Category: Google

What comes as a surprise to few, Google has updated its content guidelines for its Web Stories format. For users of its recently-released Web Stories for WordPress plugin, they will want to follow the extended rules for their Stories to appear in the “richer experiences” across Google’s services. This includes the grid view on Search, Google Images, and Google Discover’s carousel.

Google released its Web Stories plugin in late September to the WordPress community. It is a drag-and-drop editor that allows end-users to create custom Stories from a custom screen in their WordPress admin.

The plugin does not directly link to Google’s content guidelines anywhere. For users who do not do a little digging, they may be caught unaware if their stories are not surfaced in various Google services.

On top of the Discover and Webmaster guidelines, Web Stories have six additional restrictions related to the following:

• Copyrighted content
• Text-heavy Web Stories
• Low-quality assets
• Lack of narrative
• Incomplete stories
• Overly commercial

While not using copyrighted content is one of those reasonably-obvious guidelines, the others could trip up some users. Because Stories are meant to represent bite-sized bits of information on each page, they may become ineligible if most pages have more than 180 words of text. Videos should also be limited to fewer than 60 seconds on each page.

Low-quality media could be a flag for Stories too. Google’s guidelines point toward “stretched out or pixelated” media that negatively impacts the reader’s experience. They do not offer any specific resolution guidelines, but this should mostly be a non-issue today. The opposite issue is far more likely — users uploading media that is too large and not optimized for viewing on the web.

The “lack of narrative” guideline is perhaps the vaguest, and it is unclear how Google will monitor or police narrative. However, the Stories format is about storytelling.

“Stories are the key here imo,” wrote Jamie Marsland, founder of Pootlepress, in a Twitter thread. “Now we have an open format to tell Stories, and we have an open platform (WordPress) where those Stories can be told easily.”

Google specifically states that Stories need a “binding theme or narrative structure” from one page to the next. Essentially, the company is telling users to use the format for the purpose it was created for. They also do not want users to create incomplete stories where readers must click a link to finish the Story or get information.

Overly commercial Stories are frowned upon too. While Google will allow affiliate marketing links, they should be restricted to a minor part of the experience.

Closing his Twitter thread, Marsland seemed to hit the point. “I’ve seen some initial Google Web Stories where the platform is being used as a replacement for a brochure or website,” he wrote. “In my view that’s a huge missed opportunity. If I was advising brands I would say ‘Tell Stories’ this is a platform for Story Telling.”

If users of the plugin follow this advice, their Stories should surface on Google’s rich search experiences.

Two and a half months after the launch of its public beta, Google released its Web Stories for WordPress plugin. So far, the plugin has over 10,000 active installations and has garnered a solid five-star rating from four reviews.

Google created the Web Stories format through its AMP Project to allow publishers to create visually-rich stories. It is primarily geared toward mobile site visitors, allowing them to quickly jump through story pages with small chunks of content.

The Web Stories plugin creates a visual interface within WordPress for creating Stories. It breaks away from the traditional WordPress interface and introduces users to an almost Photoshop-like experience for building out individual Stories. The Stories editor is completely drag-and-drop.

The plugin also offers eight predesigned templates out of the box that cover a small range of niches. However, according to Google’s announcement, the company plans to add more templates in future updates.

Web Stories Are for Storytelling

“Firstly…the power of Stories,” wrote Jamie Marsland, founder of Pootlepress, in a Twitter thread. “Stories are how we (humans) see the world and share our experiences. Up to now the platforms that we have to tell stories have been limited to books/films/tv/websites/blogs/instagram stories etc.”

“Websites are ok for telling stories but in many ways the format doesn’t really fit the linear arc of storytelling. When Marshall McLuhan said ‘the medium is the message’ in 1964 he was talking about how the medium itself has a social impact, and change the communication itself…and the possibilities for what is communicated and how it is perceived. But we should keep coming back to Stories. Stories are the key here imo. Now we have an open format to tell Stories, and we have an open platform (WordPress) where those Stories can be told easily.”

Marsland finished his thread by saying that using Stories as a replacement for a brochure or website is a missed opportunity. He said that it was a platform for storytelling and should be used as such.

It is far too early to tell if Web Stories will simply be a fad or still in wide use years from now. The technology certainly lends itself well to telling stories, particularly in mobile format, but I doubt we have seen the best of what is possible on the web. The format feels too limited to be the end-all-be-all of storytelling. It is merely one medium that will live and die by its popularity with users.

With the right design skills, some people will craft beautiful Web Stories. And, that is just what Marsland has done with the first Story he shared:

I agree with his conclusion. Web Stories should be about storytelling. When you move outside of that zone, the technology feels out of place.

Where I disagree is that websites are not ideal for storytelling. Ultimately, the WordPress block editor will allow artistic end-users to craft intricate stories, mixing content and design in ways that we have not seen. We are just now scratching the surface. I expect our community of developers to build more intricate tools than what the Web Stories plugin currently allows, and we can do so in a way that revolutionizes storytelling on the web.

New Features

The Web Stories plugin now adds support for Unsplash images and Coverr videos out of the box. The plugin adds a new tab with a “media” icon. For users of the first beta version of the plugin, this may be a bit confusing. The previous media icon was for a tab that displayed the user’s media. Now, the user’s media is under the tab with the “upload” icon.

It is also not immediately clear that the Unsplash images and Coverr videos are not hosted on the site itself. There is a “powered by” notice at the bottom of the tab, but it can be easy to miss because it blends in with the media in the background.

Media from Unsplash and Coverr is hosted off-site and not downloaded to the user’s WordPress media library. I could find no mention of this in the plugin’s documentation. Such hotlinking was a cause for debate over the recent official release of the Unsplash plugin.

Google also announced it planned to add more “stock media integrations” in the near future. According to a document shared via a GitHub ticket, such future integrations may include Google Photos and GIF-sharing site Tenor.