TL;DR
- Google Search Console started emailing site owners on 6 October 2026 with a 'Preferred source selections' count as of 2026-10-05, a per-site figure that site owners called a first for Preferred Sources.
- The count appears only in the email; Nati Elimelech and others found no matching Search Console report, and Google has not said whether one will follow, and the reports reviewed do not say how recipients were chosen.
- Google's email says selected sites can appear more often across Top Stories, AI Overviews and AI Mode, and recommends installing its two-line JavaScript button.
- A seven-question survey asks owners how often they want updates and which metrics to rank; PPC Land lists the unit, time window and eligibility of the number as undefined.
Google Search Console began emailing site owners on 6 October 2026 with a count of how many people have chosen their site as a Preferred Source, a per-site number that site owners described as a first for the feature. According to Search Engine Roundtable, which reproduced the email, the message reads "People are choosing domain as a preferred source", shows a line labelled "Preferred source selections" with data as of 2026-10-05, and says selected sites can appear more often across Top Stories, AI Overviews and AI Mode. The number appears only in the email: site owners including Nati Elimelech report finding no matching report inside Search Console.
What the Search Console email says
Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable published the text of an email he received for a Search Console property he has access to on 6 October 2026. PPC Land, Kyle Sutton, Nati Elimelech and Glenn Gabe reported the same emails the same day. The structure is simple.
- A heading that reads "People are choosing domain as a preferred source", with the recipient's domain filled in.
- A one-sentence explanation: Preferred sources lets Google Search users choose the publications they want to see most, and when readers select a site, "your content can appear more often across features like Top Stories, AI Overviews, and AI Mode".
- A data block: "Here's your latest preferred sources data as of 2026-10-05", the property name, and "Preferred source selections" followed by a number.
- Recommended actions: install Google's JavaScript button, which the email describes as two lines of HTML, and switch any existing static image button to the JavaScript version so users can add the site in fewer steps.
- A link to a two-minute survey about future Preferred Sources reporting.
PPC Land adds that, according to Search Engine Land, the emails went to some site owners rather than to every property owner, and that none of the reports it reviewed explains how recipients were chosen. Google has not said how many sites received one. PPC Land also read the number in Schwartz's screenshot as 4,345 for that one property. Schwartz himself did not quote the figure in his article text, so treat 4,345 as a single example, not a benchmark.
Why this is new: from aggregate totals to a per-site count
Relevant Audience covered Google's embeddable Preferred Sources button on 21 August 2026, when Google said more than 600,000 unique sources had been selected. That figure measured the feature as a whole. Google's own blog posts show the same pattern before it: nearly 90,000 unique sources on 10 December 2025 and more than 345,000 on 27 May 2026. All three counted unique sources selected by all readers combined, not selections for any single site.
Sutton and Elimelech described the 6 October email as a first, and it is the first per-site figure covered here: a site owner gets a figure about their own domain. What is new compared with the August coverage is the per-site number, the email channel and the survey. What is not new is the button itself, which Google released on 20 August 2026.
What the survey tells you about where this is heading
Schwartz and PPC Land both describe the survey as seven questions. It asks whether the respondent knew about Preferred Sources before the email, how clearly the email explained what a "Preferred Source user count" means, and how helpful it is to know how many users chose the site. Further questions ask how the respondent would prefer to receive such reporting, how often they would want email updates, which metrics matter most if reporting moved into Search Console (ranked from 1, most valuable, to 4, least valuable), and whether any other metrics would be valuable.
Two points follow. First, the survey asks about both email frequency and Search Console placement, so Google has not settled either. PPC Land states that Google has not said whether a Search Console report will follow. Second, the four candidate metrics in the ranking question were not named in the Search Engine Roundtable write-up, so nothing in the public coverage says what Google would add.
What practitioners said
Kyle Sutton called the email "a first and quite helpful to correlate known CTR to selections". Search Console already reports click-through rate for Search, so a selection count gives publishers a second series to compare against it. Nati Elimelech wrote that it was the first time he had seen such a count and that he found no report in Search Console. Glenn Gabe said a flurry of the emails had arrived and that he would like to see the data inside Search Console. All three posts are dated 6 October 2026.
What the number does not tell you
PPC Land lists several details that the public material leaves undefined.
- Unit. The email says "selections", Sutton refers to users, Schwartz to people subscribing or following, and the survey to a "user count". Whether the figure counts distinct accounts, active designations or every designation ever made is not stated.
