Speakable (BETA)

The speakable schema.org property identifies sections within an article or webpage that are best suited for audio playback using text-to-speech (TTS). Adding markup allows search engines and other applications to identify content to read aloud on Google Assistant-enabled devices using TTS. Webpages with speakable structured data can use the Google Assistant to distribute the content through new channels and reach a wider base of users.

The Google Assistant uses speakable structured data to answer topical news queries on smart speaker devices. When users ask for news about a specific topic, the Google Assistant returns up to three articles from around the web and supports audio playback using TTS for sections in the article with speakable structured data. When the Google Assistant reads aloud a speakable section, it attributes the source and sends the full article URL to the user's mobile device through the Google Assistant app.

For more information about what content can be eligible for speakable structured data for the Google Assistant, see Eligibility.

Eligibility

To be eligible to appear in news results, your site must be a valid news site. Make sure you submit your news site to Google either through the Publisher Center or setting up a valid edition in Google News Producer.

Country and language availability

The speakable property works for users in the U.S. that have Google Home devices set to English, and publishers that publish content in English. We hope to launch in other countries and languages as soon as sufficient number of publishers have implemented speakable.

Getting started

To be eligible to appear in audio playback in news results, follow the steps below:

Make sure that your site meets the eligibility requirements by either submitting your news site to Google through the Publisher Center or setting up a valid edition in Google News Producer.
Make sure that you follow our guidelines.
Add speakable structured data to your web page.
Test and validate your structured data.
Submit your content to begin the onboarding process. After you submit your content, the review can take up to five business days. Once complete, Google sends you a notification to let you know whether your content is eligible or not.

Guidelines

You must follow these guidelines for speakable content to be eligible to appear in news results.

Technical guidelines

Follow these guidelines when implementing speakable markup for Google Assistant.

Don't add speakable structured data to content that may sound confusing in voice-only and voice-forward situations, like datelines (location where the story was reported), photo captions, or source attributions.
Rather than highlighting an entire article with speakable structured data, focus on key points. This allows listeners to get an idea of the story and not have the TTS readout cut off important details.

Content guidelines

Follow these guidelines when writing content that you intend to mark up with speakable structured data.

Content indicated by speakable structured data should have concise headlines and/or summaries that provide users with comprehensible and useful information.
If you include the top of the story in speakable structured data, we suggest that you rewrite the top of the story to break up information into individual sentences so that it reads more clearly for TTS.
For optimal audio user experiences, we recommend around 20-30 seconds of content per section of speakable structured data, or roughly two to three sentences.

Example

The following is an example of speakable structured data using JSON-LD code and the xPath content-locator value:

Structured data type definitions

Speakable is used by the Article or Webpage object. It’s defined by schema.org, where you can find the full list of all supported properties. These are the minimum speakable structured data requirements.

Properties

Properties
`@type`	Text, required Set `@type` to `SpeakableSpecification`.
`cssSelector` OR `xpath`	Text, required Speakable property can be repeated an arbitrary number of times, with two kinds of possible `content-locator` values: CSS selectors – addresses content in the annotated pages (such as class attribute). Example: `["headline", "summary"]` xPaths – addresses content using xPaths (assuming an XML view of the content). Example: `/html/head/title`

@type

Text, required

Set @type to SpeakableSpecification.

cssSelector OR xpath

Text, required

Speakable property can be repeated an arbitrary number of times, with two kinds of possible content-locator values:

CSS selectors – addresses content in the annotated pages (such as class attribute).

Example: ["headline", "summary"]
xPaths – addresses content using xPaths (assuming an XML view of the content).

Example: /html/head/title

Troubleshooting

Do you have trouble triggering your content through the Google Assistant using TTS audio?

Try the following voice commands:

"What's the latest news about $topic?"
"What's the latest on $topic?"
"Play news about $topic."

Do you have trouble hearing your content through the Google Assistant's TTS audio?

The Google Assistant provides up to three articles from different news publications through TTS audio playback. Ranking is determined algorithmically. For more information about how Google ranks articles, see How Search works.

Do you have other issues with your speakable structured data for Google Assistant News?

Contact your Google representative or audio news support.