Chapter 34 — Quiz

Twenty-four self-check questions: sixteen multiple choice, then eight short answer. Answer them before you open the key at the bottom. This quiz tests the publisher's surfaces (News, Discover), the content portfolio, the schema-and-trust tools, paywalls, syndication, and — above all — the diversification lesson the whole chapter is built to teach.

Part 1 — Multiple choice

Q1. How does a site get included in Google News today? - A. By submitting an application and paying a listing fee - B. Automatically, if it publishes genuine news content and follows Google's news policies - C. Only by using AMP on every article - D. By buying a "News inclusion" package from an SEO vendor

Q2. The defining feature of Google Discover, versus Google Search, is that Discover: - A. Only shows results for commercial queries - B. Requires a paid subscription to appear in - C. Has no query — it surfaces content by inferred interest, before anyone searches - D. Ranks pages by exact-match keywords in the title

Q3. Which best describes how you "target a keyword" in Discover? - A. Put the keyword in the first 100 words - B. You can't — there is no query and no keyword to target; you become eligible and hope to be matched - C. Use the Discover Keyword Planner - D. Bid on the keyword in Google Ads

Q4. A news sitemap differs from a regular XML sitemap because it: - A. Lists every page on the site - B. Lists only articles from roughly the last 48 hours, to signal freshness - C. Replaces the need for a regular sitemap - D. Is required for all websites

Q5. Evergreen content is best defined as content that: - A. Is published on a fixed daily schedule - B. Ranks #1 permanently - C. Retains value and relevance over time (with updating), producing compounding traffic - D. Contains no images

Q6. In the breaking / analysis / evergreen framing, breaking news is characterized by: - A. A slow build that compounds for years - B. A huge spike followed by fast decay - C. No traffic at all - D. Steady, flat traffic forever

Q7. NewsArticle schema: - A. Is a direct ranking factor that pushes you up the results - B. Guarantees a spot in Top Stories - C. Helps Google understand headline, dates, author, and publisher, and aids eligibility — but is not a direct ranking factor - D. Replaces the need for author bylines

Q8. The June 2021 Page Experience update changed news SEO by: - A. Requiring AMP for all pages - B. Ending AMP's status as the requirement for the Top Stories carousel, opening it to any fast, quality page - C. Deleting the Top Stories carousel - D. Making Web Stories mandatory

Q9. Showing Googlebot the full article while showing human readers a paywall, with no declaration, is: - A. A smart, allowed optimization - B. Cloaking — a spam-policy violation - C. Required by flexible sampling - D. Impossible to detect

Q10. Flexible sampling lets a paywalled publisher stay indexable without cloaking by: - A. Removing the paywall for everyone - B. Using metering or lead-in plus paywall structured data that declares the gated content to Google - C. Blocking Googlebot in robots.txt - D. Emailing Google a password

Q11. A cross-domain rel="canonical" on a syndicated copy is: - A. A directive Google must obey - B. A hint Google usually respects but may override — especially if the republisher's authority is higher - C. A penalty - D. Illegal

Q12. Google's more reliable advice for keeping a syndicated copy from outranking your original is to have the republisher: - A. Add more keywords - B. noindex their copy - C. Delete their homepage - D. Buy links to your version

Q13. Why are pure content publishers the most fragile businesses in SEO? - A. They can't use schema - B. Almost all their traffic comes from Google surfaces they don't control, with little outside the funnel - C. Google never sends them traffic - D. They are always penalized

Q14. For Discover eligibility, Google has said large images help. "Large" means roughly: - A. 100px wide - B. 300px wide - C. 1,200px wide or more, with max-image-preview:large enabled - D. Any size, as long as it's a PNG

Q15. "Query deserves freshness" (QDF) implies that: - A. Every page should be updated daily - B. Freshness is a query-dependent signal — it helps for developing/trending queries and is irrelevant for stable ones - C. Old content can never rank - D. Freshness is the strongest ranking factor overall

Q16. Author E-E-A-T for a publisher lives primarily in: - A. A hidden "authority score" you can inject with markup - B. Real named bylines, substantive author pages, a recognizable author entity, and organizational transparency - C. The number of words per article - D. The site's domain age alone

Part 2 — Short answer

Q17. In one sentence each, explain why Discover traffic should be treated as upside rather than a baseline.

