After a dozen posts about how AI systems decide what to cite, we figured we should actually give readers a direct way to weigh in, so we did.
Every News post on this site now carries Google’s official “Preferred Sources” button, right below the byline. It’s a small addition, but it’s a real one, and it’s worth explaining what it actually does.
What it does?
Google rolled out Preferred Sources as a way for readers to mark specific publishers as ones they want to see more of. Click the button on any post here, and hexweb.dev gets added to your own preferred source list in Google Search, which can surface a “preferred” badge for you specifically across Top Stories, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. It’s not a ranking trick or a paid placement. It’s Google giving individual readers more control over whose content they see, and giving publishers a legitimate, transparent way to be part of that list.
Why we’re mentioning it instead of just quietly shipping it?
Because it’s a good example of the actual point we’ve been making across this whole series. A few weeks back we wrote about hidden white-on-white text being repurposed to manipulate AI systems an old trick dressed up as a new one, and one that keeps getting people caught and sanctioned. Preferred Sources is the opposite of that: a real, documented, Google-endorsed feature that does exactly what it says, with nothing hidden and nothing to game. That’s the same standard every hexweb.dev build is held to — no shortcuts, nothing dressed up as something it isn’t.
The honest caveat
This one only works if a site already appears in Google’s own source preferences tool you can check any domain yourself at google.com/preferences/source. Given how young this domain still is, we’re not certain hexweb.dev is fully recognized there yet, and we’d rather say that plainly than pretend the button is doing more than it might be right now. We’ll know more as the site accumulates more indexed content, and we’ll keep an eye on it.
Practical takeaway: if you’ve found any of these posts useful, the button’s right there below the byline it costs you nothing and it’s a genuine, honest way to tell Google you’d like to see more from us specifically.
Curious what else goes into building a site the honest way real features, no shortcuts?