You Can Now Tell Google Which Websites You Prefer in Search Results

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You Can Now Tell Google Which Websites You Prefer in Search Results

Search ain't what it used to be. In the not-so-distant past, your query would return a simple list of links, which you could peruse at your convenience. Now, a search can yield a myriad of result types, from AI summaries to obnoxious or even malicious ads, with the links buried in between. There are ways to make search more useful, but they aren't always obvious.

That's why I'm curious about Google's latest search addition. Last week, Google announced that its feature, Preferred Sources, is rolling out to all English users in the U.S. and India. If you frequently test features with Google Labs, you might remember trying this one out: Preferred Sources, as the name implies, lets you tell Google which websites you prefer to read news from. The goal, then, is to see pages from those sites in future Google searches about news stories, assuming those sites publish content related to your search.

How to choose your preferred news sources in Google search

Here's how it works: When you search for something covered in the news, Google will display a "Top stories" section at the top of the search results page. While you can simply browse the stories that Google curates for you, you can also now click a new button to the right of the "Top stories" title. From here, you can search for any website, and click a checkbox next to its name to save it to your list of preferred sources. Google doesn't put a cap on the number of sources you can add, so you can fill your list with as many sites as you want. You'll also see any sources you previously saved here (including during the Labs experiment period) and you can uncheck them as you wish.

   

                   
           

           

                           
                                        Credit: Lifehacker
                   

   

Now, you can refresh your search results, which, with any luck, will populate with more of the sources you added to this list. Not only will they appear more frequently in the "Top stories" section going forward, Google may offer you a new "From your sources" section as well, which should only contain the websites you've added to your list. As this feature saves your preferences, you do need to be signed into your Google Account, though it seems to work across a variety of browsers. (Safari and Firefox both worked fine for me.)

It's not necessarily groundbreaking, but I do see the utility here. Any chance you get to personalize your search experience is probably worth taking advantage of, and with Preferred Sources, you can (and should) improve the odds the websites you know and trust appear alongside any given news story. It's also an interesting juxtaposition alongside other changes to Google Search, such as Web Guide, an AI-powered Search experience that automatically groups links into different categories.

It can be difficult to find high-quality information on the web these days, but I have to say, between these two features, Google is making some decent changes here.

Source: You Can Now Tell Google Which Websites You Prefer in Search Results