Q18. A "get into Google News for \$2,000" pitch lands in your inbox. Give the one-sentence rebuttal and name what the Publisher Center actually does.

Q19. Explain, using the content-audit anchor, how pruning a bloated news archive can raise a publisher's overall traffic.

Q20. Name the two flavors of flexible sampling and the one structured-data element that keeps the arrangement from being cloaking.

Q21. A national outlet republishes your original verbatim and outranks you. Google didn't penalize you — so what happened, and what's your strongest realistic defense next time?

Q22. Why can't author E-E-A-T be faked at scale? Describe the corroboration mechanism in one sentence.

Q23. Give the two-part honest answer to "should we build Web Stories?" — the true thing about AMP, and the true thing about Web Stories.

Q24. State the chapter's central diversification argument in two sentences, and name one owned channel a publisher should build first.

Answer key (try every question first) **Part 1 — Multiple choice** 1. **B** — Inclusion is automatic for sites publishing genuine news content that follow Google's policies; there's no submission or fee. 2. **C** — Discover has no query; it surfaces content by inferred interest. 3. **B** — There is no keyword to target in Discover; you become eligible and hope to be matched. 4. **B** — A news sitemap lists only very fresh articles (~last 48 hours) to signal freshness; it's additional to, not a replacement for, the regular sitemap. 5. **C** — Content that retains value over time and compounds. 6. **B** — A sharp spike and fast decay. 7. **C** — It aids understanding and eligibility; it is not a direct ranking factor. 8. **B** — It ended AMP's role as the Top Stories *requirement*, opening the carousel to any fast, quality page. 9. **B** — Undeclared, that's cloaking. 10. **B** — Metering or lead-in plus paywall structured data declaring the gated content. 11. **B** — A hint, not a directive; a stronger domain's other signals can override it. 12. **B** — Have the republisher `noindex` their copy. 13. **B** — Their traffic depends almost entirely on Google surfaces they don't control. 14. **C** — Roughly 1,200px wide or more, with large image previews enabled. 15. **B** — Freshness is query-dependent — good for trending/developing queries, irrelevant for stable ones. 16. **B** — Real bylines, author pages, a recognizable author entity, and organizational transparency. **Part 2 — Short answer** 17. Because Discover has no query to target and no guaranteed entry, its traffic is bursty and unpredictable — huge one day, gone the next — so it can't be relied on as a stable floor; you forecast and budget on Search and owned channels, and treat any Discover spike as a windfall to bank (e.g., convert readers to email). 18. "Inclusion in Google News is automatic and free for sites that publish genuine news and follow the policies — you can't buy or guarantee it." The Publisher Center only manages how your publication is *presented* (name, logo, sections). 19. Google assesses quality partly at the site level; a huge archive of decayed, thin, once-breaking pages signals "low value at scale" and can drag down the whole site. Pruning/merging the dead pages and updating the evergreen ones repairs that site-wide signal, so the good pages rank better — the content-audit anchor: publishing less can grow traffic more. 20. **Metering** (N free articles per period) and **lead-in** (a free excerpt), plus **paywall structured data** (`isAccessibleForFree: false` marking the gated section) — that declaration is what keeps it from being cloaking. 21. Google saw two near-identical pages and *selected/consolidated* to the higher-authority copy — not a penalty. The strongest realistic defense: have the partner `noindex` their copy (or, weaker, canonical to your original), publish and get indexed first, and consider syndicating a differentiated version. 22. Because Google corroborates an author's expertise from signals across the whole web — other bylines, citations, references, reputation — that a fabricated persona cannot accumulate; markup can point to the signals but can't manufacture them. 23. True about AMP: it lost its privileged status (the 2021 Page Experience update ended its Top Stories requirement), so you no longer need AMP to compete there. True about Web Stories: they are a still-supported *content format* that appears in Discover and Search — worth building where a visual, mobile format genuinely serves the content, but not as a ranking trick. 24. Almost all of a publisher's traffic can come from Google surfaces it doesn't control, so a single update or Discover shift can halve the audience overnight with nothing to "fix"; the only durable insurance is to build traffic and relationships Google doesn't mediate. Build an **email/newsletter** audience first (a direct line no algorithm sits between).