Google gives publishers a new button to fight AI-driven traffic losses

Google is giving publishers a new way to defend their traffic in the age of AI search: a button that lets readers designate a publication as a preferred source.

According to TechCrunch, the feature lets readers mark a publisher as preferred across Search, Discover, and Google News, so its content is prioritized in those surfaces.

The move comes as AI-generated answers in search results send fewer clicks to the open web, squeezing publisher traffic and advertising revenue.

For publishers, the feature offers a chance to convert loyal readers into a more stable source of traffic and to cultivate direct audience relationships rather than depending entirely on platform algorithms.

For Google, it is a signal of goodwill toward the news industry at a moment when AI search is disrupting the economics of journalism, and when publishers are pressing for compensation and licensing deals.

The practical impact depends on how many readers bother to click the button and how the ranking system weighs user preferences against content relevance.

Worth watching: how widely the feature rolls out, whether it expands to more languages and markets, and how much incremental traffic publishers actually see.