Definition
Preferred Sources is a Google Search setting that lets users choose websites they want to see more of. Selected sites are more likely to appear in Top Stories with a 'preferred' badge, and since May 27, 2026 they are also labeled when they appear as links in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
The feature has grown in steps:
- June 2025: testing began in Search Labs.
- August 12, 2025: launch for Top Stories in the US and India.
- December 2025: expansion to English-language users worldwide. Google said people had picked nearly 90,000 unique sources and clicked through to a preferred source twice as much on average.
- May 27, 2026: Preferred Sources came to AI Overviews and AI Mode, with more than 345,000 unique sources selected.
- October 15, 2026: Google said the number of people using the feature had grown more than 7x since the start of the year, and that the timely-article carousels in its AI features also highlight preferred sources.
Users add sources through the star icon next to Top Stories or the source preferences page in Search personalization settings. Google's publisher documentation sets out the rules for sites. The feature is available globally in Top Stories in every language Google Search supports, and in AI Overviews and AI Mode wherever those features run. Only domains and subdomains can be selected, so code.example.com is eligible but example.com/blog is not. Google's May 2026 announcement said any website that publishes fresh content is eligible, which includes company blogs and niche publications as well as news outlets.
There is one important condition for AI features. To be shown as a preferred source in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a site must be included in Search generative AI features in Search Console. A site that uses the Search generative AI control to opt out loses its preferred badge in AI answers but can still benefit in Top Stories.
Publishers can encourage readers to select them in three ways. The standard option is two lines of HTML: a script tag loading Google's publisher.js library and a div with the google-add-preferred-source-btn attribute, which renders a localized 'Add to preferred sources' button. An advanced JavaScript API supports custom buttons, and a plain deeplink of the form https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=example.com works in newsletters, social posts and CMSs that block scripts.
For AI visibility, Preferred Sources is a per-user signal. It does not change what other searchers see, and Google has not described it as a ranking factor for anyone who has not chosen the site. Its value is with an existing audience: readers who already trust a brand see its links marked in AI answers, where clicks are scarce (see zero-click search). That makes it one of the few ways a site can influence content personalization inside Google's AI features directly.
In practice, teams add the button where loyal readers will see it, such as article footers, newsletters and account pages, and track referral traffic from Google before and after. Brands that publish frequently, such as news sites, research blogs and real-time data providers, have the most to gain, because Top Stories and timely-article carousels favor fresh content. The feature sits alongside licensing and subscription programs (see publisher licensing) as part of Google's response to publisher concerns about AI search.
Examples of Google Preferred Sources
- A regional newspaper adds the 'Add to preferred sources' button under every article. Readers who click it start seeing the paper's stories marked as preferred in Top Stories and in AI Mode answers about local news.
- A SaaS company checks the source preferences tool and finds its blog at example.com/blog can't be selected, because only domains and subdomains are eligible. It promotes the root domain instead.
- A publisher excludes its site from Search generative AI features in Search Console. Its preferred badges disappear from AI Overviews for readers who selected it, while Top Stories still shows them.
- A newsletter-led media brand adds a Preferred Sources deeplink to its weekly email and tracks how Google referral traffic changes over the following two months.
