How to Get Your News Website on Google News, MSN, Bing and Yahoo — and Earn From Distribution While You Grow

The News Distribution Problem Facing Independent Publishers

Publishing a strong story is no longer enough to guarantee that readers will find it. News organizations compete for visibility in Google Search, Google News, Discover, Bing, social platforms, aggregators, newsletters, recommendation engines and increasingly AI-driven discovery systems.

Large publishers often have years of authority, established audiences, extensive backlink profiles, experienced technical teams and existing syndication relationships. A younger local, regional, niche, ethnic, trade or independent publication may produce useful original journalism yet struggle to obtain comparable distribution.

This creates a difficult cycle: a publication needs readers to build authority, but it also needs authority to obtain more visibility and readers.

The practical answer is not to rely on a single platform. A modern publisher can pursue several distribution channels at the same time.

Can You Still Submit a Website to Google News?

Not in the same way publishers once did.

Google began eliminating the old manual publication-creation workflow in Publisher Center in 2024 and completed the transition to automatically generated publication pages in March 2025. Google says publishers no longer need to apply simply to be considered for Google News. Eligible content can be discovered automatically through Google’s search and news systems.

Google says its systems evaluate eligible news content using signals that include relevance, prominence, authoritativeness, freshness, location and language. Appearing in Google News therefore depends less on completing an application and more on building a publication that Google’s systems can crawl, understand and trust.

That distinction is important. There is no form a publisher can fill out that guarantees Google News placement.

What Google Looks for in News Publishers

Google does not publish a simple acceptance checklist that guarantees inclusion, but its documentation makes several expectations clear.

News sites should provide transparent information about who created and published the content. Clear bylines, publication dates, information about authors and the publication, contact information and accurate article presentation all help readers and search systems understand the source.

Google also recommends that publishers make articles technically accessible, use appropriate article structured data where applicable, provide clear publication dates and maintain news sitemaps containing recent news URLs.

A Google News sitemap is not an admission ticket to Google News, but it can help Google discover recent journalism more efficiently.

Getting Published on MSN and Microsoft Start Works Differently

MSN operates much more like a traditional publisher-partner ecosystem.

Microsoft’s current Partner Hub documentation states that MSN Partner Hub is invitation-only. A publisher needs a unique invitation code from Microsoft to establish a Partner Hub account.

Microsoft also maintains detailed publishing standards. Its guidelines emphasize original reporting, clear ownership, author attribution, editorial transparency, content rights, accurate headlines and adherence to professional publishing practices.

Microsoft currently states that news sites considered for its ecosystem should publish at least 10 articles per day, including live or breaking coverage. Its standards also require recognizable authors rather than generic “Admin” bylines, appropriate source attribution, transparency pages and clear separation between editorial and promotional material.

Even after content is successfully ingested into MSN, publication does not guarantee prominent placement. Microsoft says eligible material can enter its automated content-selection system, which personalizes what individual users see.

MSN Also Pays Publishers From Advertising Revenue

Distribution is only one part of the MSN model.

Microsoft says MSN partners can receive a share of advertising revenue from ads appearing alongside their full-length content. Beginning with September 2025 earnings, Microsoft’s Article and Gallery revenue-share model uses delivered advertising impressions as the basis for calculating partner revenue share for eligible display and native advertising.

That model illustrates an important principle for independent publishing: journalism can create value not only by bringing readers to a publication but also by creating monetizable advertising inventory.

More useful content can attract more readers. More engaged readers can create more qualifying ad impressions. Those impressions can, under an applicable revenue-sharing arrangement, create publisher income.

What About Bing News?

Bing News should not be confused with MSN Partner Hub, even though both are Microsoft properties and portions of their ecosystems can intersect.

Microsoft’s current Bing documentation says publishers interested in Bing News should follow Bing Webmaster Guidelines, verify ownership of their website through Bing Webmaster Tools and submit the publication for news evaluation through Bing’s publisher process.

Bing says its news results use the broader search-ranking framework while also applying news-specific publisher standards.

For publishers, that means Bing represents another distribution path worth pursuing independently rather than assuming that acceptance into one Microsoft property automatically guarantees inclusion everywhere else.

And What About Yahoo News?

