Google rolls out Preferred Sources for tailored search results

Now rolling out in India and the US, Google’s Preferred Sources gives users more control over which outlets appear in the Top Stories section.
Google’s Preferred Sources feature allows users to prioritise favourite websites in search results, aiming to improve quality and boost trusted outlets’ visibility. charting tools.

Google has introduced a new ‘Preferred Sources’ feature that allows users to curate their search results by selecting favourite websites. Once added, stories from these sites will appear more prominently in the ‘Top Stories’ section and a dedicated ‘From your sources’ section on the search results page.

Now rolling out in India and the US, the feature aims to improve search quality by helping users avoid low-value content. There is no limit to the number of sources that can be chosen, and early testers typically added more than four.

While preferred outlets will appear more often, search results will still include content from other websites.

To set preferred sources, users can click the icon next to the ‘Top Stories’ section when searching for a trending topic, find the outlet they want, and reload results.

Google says the change may also benefit publishers, offering them more visibility when AI-driven search engines sharply reduce traffic to news websites.

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