Help your readers find your site through preferred sources in Google Search

If you're a website owner, you can help your audience find your publication as a preferred source in Google Search. When a user selects your site as a preferred source, your content is more likely to appear for them during relevant news queries in "Top Stories".

Feature availability

The preferred sources feature is available globally in English for queries that trigger the "Top Stories" feature.

Only domain-level and subdomain-level sites are eligible to appear in the source preferences tool. For example, https://www.example.com/ and https://code.example.com/ are eligible for preferred sources, but the subdirectory https://www.example.com/blog isn't eligible.

How to help users find your site as a preferred source

If your site appears in the source preferences tool (to check, enter your site in the tool's search box), you can use the following methods to guide your readers to select your site as a preferred source:

• Add the deeplink to your social posts or promotions. Use the following URL format, which takes users directly to your site in the source preferences tool:

  https://google.com/preferences/source?q=Your_Website's_URL

  For example, if your site is https://example.com, use the following URL:

  https://google.com/preferences/source?q=example.com

• Include a button on your site alongside other social Call to Action (CTAs). You can download and use these button assets provided by Google or your own button.

These methods are examples on how you can build your audience and help people find your site as a preferred source. It's not required to do them in order to appear as a preferred source.