Google, now you can select your favourite information sources

Google is expanding its 'Preferred Sources' service to new countries including Italia. Launched last year in the United States and other markets, the feature allows users to select the newspapers they prefer as sources of information. In this way, those published by the selected sources will appear more frequently in Google's 'Top News'.

According to Google in a note, readers are twice as likely to click on a site after marking it as 'Favourite Source'. To date, more than 200,000 unique sites have been selected, from local blogs to global newsrooms.

To begin with, one has to search the search engine for a current topic. For example 'Stock Exchanges Today'. Click on the star icon next to the Main News section and a menu will open. Typing 'Sole 24 Ore', for example, will open various options: the entire site, the premium section and more. You can select and thus create a list of your favourite sources.

Once sources have been selected, they will appear more frequently in the 'Main News' section or in the 'From Your Sources' section on the search results page. The user will also continue to view content from other sites. Preferences can be changed or integrated. Looking at feedback from early users, Google found that more than half of the users who chose to use the new feature selected four or more sources.