Your loyal readers are searching Google every day - but your site looks identical to every other result on the page. Google Preferred gives them a one-click way to mark your site as a trusted source, so your content rises to the top of their results every time they search.
Overview
This Is a Real, Right-Now Opportunity
Google's Preferred Sources feature just finished its global rollout — and the numbers are hard to ignore.
According to Google's own data, users who mark a site as a Preferred Source are twice as likely to click through to it compared to sites that appear through the regular algorithm alone. Over 345,000 unique sites have already been selected by users worldwide. And as of May 27, 2026, Preferred Sources now influences results inside AI Overviews and AI Mode — not just Top Stories.
Search Engine Journal calls it "a direct way to encourage loyal readers to see more of your coverage in Search." The feature is live, it works, and most of your competitors aren't asking for it yet.
The only question is whether your visitors know they can do it.
HOW IT WORKS
When one of your readers clicks your "Add as Google Preferred Source" button, Google flags your site as one they trust. From that moment on, your content gets priority placement in their Top Stories feed, their personalized search results, and now their AI-powered search answers — any time you publish something relevant to what they're searching for.
Google Preferred adds a small toast notification to your Joomla site that appears after a few seconds, explains the benefit to your visitor, and links them directly to Google's preference page for your domain. One click. Thirty seconds. Done - and you show up first for them from that point on.
Add RicheyWeb as a Google Preferred Source We'll be highlighted every time we appear in your Google Search results!
No accounts. No tracking. Nothing stored on your server. The visitor either clicks it or closes it, and you can control how long it waits before showing again.
WHAT YOU GET
- Your site highlighted in Google results — Visitors who add you see your content rise above the noise in their personal search results, every time you publish something they care about.
- Works in AI search too — As of May 2026, Preferred Source status now carries into AI Overviews and AI Mode, where Google surfaces preferred publishers' content with a visible label.
- A toast that matches your site — Choose your position (9 placement options), background color, button color, and width. A live preview in the admin panel shows exactly what your visitors will see before you publish.
- Timed and respectful — Set how long before the toast appears, how long before it auto-hides, and how many days to wait before showing it to someone who dismissed it. It won't pester people.
- Lightweight and self-contained — No external services, no tracking pixels, no third-party dependencies. Everything runs on your server.
Install it like any Joomla plugin: upload, enable, enter your domain. Most people are done in under five minutes. You control the timing, the auto-hide delay, and how long it stays hidden after someone dismisses it. Set it to appear after 3 seconds and disappear after 5, and most visitors won't even register it unless they're already fans of your site. Yes. Google confirmed that "any website publishing fresh content" is now eligible for Preferred Source status — not just news publishers. Local blogs, niche sites, portfolios, and community sites all qualify. The plugin includes a built-in test link in the admin panel. Enter your domain, click the link, and you'll see exactly what Google shows for it — so you can confirm you've got the right one before your visitors ever see the toast.Frequently Asked Questions:
Is this hard to set up?
Will this annoy my visitors?
Does it work for non-news sites?
What if I can't find the right domain?
Technical Details
TECHNICAL DETAILS
- Joomla 5.x / 6.x compatible
- Namespace: RicheyWeb\Plugin\System\GooglePreferred
- Hooks into onBeforeCompileHead via SubscriberInterface
- Toast rendered as an HTML template tag; cloned and injected at runtime via JavaScript
- Bootstrap toast component (Joomla's built-in Bootstrap)
- Dismissal managed via browser cookie (configurable expiry in days)
- MutationObserver fallback ensures Bootstrap is available before toast initialization
- No external HTTP requests at runtime
- Assets served via Joomla WebAssetManager with version=auto cache busting
- Custom field types: betterspacer, toast (preview), javascript (admin live preview)
- Admin live preview reflects favicon, background class, button class, and width changes in real time
- Update server: https://cdn.richeyweb.com/updates/googlepreferred.xml
