How to increase Google Discover traffic with technical fixes

Google Discover caught my attention in 2021, when it was driving millions of clicks a month to publishers. I underestimated how pervasive it would become. 

My feed cycles through soccer, television, Baltimore news, SEO, and world events — a reminder that Discover understands users at an almost uncomfortable level.

It’s not limited to one app. Discover appears in Chrome new tabs, the Google app, Android home screens, Google.com on most mobile browsers, and other Google surfaces.

If Google Discover is everywhere, it’s our job as SEOs to capitalize on this opportunity. Let me show you how. 

Essential considerations before we begin optimizing for Discover

Discover traffic isn’t a viable source for all brands, just as search isn’t for all of them.

Discover favors timely content

Content that performs well in Discover is almost always highly time-relevant and from authoritative sources, generally major publishers. It would be unusual to see evergreen content in Discover.

Because of this, sites I’ve worked with that get the most traffic from Discover often get less traffic from traditional search than they do from Discover.

Discover traffic is declining

Many publishers are finding that Discover traffic is declining, as the Discover feed now includes a large volume of social posts and AI summaries of major stories from multiple sources. This displaces the articles that used to make up the feed.

Before this change, writing articles about viral social media posts was a very effective strategy for driving millions of monthly clicks. This may be why Google is beta testing the ability to track traffic to social platforms.

Good, relevant content still matters

No matter how technically optimized a website is, content that’s good and relevant to users will outperform content that isn’t, even when their interests are constantly changing.

If your content doesn’t get traffic in Discover, consider whether it’s the kind of content Discover aims to surface. Likewise, if you experience a sudden drop in Discover traffic, review the content before exploring technical causes.

Don’t let any of this deter you from optimizing for Discover. These optimizations won’t hurt traditional search, and you may end up getting Discover traffic you didn’t expect — I’ve often seen non-publishers experience brief spikes in Discover. Most of these suggestions are minor template-level changes that should be low effort.

Dig deeper. How Google Discover qualifies, ranks, and filters content: Research

---

Technical optimizations for Discover

The three main things I look at first when auditing new clients are:

• Discover publisher profile.
• Images in articles.
• Publisher and author signals.

This is where your optimizations start.

Discover publisher profile

Check your Discover publisher profile to ensure your website and social profiles are linked. You’ll need a tool to find your publisher profile page. I use Damian Tsuabaso’s, which is in Spanish but still straightforward. Insert your brand’s name, URL, or entity ID, then search.

Interestingly, Discover profile pages are linked directly to your entity’s Knowledge Graph ID. The URL string in the profile page is a tokenized version of the KGMID (not in all cases). I expand on this further in this LinkedIn post.

When reviewing your publisher profile page, focus on two main questions:

• Does it reflect you as a publisher? New brands, or brands that have been acquired or rebranded, may have unclear publisher profiles. Fixing this requires clarifying your brand’s entity and making Knowledge Graph optimizations.
• Are your brand’s social media accounts appearing on the page? Publisher pages can aggregate social media posts across platforms, and those posts are increasingly occupying real estate. Getting social profiles added may take time because there’s no dashboard for managing Discover profile pages.

To help link social accounts to your brand:

• Ensure your Organization schema includes sameAs elements that list your social accounts.
• Link to those accounts in your website footer.
• Link to your website from your social accounts.

Images

Google’s documentation emphasizes that using images, especially large images, is important for visibility in Discover. It also recommends using the max-image-preview:large tag to display the best-resolution image as the article card preview.

I generally check the following:

• Confirm there’s a max-image-preview:large tag. This may seem minor, but many CMSs don’t include it in article templates by default, and I routinely see it missing.
• Ensure displayed images, especially the hero image at the top of the article, have a minimum width of 1,200 pixels. The rendered size will vary by browser, but the image file itself should be at least 1,200 pixels wide.
• Review the configuration of your Open Graph image tags. They’re usually the preview image used in Discover. This image should match the hero image and be 1,200 pixels wide. I frequently see the Open Graph image set to a logo, which Google has discouraged. While that specific line was recently removed from the documentation, I’d still avoid using a logo.

The Open Graph Protocol also allows you to define image dimensions. When feasible, use those properties and ensure they accurately reflect the image’s true dimensions.

Publisher and author transparency

You’ve probably already considered E-E-A-T best practices, but implementing them supports overall content SEO performance.

For author transparency, I check that:

• The article’s author is clearly defined on each article, including an image, byline, link to a bio page, and social links.
• The listed authors are the actual contributors, not a generic company-wide byline or an uninvolved executive.
• Author bio pages include a meaningful bio, credentials, links to social accounts, and links to other articles published on your site.
• Relevant schema.org structured data related to the author is included on both the article and the bio page.

For publisher transparency, confirm that you:

• Have an About Us page linked in your footer or main navigation.
• Use Organization schema on your home or About page.
• Have created robust terms of use and editorial policy pages related to your organization, and they’re linked in the footer. 

Discover is just the beginning

Discover is driven by relevance, timeliness, and authority, not checklists.

Technical optimizations won’t make content succeed in Discover if it doesn’t belong there.

The optimizations outlined above are essential for visibility, but the largest Discover opportunities are typically uncovered through broader content audits.