Google Preferred Sources: How to Get Your Site Chosen in Top Stories, AI Overviews and AI Mode

Preferred Sources is a Google Search setting that lets a reader choose the sites they want to see more often. According to Google's Search Central documentation, a chosen site is more likely to appear in Top Stories, highlighted with a "preferred" badge, and its content can carry the same badge in AI Mode and AI Overviews for the readers who selected it. On 15 October 2026 Google said the number of people using Preferred Sources has grown more than seven times since the start of the year.

It is the one lever in AI search that your own audience controls.

What a preferred site gets

• In Top Stories, a better chance of appearing, with a "preferred" badge.

• In AI Overviews and AI Mode, a "preferred" badge on your content for the readers who chose you.

• In the news carousels Google is rolling out inside its AI features, a highlight for each reader's preferred sources.

The effect is per reader. It changes what your readers see and leaves everyone else's results as they were.

Which sites are eligible

Google's documentation sets two conditions:

• The site is a domain or a subdomain. www.example.com and blog.example.com can be chosen. A subdirectory such as example.com/blog cannot.

• For AI Mode and AI Overviews, the site is included in Search generative AI features in Search Console. A site that has opted out of those features cannot carry the badge there.

Preferred Sources works for Top Stories in every language where Google Search is available, and in AI Mode and AI Overviews wherever those features run.

How a reader adds you

• From a Top Stories carousel, through the icon next to the heading.

• From Google's source preferences page, by searching the site's name or address.

• From a link or a button on your own site, which opens the preferences page with your site already filled in.

Few readers find the first two on their own. The opportunity sits in the third.

Four things to do

1. Put the link where your readers already are

Google publishes a deep link for every site: https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q= followed by your site's address. Add it to your newsletter footer, the end of every article and the confirmation page after a sign-up, with one line: "Add us as a preferred source on Google."

2. Add Google's button to your articles

Search Central documents a localized, Google-styled button that takes two lines of HTML: the publisher.js script and one div element. It adds your site as a preferred source and returns the reader to the page they were on. It comes in light and dark themes, with a language override.

3. Ask once in each channel

One newsletter issue, one LinkedIn post, one line in the onboarding email for new clients. The readers who already trust you are the ones who will tap it, so ask where they already read you.

4. Check the setting that makes you eligible

In Search Console, confirm the site is included in Search generative AI features. It is the condition Google sets for the badge in AI Overviews and AI Mode.

How to see whether it works

Search Console has no Preferred Sources report yet. Count clicks on your own link or button, and compare the impressions in the Generative AI features report and on your news pages in the weeks before and after you start asking.

Where it stops

Preferred Sources works on readers who already know you. Being cited for a stranger's question still depends on the page itself: a first paragraph that answers the question, facts that can be quoted, and presence on the review and comparison pages the answers already cite.

Run a free AI visibility audit to see where AI names you today for your buyers' questions.