For as long as I can remember, Google News publishers needed to have 3 digits in their URLs in order to be included in the Google News Index. There was an exception to the rule, but overall to be indexed and accepted into the Google News index, you need your URL structure to have 3 digits.

That is no longer the case!

Google’s Stacie Chan said in the Google News Help forums that they are doing away with the rule. Stacie wrote:

Your URLs still need to be unique and permanent but you do not need the arbitrary 3 digits in the URL anymore.

Why did Google finally remove this requirement? Stacie wrote:

Forum discussion at Google News Help.