Google is rolling out Preferred Sources for Top Stories in Search, giving users the ability to select which publishers they want to be served more of.
Highlights:
– Preferred Sources allows you to select sources in Top Stories, and adds an additional From your sources section to the results page.- Early Labs testers often selected 4+ sources, and any previous choice is transferrable at launch.
– Publishers can promote the feature to readers.
Google is rolling out a new setting that lets you choose which news publishers you want to see more frequently in Top Stories.
The feature, called Preferred Source, is being released today for English in the US and India, with more countries to follow in the coming days.
What’s changing:
– Preferred Sources task you with choosing one or more sources that should appear more frequently when they have new, relevant content for your query.
– Google will also show a dedicated From your sources section on the results page. You will still see news from other sources, so Top Stories are still a variety of publishers.
– Google Product Manager Duncan Osborn says the goal was to help you “stay up to date on the latest content from the sites you know and subscribe to”
How To Activate It:
1. Find a topic that is currently surfacing in the news.
2. Tap the icon on the right of the Top stories heading.
3. Look for and select the outlets you’ll like to prioritize.
4. Hit refresh to see the new mix.
You can easily modify your selections at any time. If you previously opted into the experiment in Labs, your saved sources will transfer over.
In early testing in Labs, more than half of the participants selected four or more sources. That tells us people want to see a mix of outlets, but are also biased toward outlets they trust.
Why You Should Care:
– For publishers, Preferred Sources creates an explicit way to encourage loyal readers to see more of your coverage in Search.
– Loyal audiences will tend to add your site as a preferred source, which raise the chance of showing up for them when you have fresh relevant reporting.
– You can steer your audience to the new setting to explain how to consider your site as a preferred source. Google has also published help content for publishers who want to share about this new setting to followers & subscribers.
– This introduces an additional personalization layer on top of the usual ranking factors. Google states you’ll continue to see a mix of sources, and that sources only show up more often if they have new, relevant content.
Looking Ahead:
– Sources is part of Google’s effort to give you a view that can be customized in Search, while still maintaining a good mix of different sources in Top Stories.
– If you have a loyal audience, this is another reason to invest in retention and newsletters, and to make it really easy for your audience to follow your reporting, in Search and out.
