A content publisher asked about getting his publishing site included in Google News. In the Google News Help thread Googler, Inbal, said that you don’t always need to have three digits in the URL to be in Google News.

In the past, there was a strong Google News requirement to have three digits in the URL. It was how Google’s News spider worked. But now, with the addition of Google Sitemaps, you no longer need digits in the URL.

Inbal said:

Good news for new publishers looking to keep their URLs keyword specific. This isn’t brand new, but it is relatively new to Google News.

Forum discussion at Google News Help</a.