1. What Is the Google Discover Feed
Google Discover is a personalised feed that suggests content—articles, videos, news—to users based on their interests and how they use Google. For Android users, it’s accessible by swiping to the far left on the home screen. The content displayed is not random: it’s curated based on behaviour, preferences, and engagement patterns. As such, Discover offers a powerful way to reach users beyond traditional Google Search.
2. What Is Google Discover “Follow”
The Discover “Follow” feature allows users to subscribe to a website or blog via an optimized RSS or Atom feed. When users follow a site, they receive updates in their Discover feed whenever new content is published. This can create a more consistent stream of interested visitors for publishers, complementing search-based traffic.
For Discover Follow to work properly, your RSS or Atom feed needs to include key elements like <title> and <link> in each item. Without them, Google may struggle to interpret your feed, reducing your chances of being surfaced in Discover.
3. Optimising for Google Discover
To make your content more likely to appear in Google Discover, you should:
- Use non-clickbait page titles that accurately reflect the content.
- Include high-quality images, ideally wider than 1200px, and configure them so Google can show them in large previews (
max-image-preview: large). Avoid using your site logo as the hero image. - Stay away from tactics that try to manipulate engagement using misleading or exaggerated preview text, sensational headlines, or by withholding important context.
- Focus on producing content that is timely, relevant, or offers fresh insights or storytelling.
- Publish content that matches user interests, whether it’s trending topics or evergreen material, so it appeals both to Discover’s algorithm and what your audience cares about.
Also, make sure your RSS or Atom feed is well-structured and correctly set up so Discover’s Follow feature can pick up updates reliably.
