Media Briefing: Without transparency, publishers can’t tell if Google’s Preferred Sources feature benefits them

Six months after Google debuted its Preferred Sources feature, publishers still don’t know how it’s affecting search traffic.

Google launched the feature to give users more control over which news outlets they want to see in search results. Users can select the news sites they want to appear in Google’s “Top Stories” in a “From your sources” section to customize their search results and make it easier to find and read content from favored or trusted sources.

But Google hasn’t made any data available to publishers on how many people are clicking on their sites from those sections, how much traffic is coming from there, or how many people have selected their site as a Preferred Source. Google also doesn’t provide a “Top Stories” filter in its analytics dashboard to allow publishers to see how much traffic is coming from that section.

It’s difficult to build a strategy around a feature without any available data to work from, six publishing execs told Digiday. It’s a familiar story by now: publishers have been griping about the lack of analytics data from AI Overviews and AI Mode, and are unable to differentiate click-throughs and referral traffic from those Google features in its analytics tools.

Not to mention that the wider rollout of Preferred Sources happened amid two large Google updates: the core algorithm update in December, and an update to Discover this month. That makes it even harder to parse the impact of Preferred Sources on search traffic and visibility.

But Preferred Sources is a way for publishers — who have wanted Google to give them more opportunities to get in front of users now that AI Overviews has pushed them down the search results page — to not have to rely on the search algorithm to get content surfaced. Instead, this feature relies on audience loyalty and choice. Execs said it was a welcome feature.

“It looked like an opportunity to put a thumb on the scale,” said a head of audience development at a news org, who requested to speak anonymously. “It is a rare opportunity to influence search results in a highly competitive space. I genuinely think the product is good, the intention is good. It’s an easy thing to execute for users. It’s just impossible to know right now.”

The benefits of the feature do require getting over some hurdles, such as getting users to go through the steps to select their site as a Preferred Source. When the feature launched, publishers like BBC, Vox and Wired began informing their readers on how they can choose them, with how-to articles and “add us” links and buttons on the site, as well as promotion on social media. After launching in the U.S. and India in August 2025, the feature rolled out globally to English-language users in December.

“We haven’t seen any meaningful traffic from [Preferred Sources], and a big reason for that is Google doesn’t give us a way to track it or report on it,” said a head of search at a news publisher, who spoke under the condition of anonymity. “It’s just really hard to say if it’s really moved the needle at all.” 

There are a few indirect ways publishers can try to measure the impact of Preferred Sources and see how it could fit into their larger off-platform audience strategy on Google, according to The Guardian’s SEO strategist, Jessie Willms. They can track the number of people who clicked on an “add us as a Preferred Source” button on their sites (though they can’t see how many people actually took the next step to choose them as a Preferred Source in Google search). They can also track the volume and trend lines around branded searches on Google — essentially, the search prompts that include the publisher’s title.

“It’s not a ton of upside, because you can’t measure the impact. But it’s also, what is the downside to doing this?” Willms said. “It gives publishers a small tactic to employ in order to build off-platform loyalty and brand loyalty, which is good.”

That’s because publishers can encourage readers to select them as Preferred Sources to strengthen brand recognition and habit — increasingly important as search becomes more volatile and AI-generated summaries make clicks harder to come by — making it tougher for publishers to turn content discovery into audience loyalty. 

Preferred Sources may also signal Google’s move toward more personalization in search results. This month, Google added a new button to the “Top Stories” section encouraging users who are not logged in to “sign in to customize” their search results and select their Preferred Sources, Willms noted.

One thing’s for certain: Preferred Sources is not a replacement for SEO or a fix for the declines in search referral traffic.

“My team is aware of [Preferred Sources] but I wouldn’t say it’s something we’ve been tracking closely since rollout. Most of our growth strategies right now are focused on mitigating the overall decline in SERP traffic that we’re continuing to see and optimizing for platforms that are still driving traffic for us, such as Google Discover,” said one head of content growth strategy at a lifestyle publisher.

According to a Google spokesperson, when someone chooses a Preferred Source, they click through to that site twice as often, on average. Over 175,000 sources have been selected as Preferred Sources by Google users, they said.

When asked if there were plans to give publishers more analytics around Preferred Sources, the Google spokesperson said, “We’ve heard overwhelmingly positive feedback from users, publishers and websites on Preferred Sources, and we continue to take into account input on what additional insights and updates would be helpful.”

Publishers have gotten familiar with Google withholding data, particularly around the impact of Google AI Overviews, leading some to believe its lack of data around Preferred Sources is deliberate. 

“When Google doesn’t make it easy to track something, it’s probably because it’s not necessarily a positive for publishers,” Willms said.

What we’ve heard

“If I was a betting woman, [Google Discover] becomes social media, organic [search] becomes largely a surface for AI and aggregated results topped by AI summaries that really few people go past. If you’re Google and you want the alibi of, ‘But we’re still supporting publisher content. We’re still supporting original journalism.’ Google News is where you do that. So it kind of makes sense to me that we’re seeing more traffic coming in through that surface.”

— A head of audience development at a news publisher on recent increases in Google News referral traffic.

Numbers to know

$250 billion: The total value of media industry M&A deals in 2025, according to consulting firm KPMG.

3 in 10: The share of Americans who get their news from newsletters, according to Pew Research Center.

$62,400:The new salary floor for Hearst Magazines union members, an increase of 11.8 percent.

What we’ve covered

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• Though the podcast industry has entered its video era, recent data shows more listeners still prefer audio, and switch between audio and video depending on context. That’s leaving producers to treat video as a growth lever rather than a full replacement.
• Audio may be the dominant format, audiences increasingly expect video, meaning publishers must invest in both formats without losing sight of where demand actually sits. 

Check out six graphs on this here.

WTF is a creator capital market?

• A small, growing group of creators is experimenting with raising capital by selling a slice of their future earnings.
• The activity is early and fragmented, with adopters spread out across traditional financial institutions, the crypto world, and investment firms, but it’s given rise to what’s being called a “creator capital market” – a way for creators to engage with and monetize their fans through crypto tokens or meme coins.

Learn more here.

Why YouTube has become key for brand GEO strategies

• According to SEO company BrightEdge, YouTube is now a top source for LLMs, showing up in 29.5 percent of Google AI Overviews.
• Longer-form videos – posted frequently and tagged correctly – are rated well by an LLM crawler, just as they will by YouTube’s recommendation algorithm.

Read more here.

What we’re reading

The Economist braces for the future

The Economist remains consistently profitable, but faces a time of change, with longtime owner Lynn Forester de Rothschild selling her stake, a new editor-in-chief to be selected, and an aging subscriber base, Semafor reported.

X’s algorithm deprioritizes liberal and traditional news content

A new study found X has an algorithm that favors conservative content posted by political activists over liberal content or posts by traditional news media accounts, Gizmodo reported.

People Inc. wins wiretapping lawsuit over Google data

People Inc. defeated a proposed class action lawsuit that claimed it unlawfully disclosed users’ personal data from Verywell Health website to third parties, including Google, in violation of federal and state wiretapping and privacy laws, according to Bloomberg Law.

New York Times union battles with management over AI newsroom use

The New York Times management and its union are going back and forth over language in a proposed new contract around the use of AI in the newsroom, The Wrap reported. 

Inside the data on The New York Times’ subscription bundle

A new graph illustrating the growth of The New York Times’ subscription bundle product renewed a debate over whether The Times is becoming more of a lifestyle subscription business than a traditional news organization, according to Nieman Lab.