Google Preferred Sources Now Labelled in AI Overviews and AI Mode

Google extended its Preferred Sources feature to AI Overviews and AI Mode on 27 May 2026. The setting is available at google.com/preferences/source and lets users nominate publishers they want surfaced more frequently in search results. What Google documents on the AI surfaces is a label. Its announcement says preferred sources will be “clearly labeled to stand out” and that readers can “easily spot links” from sources they have selected.

The update applies wherever AI Overviews and AI Mode are available. It follows the global language rollout on 30 April 2026, which extended the feature to all languages supported by Google Search.

What changed on 27 May

When a user has marked a publisher as a preferred source and that publisher is cited in an AI Overview or AI Mode response, a “Preferred” badge now appears next to the link. The badge is visible only to the user who set the preference.

Google’s publisher documentation is precise about the difference between the two surfaces, and uses different wording for each. Content from a preferred source is “more likely to appear” in Top Stories. In AI Mode and AI Overviews it “can be highlighted with a ‘preferred’ badge for users who have selected your site as a preferred source”. Google had the placement wording available and did not apply it to the AI surfaces.

Google also launched two new carousels. The first surfaces Preferred Sources prominently on searches about developing topics. The second is separate: a carousel showing “firsthand perspectives from online discussions, forums, and social media” for relevant queries. The two are distinct features; the forum carousel is not limited to preferred sources.

The Highly Cited badge

Alongside the Preferred Sources expansion, Google introduced a “Highly Cited” badge for web article links. Google describes it as helping users “find the primary reporting that other articles are referencing.” The badge marks articles that other reporting has referenced frequently, indicating they are influential or widely corroborated within a news cycle.

A secondary indicator will also appear on articles that explicitly reference a highly cited source, extending a degree of reflected credibility to follow-up reporting that links to the original. The two signals are independent: a site does not need to be a preferred source to receive a Highly Cited badge, and preferred status does not produce the Highly Cited badge.

The publisher action

Google’s Preferred Sources guide sets out three mechanisms for publishers to promote their own selection:

• An embeddable JavaScript button, added on 20 August 2026, which adds the site as a preferred source and returns the reader to the point in the page they left. Google recommends this option and also documents an advanced mode for publishers using their own button design
• A deeplink at google.com/preferences/source?q=your-site-url that takes users directly to the preference toggle for a specific publication
• Downloadable “Add as preferred source” badge images, intended to be placed on-site alongside social follow CTAs

Over 345,000 unique sources have been selected by users since launch, up from 200,000 at the April global expansion. Google’s internal data continues to show users are twice as likely to click through to a preferred source than to an unmarked site in the same position.

Which sites are eligible

Google’s stated eligibility criteria are minimal. The announcement post says: “Any website that publishes fresh content is eligible.” The only structural restriction is that a site must be at the domain or subdomain level: example.com/blog would not qualify, but example.com would.

In practice, not all sites that meet those criteria appear in the system. The mechanism Google uses to populate the preferred sources pool is not publicly documented, which makes it difficult for publishers to diagnose why their site might be absent. Google has not explained the gap between its stated eligibility and which sites are actually discoverable in the preferences UI.

What this means for publishers

The April expansion made Preferred Sources relevant to publishers in all markets. The May update makes it relevant to publishers with any meaningful presence in AI Overviews or AI Mode.

What the badge does and does not do is the detail worth getting right. On the evidence Google has published, preferred status changes how a citation you already earned is presented, not whether you earn it. That still has value, because a labelled link in an AI answer is more likely to be clicked, and Google reports readers are twice as likely to click through to a preferred source. It is not a route into AI answers you were not already appearing in, and the work that earns those citations is unchanged.

This mirrors the point from the April rollout: publisher tools like email lists, social channels, and on-site prompts are now worth using to drive Preferred Sources selections. The deeplink format makes that ask straightforward to include in newsletters or post-read CTAs.

The Highly Cited badge is less actionable in the short term. It rewards original reporting that others reference, which is a function of editorial output rather than any specific technical change a publisher can make. It is worth monitoring as a signal of how Google is weighting primary sources within AI responses.

Correction, 21 August 2026: this article originally reported that Google had confirmed preferred sources would be surfaced more frequently in AI answers, and analysed the update on that basis. Google’s publisher documentation describes a badge on the AI surfaces and reserves “more likely to appear” for Top Stories. The affected passages have been rewritten.

Update: developing-topic carousels reach AI Mode (August 2026)

On 25 August 2026, Robby Stein, VP of Product for Google Search, said the developing-topic link carousel is “now live in AI Mode (already in AI Overviews)”. On a query about a developing topic, AI Mode can show a horizontal row of article cards between sections of its answer, each carrying an image, a headline, a source and a publication date, and a reader’s Preferred Sources can be highlighted inside it. Google says it appears for some searches only.

Nothing about earning a slot is new: the carousel surfaces recent, clearly attributed reporting on a live story, so the levers are the Preferred Sources ask above plus ordinary news SEO. Measuring it is the part with no answer. AI Mode links generate Search Console impressions and clicks, but no filter isolates this carousel, so a slot in it never appears as its own line in a report.

Sources

• New ways to find your favorite sources and original content in AI Search — Google Blog
• Google AI Mode and AI Overviews will highlight your Preferred Sources — 9to5Google
• Guide to Preferred Sources for Web Publishers — Google Search Central
• Google adds link carousels for developing topics in AI Mode — Search Engine Land
• Google Brings Developing-Topic Link Carousels To AI Mode — Search Engine Journal