Google on Tuesday announced that Google Search will let certain users customize their news experience when browsing the web by allowing them to select Preferred Sources for the news items that appear in the “Top Stories” section. The feature comes at a time when Google is seeing mounting criticism for the way its AI products have impacted the Google Search experience for publishers. While recent estimates from third-party sources have indicated that AI Overviews contributed to a reduction in visits to websites, Google pushed back a few days ago, saying that AI features in Google Search have improved the quality of clicks and that the traffic volume remains stable.
The Preferred Sources feature might not necessarily improve traffic to certain publishers or fix any Google Search traffic problems that Google might be dealing with regardless of what it says in public, but it could be a great way for users to personalize their Google Search experience. Preferred Sources should ensure that more of your favorite websites and news sources appear in Google Search results related to news topics than before. The “Top Stories” section will still include news items from sources that aren’t part of your favorites.
Preferred Sources looks like a successful Google experiment
Google unveiled the Preferred Sources experiment in late June. The feature was available in English in the U.S. and India, allowing users who enable the Labs functionality to set their favorite news sources for the “Top Stories” section.
“If you opt in to the experiment, you can tap the starred icon to the right of the Top Stories header,” Google explained in June. “Then, you’ll have the option to select your preferred sources (if a site is publishing fresh content). You’ll start to see more of the latest updates from your selected sites in Top Stories when they have new articles or posts that are relevant to your search. Your sources will be clearly labeled and will appear in addition to other results in Top Stories, so you can see what your favorite sites have to say along with a range of sources.”
Almost two months later, Google is ready to graduate the new Google Search feature and roll it out to all Google Search users in the U.S. and India. It’s unclear why Google isn’t making the feature available more broadly at this time.
According to Google, the feature will work just like the Labs experiment. “When you select your preferred sources, you’ll start to see more of their articles prominently displayed within Top Stories, when those sources have published fresh and relevant content for your search.”
How to enable the Preferred Sources feature
Selecting your favorite news sources for Google Search is straightforward. Perform a standard online search in Google Search and then look for the icon that appears next to the “Top Stories” section. Click that icon, and you’ll be invited to “choose your preferred sources” by performing a search inside a pop-up screen.
For example, searching for “BGR” or “BGR.com” in that pop-up display will let you set BGR as one of your preferred sources. Next time you search for tech and entertainment news, whether it’s the iPhone, AI, gadgets reviews, tech tutorials, or fan-favorite Netflix shows and Marvel movies, BGR will appear in your Top Stories.
You can select multiple favorites in the list, as seen in the image above. The Labs experiment showed that half of the people who tried the feature selected four sources or more for the Preferred Sources section. Once you’re done, tap the “Refresh results” button. The Top Stories section should show more content from your favorite sites, assuming they cover the topics in question. A “From your sources” section in Google Search should also display content based on your Preferred Sources.
Google says in the blog post that Google Search will continue to surface results from other sites when performing a search. You can update your preference list at any time as well. Publishers looking to take advantage of the feature will find more information on Google’s support pages.
