What you need to know
- Google is expanding Preferred Sources in Search globally so users can highlight trusted news outlets easily.
- Search, Gemini, and AI Mode will now surface links from your paid news subscriptions more prominently.
- Google is updating AI Mode to show clearer and more frequent web links to boost site engagement.
Google is rolling out new features for Search, AI Mode in Google Search, and Gemini that will now highlight the news sources you trust and subscribe to more clearly.
While there are many news feeds and RSS readers out there, Google News and Google Search still remain the primary ways most of us consume news. Earlier this year, Google rolled out a feature that allowed users to mark their favorite news outlets and publications as Preferred Sources, so they would appear higher in search results when users looked up trending topics.
The feature was originally limited to the United States and India. Today, Google announced that it’s expanding Preferred Sources to all English-language users starting this week and to all languages early next year. The company says that when someone marks an outlet as a Preferred Source, they tend to click that site twice as much on average, so now more users will benefit from this feature.
By the way, if you love Android Central’s coverage, you can easily mark us as a Preferred Source in Google by clicking this link.
Preferred Sources expand to all English language users
In addition to this, Google will start surfacing the websites you’re paying for more often across Gemini, AI Mode, and AI Overviews. The company says it’s rolling out a new feature that highlights links from your paid subscriptions, making them easier to spot when you’re using AI Mode or asking Gemini about a trending topic.
Google has also been criticized for reducing users’ clicks to websites they used to visit but now rely on AI Mode for. To address this, the company is rolling out an update that will more prominently highlight links to the web in AI Mode. Google says it’s launching updates to how links appear in AI Mode so users can interact with those pages more easily. You’ll also start seeing more inline links.
In simple terms, with these updates, Google is giving users more control over how they consume news and from which sources while also helping ensure those outlets see more engagement, even if you primarily use AI Mode to stay informed.