Google Gives Publishers a 'Preferred Sources' Button to Fight AI-Driven Traffic Losses (techcrunch.com)
- Reference: 0185076604
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/08/21/0113259/google-gives-publishers-a-preferred-sources-button-to-fight-ai-driven-traffic-losses
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/20/google-gives-publishers-a-new-way-to-fight-ai-driven-traffic-losses/
> 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.
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> Alongside 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.
[1] https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/07/31/1639202/publishers-are-losing-google-traffic-as-ai-answers-replace-links
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/20/google-gives-publishers-a-new-way-to-fight-ai-driven-traffic-losses/
For how much? (Score:2)
AI: "Dat's a nice little web site ya' got there buddy. Shame if someting were to happen to it."
Options missing (Score:2)
> The idea is to make it easier for readers to find links from the sites they know and trust
should read:
> The idea is to make it easier for Google to know which sites to more aggressively steal content from in order to power their AI.
Interestingly, if Google was about giving choice - they'd give you an option to turn off AI answers entirely in the search. But they don't. But, at least they have safe search enabled so you don't accidentally see a nipple.
Re: (Score:2)
> Interestingly, if Google was about giving choice - they'd give you an option to turn off AI answers entirely in the search. But they don't. But, at least they have safe search enabled so you don't accidentally see a nipple.
This is the thing that has made me so angry with modern SaaS software. My favorite example is that I pay quickbooks a monthly fee, and there is no way I can find to make it stop popping up giant intrusive ads for their other services every single time I open it. I hate them so much.
All that is old is now new again (Score:2)
The reason Google rose to dominance is that their algorithm accounted for trustworthiness. You didnâ(TM)t need to know the site that had your answer, Google knew it, and ranked it at the top of your results. This is basically asking you to manually do what Google historically did automatically, which is to vet websites that might contain answers to your queries. All so that they can inject LLMs into a process that does not need them. Yet one more reason Iâ(TM)m glad I ditched Google.
How new? (Score:2)
The article is dated yesterday, but I've seen the button on the Guardian website for months. (I'm not a regular reader, but I like their crossword.)
Re: How new? (Score:2)
Hit submit too quick - it does say it was released in May - my point was it's not really news if it's that old.