one of the folks using either of the features, there is no reason to do so after today. It is also built into the Yoast SEO plugin, and there is a chance they could remove the two features as well.
Here is a screen shot from the Yoast SEO plugin:
This update comes after a few months after Google also dropped support for the meta keywords new tag, which are now no longer supported in the new version of Google News.