{"id":575063,"date":"2026-08-20T17:46:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T17:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/575063\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T17:46:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T17:46:13","slug":"google-expands-personalization-across-search-discover-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/575063\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Expands Personalization Across Search, Discover &#038; News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Google is rolling out three personalization features across Search, Discover, and Google News, headlined by a new interactive Preferred Sources button. Google announced the changes in a <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products-and-platforms\/products\/search\/personalize-search-discover-news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">blog post<\/a> Thursday, which also covers new Discover feed controls and audio briefings in Google News.<\/p>\n<p>More than 600,000 unique sources have been selected through Preferred Sources so far, Google notes, up from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/google-preferred-sources-hit-345k-expand-into-ai-search\/576032\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">more than 345,000 in May<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A New Preferred Sources Button<\/p>\n<p>Websites can now embed an interactive Preferred Sources button on their pages. Clicking it adds the site as a Preferred Source and directs the reader back to where they left off on the publisher\u2019s page. The old badge, by contrast, sends readers to Google\u2019s source preferences tool.<\/p>\n<p>Sites selected as Preferred Sources are more likely to appear in Top Stories, per Google\u2019s documentation. In AI Overviews and AI Mode, selected sites can be highlighted with a \u201cpreferred\u201d badge. The button code for the new embed is available in Google\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/appearance\/preferred-sources\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Search Central documentation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Natural Language Discover Controls<\/p>\n<p>In the coming days, Google app users will be able to tap the three-dot menu on any Discover card. From there, they can tell Google, in their own words, what topics or links they want to see more or less of. The feed adjusts and remembers those requests.<\/p>\n<p>Discover already lets people follow or unfollow topics and tell Google which topics or sources they don\u2019t want to see. The natural language option adds a written request as a third way to shape the feed.<\/p>\n<p>New Audio Briefing Controls<\/p>\n<p>Google now lets you customize daily audio briefings by topic in the Google News app on Android. Each briefing will note where a story came from and link to the full article.<\/p>\n<p>Google credits the range of publishers in its news AI pilot, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/google-expands-preferred-sources-publisher-ai-partnerships\/563062\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announced in December<\/a>, for the briefings\u2019 deeper dives into key stories.<\/p>\n<p>Why This Matters<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019ve already added the Preferred Sources badge Google introduced earlier this year, check whether the new button replaces it automatically or needs a fresh embed. Switching to the new button matters more now that the source count is up from more than 345,000 in May. The new button returns readers to your page after confirmation, rather than leaving them in Google\u2019s source preferences flow.<\/p>\n<p>Looking Ahead<\/p>\n<p>Check Google\u2019s Search Central documentation to get the code for the new button. Discover\u2019s natural language controls don\u2019t have a confirmed launch date beyond \u201cin the coming days.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google is rolling out three personalization features across Search, Discover, and Google News, headlined by a new interactive&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-575063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}