Yahoo also distributes journalism from external content providers, but its public-facing publisher pathway is not equivalent to Google’s automated discovery model or a straightforward open application comparable with some publisher platforms.

Yahoo’s public documentation confirms that the company works with third-party content providers, including providers supplying news. Publishers interested in Yahoo distribution should therefore treat Yahoo as a separate relationship and distribution ecosystem rather than assuming that Google News, Bing or MSN acceptance automatically results in Yahoo placement.

This is another reason publishers benefit from diversification: every major news platform has its own technical systems, commercial relationships, editorial expectations and distribution decisions.

You Do Not Have to Wait for the Biggest Platforms

A publisher can spend months improving a website for Google News, seeking an MSN partnership, strengthening Bing visibility or pursuing other distribution arrangements.

That work is worthwhile, but distribution does not need to stop in the meantime.

The Las Vegas News Publisher Network provides qualifying publishers with an additional route for distributing their journalism while they continue working toward Google News, MSN, Bing, Yahoo and other large platforms.

The purpose is not to replace those services. It is to give legitimate publishers another distribution channel that can operate alongside them.

How the Las Vegas News Publisher Network Works

Rather than requiring a publisher to complete a lengthy application before discovering whether its website is technically compatible, Las Vegas News begins with an automated publication scan.

A prospective publisher enters its domain or RSS/Atom feed. The network evaluates the publication against technical and eligibility requirements configured for the publisher program.

Depending on the publication and applicable program rules, the system can evaluate feed availability and validity, publication activity, technical compatibility, publication identity and other qualification signals before allowing the publisher to continue through onboarding.

This approach is designed to answer one of the publisher’s most basic questions early in the process: Can this publication participate?

Distribution Is Only Part of the Opportunity

Participating publishers may also have the opportunity to earn from qualifying advertising activity generated by their journalism within the network.

The concept is similar in principle to advertising-supported publisher ecosystems in which content attracts readers, advertising is delivered alongside eligible content and a portion of qualifying advertising economics is attributed to participating publishers under the program’s terms.

Publishers should not interpret this as a guaranteed income amount. Advertising revenue can vary materially according to reader geography, advertiser demand, seasonality, ad availability, viewability, engagement, article performance, traffic quality and other marketplace factors.

The important distinction is that the publisher is not being asked merely to contribute content for exposure. Distribution can also become a measurable economic channel.

Can a Small or Independent Publisher Join?

Size should not be the only measure of whether journalism is valuable.

Local newspapers, community publications, regional news organizations, niche publications, ethnic media, trade publications and independent digital newsrooms can produce important reporting even without the traffic or brand recognition of a national publisher.

The Las Vegas News Publisher Network is designed so that publications can be evaluated according to program eligibility and technical compatibility rather than simply assuming that only the largest media organizations deserve distribution.

A smaller publisher with identifiable ownership, original journalism, transparent editorial practices and a healthy publishing operation may therefore be a much stronger candidate than a larger website built primarily from scraped, duplicated or low-quality material.

Will News Syndication Hurt Your SEO?

Publishers often worry that distributing an article elsewhere will create duplicate-content problems or cause another version to outrank the original.

That is a legitimate technical concern and should be addressed through responsible syndication architecture rather than ignored.

A publisher network should preserve clear source attribution and avoid presenting syndicated journalism as if another publication created it. Depending on the distribution architecture, canonical signals, source links, metadata and other technical mechanisms can help search systems understand the relationship between the original publisher and distributed versions.

Publishers should also maintain strong article URLs, structured data, identifiable authorship, clear dates and consistent source branding on their own websites.

Syndication should be used to extend distribution, not erase the identity of the publication that produced the journalism.

Publishers Should Keep Ownership and Editorial Identity

Joining a distribution network should not require a legitimate newsroom to surrender its editorial identity.

Publishers should understand what rights they grant a distribution platform, how their publication is credited, what happens to their content after termination and how revenue attribution works.

They should also be free to continue pursuing other distribution channels unless a specific agreement states otherwise.

In other words, joining one publisher network should form part of a broader distribution strategy rather than becoming the publication’s entire strategy.

Is Your News Website Ready for Major Distribution Platforms?

What Should Publishers Do While Waiting for Google News or MSN?

Continue publishing.

