Google Expands Preferred Sources to AI Overviews, Adds Carousels and Highly Cited Label
Enable Preferred Sources for your site and monitor click‑through rates in AI responses.
Enable Preferred Sources for your site and monitor click‑through rates in AI responses.
Summary
Google announced that Preferred Sources will now appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode, alongside new article carousels and an expansion of the Highly Cited badge across search results.
The feature now labels links inside AI responses, with 345,000 sites selected as Preferred Sources—four times the 90,000 count from the global rollout. Google reports that click‑throughs to Preferred Sources are twice as high as other links. New carousel formats surface evolving stories with brief context, and a second carousel will highlight firsthand perspectives from forums and social media.
The Highly Cited badge now appears on standard search results, showing when an article explicitly references a Highly Cited source, giving users a clearer view of citation relationships. These updates give publishers a direct link between audience loyalty and AI search visibility and broaden the visibility of original reporting.
Key changes
- Preferred Sources labels now appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode responses.
- New article carousel format surfaces evolving stories with brief context.
- New perspective carousel will surface forum and social media content.
- Highly Cited badge expanded to standard search results, showing when an article references a Highly Cited source.
- 345,000 sites selected as Preferred Sources, up from 90,000.
- Click‑through rate for Preferred Sources links is twice that of other links.