Google gives publishers new tool to combat AI search

Google is giving online publishers a new way to encourage readers to prioritise their content across Search as media companies grapple with changes in referral traffic caused by AI-powered search products.

Publishers can now place a Google “Preferred Sources” button directly on their websites. Readers who use it can designate the publication as a source they want to see more frequently.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

Once selected, a preferred publisher is more likely to appear prominently in Google's Top Stories feature. Its content can also receive a preferred-source label in AI Mode and AI Overviews.

Google says readers are twice as likely to click through to a website after marking it as a preferred source. The company said hundreds of thousands of individual sources have already been selected through the programme.

The initiative comes as publishers are increasingly concerned that AI-generated search summaries can answer users' questions without requiring them to visit the websites that produced the underlying reporting or information.

Google is also expanding personalisation elsewhere. Users will be able to tell the Discover feed, using natural-language instructions, which subjects they want to see more or less often. Android users will also receive additional controls over Google News audio briefings.