85
GN Publisher: Google News Compatible RSS Feeds
Finally a way to make Google News actually listen to your RSS feeds.
HealthyDeclining
85/100
It solves a specific technical headache for news publishers with a lightweight and reliable approach.
Active installs
~50,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 20k+
Rating
4.9★
29 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
-14%
Declining
156 → 135 installs/day
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Declining · -14% in the last year
156/day a year ago→135/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayGN Publisher is a well-regarded, lightweight plugin that reliably fixes Google News RSS feed compatibility issues, though at least one user reports inconsistent crawling behavior where some category feeds appear empty.
What people like
- +Works reliably for making RSS feeds compatible with Google News, often without any configuration needed×6
- +Lightweight and does not add bloat or slow down the site×2
- +Developer provides responsive, helpful support×5
- +Simple and easy to use×3
Common complaints
- −Google News does not always crawl feeds correctly — some category feeds appear empty in /gn while working fine in /feed/
- −Known compatibility issue with SEOPress stripping /category/ from URLs, requiring a workaround query string approach
Review trustMostly organic
- 4.93★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.90★
- 3%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
- past spikeReview timing — up to 40% of all reviews landed in a single month
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-07-202025-01-102026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 29 total
Latest reviews · 29 analyzed
- 2023-12-28★★★★★amazing support!oferlaor
- 2023-11-29★★★★★Great Work, Very HelpfulmorteDenmark
- 2023-10-05★★★★★just greatmanos2000
- 2023-07-06★★★★★Great PluginQiannah Update Media
- 2023-07-05★★★★★Best plugin for the purposeCagatay Belgen
- 2023-02-20★★★★★Simple Pluginupgradeorid1-shot
- 2022-11-17★★★★★Great PluginAlexandros Kontinopoulos
- 2022-10-13★★★★★incompatible with RankMath SEO PluginAndrew Lazarev
- 2022-08-15★★★★★awesome, just generally works, and andrew gives good servicethe5krunner
- 2022-07-15★★★★★works wellbiosonik
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNFor developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
144
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
124
Prior 7-day baseline
258
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
7,828
Mean release-day peak (30d)
250
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
+16.1%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
40%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
3.01
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
97%
5★ share in analyzed sample
3%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.93 → 4.93★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered