Google Will Now Let You Pick Your Top Sources For Search Results (techcrunch.com)
- Reference: 0178656710
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/12/1842234/google-will-now-let-you-pick-your-top-sources-for-search-results
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/12/google-will-now-allow-you-define-your-top-sources-for-search-results/
> Enabling this feature means you will see more content from the sites you like, the company says. When users search for a particular topic, they will see a "star" icon next to the Top Stories section. They can tap on that icon and start adding sources by searching for them. Once you select the sources, you can refresh the results to see more content from your selected sources. Google said that for some queries, users will also see a separate "From your sources" section below the Top Stories section.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/12/google-will-now-allow-you-define-your-top-sources-for-search-results/
Kagi did it first and better (Score:1)
There just stealing Kagi's (https://kagi.com) weighted search system.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you pay for Kagi search?
Re: (Score:1)
Yep it's well worth the $5 a month for the starter sub (300 searches + AI assistant a month). I use it for real searches and then fall back to DDG for the simple stuff.
Kagi is not a search algorithm it's a metasearch aggregate engine which uses 6-8 different search engines for every search - and it's add free.
Please like and subscribe ... (Score:2)
... and set us as your default source in Google.
Please do this in Australia... (Score:2)
I would LOVE to be able to pick my preferred news outlets and not get fed content from Murdoch and the other crappy media outlets that plague this country.
Re: Please do this in Australia... (Score:2)
You can remove sites from your news feed, though videos don't count. I still occasionally get GeeBeeBies showing up.
Re: (Score:2)
Problem is, about as many people will chose the "Hamas Gazette" and "Intifada Daily" for their 'news'.
Re: (Score:2)
People _search_ for news, they just don't know where in the 53245 newspapers the best story of that tuberculosis elephant IS.
PS, according to your UID you must be a VERY old cat. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
How would you even know that there was a tuberculosis elephant unless you saw a news story already?
Google ignores my feedback (Score:2)
I keep telling it to "stop showing stories like this"
I don't care how some celebrity who was in a few movies in the 90's is unrecognizable today
or other such clickbait.
Apparently you can't get rid of clickbait stories in general, because money.
Preferred source (Score:1)
My preferred source is: not google.
DuckDuckGo
Re: (Score:2)
Yes you can.
How about: sources that are not paywalled (Score:2)
Most news sources linked by Google News are somewhat reasonable. But if I can't read the story without an account, I don't want to see it in the search results. Period. I'm not going to make that account just to read that article.
Re: (Score:2)
That will never happen. Google is 100% getting kick backs from these paywalled sites for every signup that comes thought Google news. Otherwise how have they gotten access to scrape the news article to include in the news feed to begin with? Likely these paywalled sites would raise hell if google just got their own account for scraping without the paywalled site's blessing.
Re: (Score:2)
You are certainly right about payola.
As for how Google gets access, that's a dirty little secret, but not exactly due to money changing hands. Those sites are built so that when a crawler pays a visit, the site coughs up the entire content to the crawler, minus the ads. When a human visits the site with a regular web browser, you get hit with the ads and the paywall.
That's why these sites are so up in arms about AI crawlers--because they are crawlers, they get the entire payload, the articles in full, in ra
Re: (Score:2)
That's one of my problems with Apple News. I pay for it. I am generally pretty happy with it.
Sometimes it includes stories with links to sources that require a login. I'd pay more for Apple News if those kinds of results were not included.
Too Sticky to be legal (Score:1)
So you're telling me that after I set my preferences there's no way for an alternative to become my new preference unless I manually do it?
So why are you enforcing these echo chambers, google?
Re: (Score:3)
A) That's what people seem to want.
and B) It's one more point of data they can collect about you. $user prefers site A, B, C, D, so advertise things associated with users of sites A, B, C, D.
Re: (Score:2)
What people really want is a way to filter low quality sites like Quora and Pinterest. I don't need Facebook results either.
Re: (Score:2)
> What people really want is a way to filter low quality sites like Quora and Pinterest. I don't need Facebook results either.
A blacklist for search would be absolutely amazing, which is why they will never, ever provide one. The tech companies are absolutely convinced that if the users want it, they can not provide it. If the users hate the idea, it must be implemented immediately!
Re: (Score:2)
The uBlacklist plugin for Chromium and Firefox will do what you are looking for.
[1]https://chromewebstore.google.... [google.com]
[2]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]
It's great. I no longer have to see amazon.* results anywhere. Or pinterest. Or junk sites in general. Kagi also has this feature built-in to the site.
[1] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublacklist/pncfbmialoiaghdehhbnbhkkgmjanfhe?hl=en
[2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublacklist/
Re: (Score:2)
For what it's worth, you can filter those out now by putting the domain behind a minus sign:
"Stupid cat photos -pinterest"
There's probably a plugin for your favorite browser that will automatically append a list at the end of any search.
Re: (Score:2)
This is really what google needs. A box in your settings where you can enter a list of domains to NEVER return results from. Pinterest has made an absolute mess of google image searches.
Re: (Score:2)
Would you prefer they choose your preferred sources for you?
The actual insidious part about this is tying those preferences to your profile which they will definitely use to commoditize their user base even more.
Re: Too Sticky to be legal (Score:2)
They already do: their AI garbage is always at the top whether you want it or not.
Re: (Score:2)
Would you prefer they choose your preferred sources for you?
How about show everything and let the person decide. Or isn't choice a thing any longer?
Re: (Score:2)
That's not plausible. There are too many choices...or do you mean "just let them decide what fits on the first page"?
Re: (Score:2)
Meh, all social media (and remember: far more people get their news from social media than Google News) is already a giant echo chamber.
I see this less as "Google betraying mankind" and more as "Google begrudgingly doing what every other site already does".
Re: (Score:2)
> So why are you enforcing these echo chambers, google?
Google is an advertising company first, last, and always. You're the product they're selling. Advertisers don't give a damn what you're looking for, only what they want to show you. And they only want to pay for people who might be potential customers to see their ads, and that is why the science of demographics exists. Group people by measurable characteristics that are relevant to how they spend money.
Google isn't doing this to benefit you, the eyeballs they're selling to advertisers. They're doing this b