{"slug": "google-gives-publishers-a-preferred-sources-button-to-fight-ai-driven-traffic", "title": "Google Gives Publishers a 'Preferred Sources' Button to Fight AI-Driven Traffic Losses", "summary": "Google LLC has introduced a 'Preferred Sources' button that publishers can embed to let readers favor their sites across Search, Discover, and Google News, aiming to counter traffic losses from AI-powered search. As of May, over 345,000 unique sources had been selected by users, and Google's studies show people are twice as likely to click through to a preferred source when available. The company also announced that readers will soon be able to customize their Discover feed using natural language commands via a three-dot menu.", "body_md": "Google is giving publishers a new way to fight declining referral traffic from AI-powered search by letting them embed a \"Preferred Sources\" button that readers can use to favor their sites across Search, Discover, and Google News. \"The idea is to make it easier for readers to find links from the sites they know and trust when they're searching for content or interacting with Google's AI to learn about a topic or read the latest news,\" reports TechCrunch. \"As of May's launch, the company said that people across the web had already selected over 345,000 unique sources through this method.\" From the report: Becoming a preferred source can drive more traffic to publishers' websites, Google said. In earlier studies, it found that people are twice as likely to click through to a preferred source when available. By offering publishers these additional tools, Google is trying to assuage the damage that the rapid growth of AI-powered search features has had on traffic-dependent businesses.\nAlongside the new button, Google said that readers will soon be able to customize their Discover feed in Google's app in their own words. To use this feature, readers will tap any three-dot menu in the feed and then tell Google what topics they'd like to see more or less of, using natural language commands. This helps Google refine the feed in real time.[Read more of this story](https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/08/21/0113259/google-gives-publishers-a-preferred-sources-button-to-fight-ai-driven-traffic-losses?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed) at Slashdot.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-gives-publishers-a-preferred-sources-button-to-fight-ai-driven-traffic", "canonical_source": "https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/08/21/0113259/google-gives-publishers-a-preferred-sources-button-to-fight-ai-driven-traffic-losses?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed", "published_at": "2026-08-21 15:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-21 15:12:41.454465+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-products", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["Google LLC", "Google Search", "Google Discover", "Google News", "TechCrunch", "Slashdot"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-gives-publishers-a-preferred-sources-button-to-fight-ai-driven-traffic", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-gives-publishers-a-preferred-sources-button-to-fight-ai-driven-traffic.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-gives-publishers-a-preferred-sources-button-to-fight-ai-driven-traffic.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-gives-publishers-a-preferred-sources-button-to-fight-ai-driven-traffic.jsonld"}}