How to Fix: Standout tag used

Standout tag used is an SEO check in the News & Publishing category, and I want to be straight with you: it is a lower-priority optimization. Address it after the work that actually moves rankings. It is here because it still shows up in audits, and knowing why it barely matters anymore is more useful than blindly “fixing” it.

What this check is actually about

The standout tag was a Google News signal — a way for a publisher to flag a piece as original, standout journalism so it could be surfaced accordingly. It was an editorial hint, not a ranking lever, and it belonged to an era when publishers hand-annotated their news markup for Google News specifically.

Google’s approach to identifying original reporting has since moved on to its own signals and editorial systems. So when this check runs, treat it as a “are you leaning on a legacy signal?” prompt rather than an urgent gap. If you are a news publisher, the honest answer is usually: do not build your strategy on this tag.

A word from someone who has watched signals die

Let me tell you why I am calm about a “failing” check here. I spent years of my early career building interactive work in Macromedia Flash and ActionScript. For a long stretch it was the technology — animation, games, entire sites ran on it, and knowing ActionScript well was a genuine career asset. Then mobile arrived, Apple declined to support it, and within a few short years the thing I had built real expertise around was simply gone. Not deprecated politely over a decade — gone. I watched people who had bet everything on that one platform scramble.

That taught me a discipline I still apply to SEO: never over-invest in a single vendor-specific signal, because the vendor can retire it on their schedule, not yours. The standout tag is a small example of the same pattern. Implement it if it is trivial, but do not organize your editorial workflow around it, and do not lose sleep when an audit flags it. The durable investment is original reporting that readers cite — that signal does not get deprecated.

Why it still matters (a little)

• Clean, valid news markup helps Google understand and categorize your content
• Signalling original reporting — by whatever current mechanism — supports attribution
• Publishers competing in Google News benefit from following the current guidelines precisely
• Stale or malformed legacy tags can add noise a competitor’s cleaner markup avoids

How to check this

1. View source on your article template and search for any legacy standout markup
2. Review Google’s current Google News and Publisher Center guidance for what is supported today
3. Check whether an old SEO or news plugin is still injecting deprecated tags automatically
4. Confirm your original-reporting content is well-structured with clear bylines and dates

How to fix this in WordPress

Difficulty Level: EASY – This fix is straightforward and can typically be completed by anyone with basic WordPress knowledge.

Estimated Time: varies

The fix here is more about hygiene than heroics.

Step 1: Audit what your template already emits

Find where your theme or news plugin outputs article head markup. If a plugin is still injecting a standout tag automatically, decide deliberately whether to keep it — do not leave orphaned legacy tags you cannot account for.

Step 2: Follow the current guidance, not the old one

Align your setup with Google’s present-day news and structured-data guidelines. Make sure articles carry clean NewsArticle schema, accurate bylines, and published/modified dates. That is where the attention belongs today.

Step 3: Verify and move on

1. Clear your cache so template changes are served
2. Re-validate the article in the Rich Results Test
3. Re-run the SEO Roadmap audit, then redirect your energy to higher-priority items

Recommended tools & plugins

• Yoast SEO – Its News add-on handles news-specific markup cleanly
• Rank Math – Feature-rich SEO plugin with news and article schema support
• Google Search Console – Free tool to monitor your news content’s search presence
• SEO Roadmap – Complete SEO audit and action plan tool

Common mistakes to avoid

• Treating a legacy news signal as a ranking priority when it is not
• Leaving orphaned deprecated tags in your template that nobody maintains
• Chasing the tag instead of investing in the original reporting it was meant to flag
• Skipping validation after editing news markup

Need more help?

If you publish news at any scale, the higher-leverage conversation is your overall Google News and structured-data setup, not this single tag. A developer or SEO specialist who works with publishers can align your templates with current guidance quickly, and a full SEO Roadmap audit will keep your genuinely important items in front of the noise.

This guide is part of the SEO Roadmap knowledge base – your complete resource for WordPress SEO optimization.