Google is emailing publishers their preferred source subscriber count

A publisher has had no way to count the people who picked their site as a preferred source in Google Search. Google just put the figure in an email.

Search Engine Roundtable reported this week that Google Search Console has started sending publishers an email naming the number of visitors who have selected their domain as a preferred source. The email says "people are choosing [domain] as a preferred source", and it includes the count as of 5 October. Barry Schwartz published a screenshot in the Search Engine Roundtable write-up with the subscriber figure redacted.

Why preferred sources matter

A preferred source is a signal a logged-in Google user sets, naming a publication they want to see more of in Google Search features. Google uses that signal in Top Stories and in the sources it pulls for AI Overviews. The feature has existed since 2024, but the count has lived only inside Google. A publisher ranking well for a topic has had no measurement of how many of the clicks arrived through the preferred-source route, and no idea whether the audience was growing.

The email changes that. The number is now visible to publishers, which turns preferred source selections into a growth metric a publisher can watch over time. Search Console still has no dashboard view of the figure, so email is currently the only surface where the number appears.

The subscribe button Google is recommending

Google is also using the email to recommend an action. The message suggests publishers add an interactive JavaScript button to their pages so that a visitor can mark the site as a preferred source without opening a Google Search settings page. The suggested wording is a one-click action: a visitor clicks, and the preferred source selection is applied for that domain against the visitor's Google account.

Search Engine Roundtable notes that the figures in the sample screenshot were from a single Search Console profile, which Schwartz did not identify. The post does not include any Google figure for how widespread the email send is, or whether every verified site owner is receiving one. Barry Schwartz is reporting from one email, and the pattern of who else has received one has not been established.

What to do about it this week

Reveneau's view: the two actions here are small enough that a publishing team can take both inside a week. The first is to install the subscribe button on the pages that attract the most repeat traffic, because that is where a visitor is most likely to click. The second is to record the count that arrives in email as a dated figure, with the sending date next to it, so the next email can be compared with it. A number that only arrives in an email is easy to forget without a tracking sheet.

The underlying signal only works for Google users who are signed in and who have the preferred-source feature available in their region, so the maximum possible count is the number of such users in a publisher's audience.

Source

Search Engine Roundtable: Google Email Shares Number Of Preferred Source Subscribers by Barry Schwartz.