Google gives publishers more control over AI‑driven traffic

A tiny button could change how readers find news online.

Google has introduced a “Preferred Sources” button that publishers can add to their websites. It lets readers mark a publication as a favourite, increasing the chances of its content appearing more prominently in Google Search experiences including Top Stories, AI Overviews and AI Mode.

The move comes as publishers worry about losing referral traffic to AI search. By letting readers signal which sources they trust, Google is turning audience loyalty into a new way to surface publishers' content.

How the new control works

Once a publisher adds the button, visitors can set that site as a preferred source with a tap. Those preferences are then used to surface that publisher’s links more prominently in relevant Search queries and AI responses.

Google first brought Preferred Sources to its AI experiences in May and is now extending the control to publishers directly via an on-site button, making adoption easier for newsrooms and niche sites alike.

Early usage signals and what they imply

Google says Preferred Sources already has traction. In a May product update, the company reported people had selected more than 345,000 unique sources and were twice as likely to click through when a preferred source appeared. By August, Google said the number of selected unique sources had crossed 600,000.

Readers can also set preferences directly in Search via Google’s source preferences page, and Google provides documentation to help site owners encourage take-up. If these behaviours hold, publishers that mobilise loyal readers could claw back some of the visibility lost to AI summaries.

Alongside the button, Google will let readers fine-tune the Discover feed using natural-language prompts from the three-dot menu, and Android users will be able to customise audio daily briefings in the Google News app. For publishers, these controls add more ways to remain visible to audiences who actively signal interest in their coverage areas.

Why this matters now

Publishers have spent the past year grappling with lower click-through rates as AI answers satisfy more queries on the results page. Studies and industry reporting have tied AI Overviews and chat-style search to measurable traffic declines for information publishers. Against that backdrop, tools that elevate trusted sources offer a practical lever that does not depend solely on algorithm tweaks.

The bottom line

This is not a silver bullet. Preferred Sources will not replace broader SEO or the need for original reporting. Yet it does shift a little power back towards publishers and reader relationships by converting affinity into a clear preference that can influence Top Stories and Google’s AI Search experiences, including AI Overviews and AI Mode. Early data suggests preferred sources are associated with higher click-through rates, making it a low-lift experiment worth running for most sites.