Exposed to criticism for degraded search results Amid fears of people wanting to avoid AI previews, Google has announced a new search feature that lets you choose which websites you want to see in news and search results.
Googling said in a recent blog post which will launch Preferred Sources in the US and India this month. The new feature can be accessed via a plus icon to the right of the main news panels or via a direct link Your preferences.
“Once you select feeds, they’ll appear more frequently in your Top Stories or in a special From Your Feeds section on the search results page. You’ll continue to see content from other sites and can manage your selections at any time,” Google said.
The new feature is the result of a Labs experiment. Google says that in this version, half of users added four or more fonts. Google has offered advice to publishers and website owners on how to get readers to bookmark their site.
How to choose your favorite fonts in Google Search
Adding favorite fonts for Google searches is easy. You can click the star icon to the right of a Top Stories section in Google Search, which will open a popup where you can add feeds. You can also go directly to the settings page below. https://www.google.com/preference/source.
To view and manage your favorite fonts, click the “Your Fonts” link at the bottom of the settings page. To remove your favorite fonts, simply uncheck the box for each website you want to remove.
You can use any browser on your desktop or mobile device to take advantage of Google’s new Favorite Fonts feature. However, you must sign in to your Google account.
What this means for news sites and their readers
Media and other news sites have previously adapted to Google’s search algorithm and other platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. The editor made one switched to video in the 2010sand in recent years has produced shorter content suitable for sharing. Platforms like TikTok.
Adding news preferences can be a double-edged sword, giving you more control over search results and further excluding some legitimate news publishers as new echo chambers are built.
“From my point of view, it’s almost a tone-deaf attitude from Google, because news agencies are already worried Loss of traffic to AI insightssaid Alex Mahadevan, director of MediaWise on Poyntera nonprofit, nonpartisan media education program. “Now they have to figure out how to let people choose their font in the font settings.”
For large news publishers with loyal audiences, preferred sources can prove that audience engagement efforts can pay off. But Mahadevan says this will depend on people’s willingness to sign up and effectively manage their list of news sources.
“I wonder how many people will actually use it,” he said.
People may find that their beliefs are strengthened rather than challenged.
Publishers that have failed to build loyal, engaged subscribers and lack the resources to manage their audience may suffer the consequences, says Mahadevan.
“What I’m really concerned about is that this is simply going to drive more traffic from Google to businesses that might not have done it,” Mahadevan said. “If many more people wanted news on Fox News and chose Fox News as their preferred source, that would crowd out other news sites that might need that traffic.”
As an experiment, according to Mahadevan, he used Google’s search function to select the news network Breitbart as the source, then selected the far-right news source. He is known for spreading misinformation..
“I started Googling awards and the first thing I see is Breitbart,” he said. “It also worries me from a media literacy perspective because I think it can push people further into echo chambers,” where they only see beliefs that align with the beliefs they already have.
“This appears to be a way for people to further limit their information diet through Google Search,” Mahadevan said.
What would it mean for the future of publishing and media if SEO, the way websites have attracted traffic from Google for decades by generating relevant, quality content, completely disappears?
“Is there a strong enough foundation of media literacy so that people can ensure that they choose reliable, high-quality media and a wide range of news sources?” asked Mahadevan. “I don’t know if we’re there yet.”