A publisher seeking broader distribution should keep strengthening the very signals major platforms evaluate: original reporting, identifiable journalists, consistent publication activity, technical reliability, source transparency and an established editorial identity.

At the same time, publishers can diversify traffic through search, newsletters, social distribution, direct audiences, syndication and compatible publisher networks.

Those strategies are complementary rather than mutually exclusive.

A publisher accepted into another distribution network today can continue building toward Google News or seeking an MSN relationship tomorrow.

Why RSS Still Matters to News Publishers

RSS may be older than many modern social platforms, but it remains useful infrastructure for news distribution.

RSS and Atom feeds provide structured, machine-readable information about recently published content. A healthy feed can help aggregators, applications and publisher networks discover new articles without repeatedly attempting to interpret every element of a website’s visual design.

For publishers, that makes a properly maintained feed more than a legacy feature. It can serve as part of the publication’s distribution infrastructure.

Publishers who do not know their feed address can often begin with their main website domain. The Las Vegas News Publisher Network’s onboarding system is designed to inspect a publication domain or a supplied feed and determine what the system can discover.

What If Your RSS Feed Fails the Publisher Scan?

A failed compatibility check does not necessarily mean the journalism itself is unsuitable.

Feeds can contain malformed XML, inaccessible URLs, missing article elements, invalid dates, redirects, blocked requests, incomplete content, unsuitable media references or other technical problems.

Diagnostic information can help distinguish a technical feed problem from an actual publisher-eligibility issue. Where the underlying problem is technical, correcting the feed may allow the publication to be evaluated again.

Publisher Analytics Matter as Much as Distribution

Sending articles into a network without understanding what happens afterward gives publishers little information for improving their strategy.

Effective publisher distribution should provide performance visibility: which articles attract readers, which sources generate traffic, how content performs over selected periods, how advertising activity develops and what estimated earnings may be associated with eligible content.

That turns syndication into editorial intelligence.

A publisher may discover, for example, that local breaking news generates rapid bursts of readership while an evergreen explanatory article produces steady long-tail traffic. That information can inform future editorial and distribution decisions without dictating what a newsroom should cover.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to apply to Google News?

Google says publishers do not need to submit their websites simply to be eligible for Google News. Eligible content is discovered algorithmically and considered according to Google’s systems and policies.

Can I still use Google Publisher Center?

Publisher Center still exists for certain publisher products and organization functions, but the old process of manually creating a Google News publication page no longer determines ordinary Google News inclusion.

How do I become an MSN publisher?

Microsoft’s current documentation describes MSN Partner Hub as invitation-only. Publishers that enter the ecosystem must also comply with Microsoft’s publishing, technical and content standards.

Does MSN pay news publishers?

Yes. Microsoft states that eligible MSN partners receive a share of advertising revenue from ads shown alongside their full-length content. Its current Article and Gallery revenue-share methodology uses delivered ad impressions as a basis for eligible advertising RevShare calculations.

Is Bing News the same as MSN?

No. They are related Microsoft ecosystems, but Bing News has its own discovery and publisher-evaluation processes, while MSN Partner Hub manages approved content partners and monetization relationships.

Can a small news website join a distribution network?

It depends on the network. The Las Vegas News Publisher Network evaluates prospective publishers through its own eligibility and technical requirements rather than assuming that publication size alone determines eligibility.

Do I need an RSS feed?

An RSS or Atom feed can make automated distribution easier, but publishers can begin the Las Vegas News compatibility process using either their publication domain or an available feed.

Can I join Las Vegas News while trying to get into Google News or MSN?

Yes, subject to the applicable publisher terms and eligibility requirements. The network is intended to provide an additional distribution channel rather than require publishers to abandon other legitimate distribution opportunities.

Can publishers earn money from articles distributed through Las Vegas News?

Qualifying participating publishers can earn from eligible advertising activity associated with their content under the publisher program. Earnings are variable and should not be interpreted as guaranteed income.

Does joining guarantee traffic or earnings?

No legitimate distribution platform can guarantee that every article will attract readers or generate a particular amount of advertising revenue. Performance depends on the content, audience demand, distribution, engagement, advertising conditions and other factors.

Editorial note: Platform requirements and publisher programs can change. Publishers should verify current requirements directly with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and any distribution partner before making business or technical decisions.