Publishers can install a button so their readers prioritize them in Top Stories, AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google already counts more than 600,000 sources.

Google lets every site ask to be a preferred source, and SEO gets a loyalty button

Publishers can install a button so their readers prioritize them in Top Stories, AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google already counts more than 600,000 sources.

What happened

Google launched an interactive Preferred Sources button that publishers can embed directly on their sites.
When they click it, users add that domain to their preferred sources and return to the page they were on.
Selected sources can appear with greater visibility in Top Stories, AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Google said users have already selected more than 600,000 unique sources.
The company also announced natural-language controls to personalize Discover and new options for configuring audio summaries in Google News.

Why it matters

For publishers, ranking no longer depends solely on relevance, authority and algorithmic signals. Google is adding an explicit user signal that the site itself can ask for.
For SEO, the button looks more like a subscription than classic optimization. Getting someone to mark a source can have value in future searches, even when the next query doesn’t happen on the site.
For brands with an editorial strategy, this makes an old aspiration measurable: that users don’t just find a piece of content, but ask to find the same publisher again.
It also changes the fight for the click in AI results. The generative answer doesn’t disappear, but a source chosen by the user can gain prominence within it.

The number

More than 600,000 unique sources had already been selected as preferred as of August 20, according to Google.

Context

Preferred Sources was born for Top Stories and was later extended to AI search experiences. The new button reduces friction: the publisher no longer has to explain to readers where to find the setting within Google.

What’s next

Sites can implement the button now using the code published by Search Central.
Over the coming days, Google will roll out Discover personalization through instructions written by the user.
The company will keep integrating preferred sources into its search and news surfaces.

For years SEO tried to convince the algorithm that a site was preferable. Now Google lets you ask the reader to say so directly. It doesn’t replace ranking, but it adds a vote that didn’t exist before.

Sources

Google — Personalize the content you see on Search, Discover, and News: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/personalize-search-discover-news/

Edited by Rodrigo Cornejo.