When you search for something on Google , Google attempts to find you the most relevant websites related to your search. However, more recently, Google introduced a way for users to mark their favorite news outlets as a Preferred Source. What this does is that it ensures that these websites appear higher in search results when users search for topics. But Google isn’t stopping there. The company has announced additional changes that expand on it by allowing Google Search, Gemini, and AI Mode to highlight those news sources more clearly.
Preferred Sources rolls out globally
Starting with Preferred Sources , Google says that it is now rolling it out globally in the coming days. “We’re now launching this feature globally: in the coming days, it will be available for English-language users worldwide, and we’ll roll it out to all supported languages early next year. This builds on the great early feedback we’ve heard from users and websites. People have selected a wide range of preferred sources — nearly 90,000 unique sources, from local blogs to global news outlets. When someone picks a preferred source, they click to that site twice as much on average.”
Like we said, Google is expanding on this feature to make it more obvious. This includes subscriptions, where news subscriptions from sources you trust will be easier to spot. Google will also prioritize links from these sources and show them in a dedicated carousel.
Borrowing from Perplexity
Lastly, it seems that Google wants to challenge Perplexity in AI search. For those unfamiliar, one of the reasons people like using Perplexity for search is because it always cites its sources. This means that while other AI models might hallucinate, Perplexity has a lower chance because you know where its answers come from. This is why Google says that it is increasing the number of inline links when users search in AI Mode. The updated design of those links makes them more useful.
Ultimately, it sounds like regardless of whether you search for information or news via Google Search the traditional way, or through Gemini , or AI Mode, these changes will still let you go directly to your preferred sources. This could potentially address the issue that some publishers have, where they claim that AI features like AI Overviews and AI Mode are stealing traffic away from them .
