If you’re reading this, there’s a chance you went onto Google today, searched ‘what are preferred sources’ and clicked this link.
There’s also a chance you didn’t find this story high up on the world’s most popular search engine, which can happen to every site, no matter the size.
Hidden algorithms and AI bots play a big part in deciding what comes up when you Google something, including what news outlets appear.
Google has now rolled out a new feature that lets users see more of what they want, called ‘preferred sources’.
What are Google’s preferred sources?
When a user Googles something fresh, trendy and news-y, some search results will be grouped in a ‘Top Stories’ section.
The section appears as a carousel at the top of the search results.
By telling Google your ‘preferred sources’, content from them will be more likely to appear in the Top Stories section.
This could be your local newspaper, a blog you’ve followed for years… or Metro, of course.
Google said that users living in places where the feature has been trialled pick about four preferred sources each, totalling 90,000 unique choices.
How to add Metro as a preferred source
- Search for a topic on Google, whether on your phone or desktop
- Find the ‘Top Stories‘ carousel
- Click the star Icon or ‘Settings’ button next to the header
- Search for Metro and select it
You can also click this link to automatically add Metro as your preferred source.
People are twice as likely to click their preferred source, according to the tech giant.
Starring a newspaper or blog doesn’t mean that only that publication will appear – you’ll still see other sources mixed in.
You’ll also get a dedicated ‘From Your Sources’ section on some search results pages.
Google ran a pilot scheme for users in the US and India in August, but it will be rolled out for English-language users worldwide in the coming days.
‘We’ll roll it out to all supported languages early next year,’ Google said.
What can you expect when you add Metro as a preferred source?
Look, we’re a little biased here, but if you’re going to add a source, it should be us! After all, you’re literally reading the Metro right now.
Google has long been criticised for holding a monopoly on search engines, with its algorithms deciding what results appear and in what order.
The algorithms rank every webpage and display the most appropriate ones for different search queries.
While this sounds simple enough, Google’s algorithms can be finicky. Some of the hundreds of updates to it every year can push people away from now-penalised content without anyone realising at first.
The company’s AI summary mode, which provides a small summary of the search, relies on sources written by people. This summary, as Metro has found, can sometimes be wrong.
That’s why proper journalism is so important these days – only today Metro revealed how a new DNA tool could help police reopen historic sex crime cases.
We’ve done other exclusives like speaking with a pickpocket hunter so good, he’s quite his day job or exposing how one in 10 women have been spat on while running.
Metro reporters have gone abroad to cover the news that few outlets do and show readers the parts of the world they never even knew about.
That, or we venture just up the road to see the robots delivering Christmas meals.
We even recently had the inside scoop on this year’s most unlikely pairing, former Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry.
And for Metro, that’s all in a day’s work.
Why is Google doing this?
Leigh McKenzie, director of online visibility at the search engine optimisation (SEO) tool Semrush, tells Metro that the ‘preferred sources’ tool isn’t exactly surprising.
Google’s algorithm and AI is learning what people search, how they ask questions and where they like to get their answers from.
‘For now, it’s driven by user behaviour rather than advertising, but over time, it becomes another signal users give to AI systems about what they want to see and who they want to hear from,’ McKenzie says.
‘Ultimately, this reflects a larger shift in search — away from a single, static results page and toward a more personalised experience where users actively shape their own discovery journey.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].
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