- Window. The line is dated 2026-10-05, which reads as a snapshot, but nothing published says whether it is cumulative or limited to a period.
- Eligibility. Google's Search Central documentation limits Preferred Source selection to domain-level and subdomain-level sites; subdirectories are not eligible. PPC Land notes that how a directory-level Search Console property is treated in the email is not addressed.
- Delivery. The survey asks about frequency, which suggests no schedule has been set.
PPC Land also points out a gap that this number does not fill: how many readers hold selections overall, how often a preferred badge appears, and what share of a site's Google traffic comes from readers who selected it. Google's own posts say that when someone picks a preferred source, they "click to that site twice as much on average" (10 December 2025) and are "twice as likely to click through" (27 May 2026); PPC Land notes that Google has not disclosed the baseline for that comparison.
How the button works, per Google's documentation and PPC Land
The email promotes the button Google released on 20 August 2026. Google's documentation and PPC Land describe the standard integration as two pieces: a script tag loading a library from news.google.com, placed in the head element, and a div with the google-add-preferred-source-btn attribute placed where the button should appear. A data-theme attribute accepts light or dark, with light as the default, and a data-lang attribute overrides the language, which otherwise follows the reader's browser. When a reader clicks, the site is added as a preferred source and the reader returns to the spot on the page where the click began.
PPC Land also describes a deeplink for content management systems that cannot run the script, pointing to google.com/preferences/source with the domain passed as a parameter, and the earlier image-asset method that Google added to its guide on 30 April 2026. Copy the exact code from Google's documentation rather than from a summary, since attribute names and paths are easy to mistype.
Preferred Source numbers published so far
The table below sets the figures Google published in its blog posts beside the new per-site data point. The first three rows measure the whole feature; the last measures one property.
| Date | Figure | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 10 December 2025 | Nearly 90,000 | Unique sources selected, all readers combined |
| 27 May 2026 | More than 345,000 | Unique sources selected, all readers combined |
| 20 August 2026 | More than 600,000 | Unique sources selected, all readers combined |
| Data as of 5 October 2026 | 4,345 in one screenshot | Selections for one Search Console property |
What this means for Thai publishers and brand blogs
Neither Search Engine Roundtable nor PPC Land says which countries or languages the email or the feature covers, so nothing here confirms that Thai-language sites receive the email. What a Thai site can do is act on what Google recommended and measure it. These points are analysis, not claims from the source.
- Check the inbox tied to your Search Console owner accounts, including property owners who may not read that address often. The email is currently the only place the number appears.
- If the number arrives, record it with the date. Google has not said whether the figure is cumulative, so a dated series is the only way to see movement.
- Add the JavaScript button where readers already show loyalty: newsletter sign-up pages, article footers, about pages. If an image button is live, replace it as Google suggests.
- Compare selection counts against organic click-through rate in Search Console for the same weeks, which is the correlation Sutton described.
The fact that Google ties selections to AI Overviews and AI Mode, not only Top Stories, makes this relevant beyond news publishers. It is an explicit reader-chosen signal in Google, and teams working on generative engine optimization alongside classic SEO in Thailand now have one more input to track. Google's email does not say how much more often a selected site appears, so treat the visibility effect as unquantified.
FAQ: Search Console Preferred Source emails
What is the Search Console Preferred Source email?
It is an email Google began sending on 6 October 2026 that tells a site owner how many "Preferred source selections" their domain has, as of 2026-10-05. It also recommends installing Google's JavaScript button and links to a two-minute survey on future reporting.
Can I see my Preferred Source count in Search Console?
No report has been found so far. Nati Elimelech wrote that he could not find one in Search Console, and PPC Land states that Google has not said whether a report will follow. The number is currently only in the email.
Why did I not receive the email?
The public reports do not explain who gets it. PPC Land, citing Search Engine Land, reports that the emails went to some site owners rather than all property owners, and the public reports do not say how recipients were chosen.
Does being a Preferred Source help me appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode?
Google's email says it can. The email states that when readers select your site, your content "can appear more often" across Top Stories, AI Overviews and AI Mode. The email does not say how large the effect is.
What should I do after getting the email?
Install Google's JavaScript button, or upgrade an older image button, and record the number with its date. Those are the two actions Google recommends in the email, and a dated record is the only way to see change since Google has not defined the figure's window.
Next step
If you want help deciding where a Preferred Source button belongs on your site and how to track its effect next to organic search and AI visibility, Relevant Audience can review your setup and propose a measurement plan.
