Google now lets your customers vote for your site inside AI Overviews

The button your customers can now tap to vote for your site

There is a button on Google's source preferences page that, as of yesterday, gives your website a real vote in the AI answers Google shows your customers. Google rolled the change live on May 27, 2026, when product manager Duncan Osborn announced on the company blog that Preferred Sources is now active inside AI Overviews and AI Mode. For the customer, the action is one tap. For you, it is a single link to share. This post is about that link, where it lives, and the four customer touchpoints where it earns you the most.

Until yesterday, Preferred Sources only tilted the regular search results and the Top Stories carousel. A user could star a few favorite websites, and Google would lift those sites in that user's blue-link results. The May 27 change extends the same vote to the AI-generated answer panel sitting above those results. When your customer asks Google a question your site can answer, your pages now get extra weight inside the AI block, with a visible Preferred badge on the link.

The deeplink and how to build yours

The deeplink that takes a customer straight to the source preferences tool with your site pre-loaded for one-tap favoriting is:

https://google.com/preferences/source?q={URL}

Replace {URL} with your homepage. A dentist whose site is drsmithdental.com would build the link as https://google.com/preferences/source?q=https://drsmithdental.com. The customer taps it, sees a small Google page with your site at the top, taps the star, and is done. The vote is tied to the customer's Google account, and it kicks in the next time they search.

One detail worth knowing before you build yours. Per Google's developer documentation, only domains and subdomains qualify as preferred sources. Subdirectories are ineligible on their own. If your blog lives at drsmithdental.com/blog, that path cannot be favorited as its own source. Ask the customer to favorite the root domain (drsmithdental.com) so the vote actually counts. If you run a separate subdomain like blog.drsmithdental.com, that one does qualify and can be added on its own. Pick the URL that captures the most of your business and keep the link consistent across every place you share it.

The four customer touchpoints worth setting up

The link is only useful if customers see it. Below are four places that already exist in most service-business operations, where the link slots in with very little new work.

Post-visit confirmation email. If you send a follow-up email after an appointment, add one line near the bottom. A dental practice could write: "If we did right by you, you can see us first when you search Google. Tap here to add us as a preferred source." The deeplink is the only link in that line. This works because the customer is reading the email at the moment they are most positive about the visit.

Booking thank-you SMS. An HVAC company that texts customers a confirmation can add one short line. A short text like "Thanks for booking with us. If you want Google to show us first the next time you search, tap here" plus the deeplink. Keep the message short. A second link in the same text usually loses both. Pick the booking-thank-you message rather than the day-of arrival text, so the customer has time to read the line.

Homepage footer line. A medspa with a steady flow of homepage visits can add a small line at the very bottom, in plain text near the contact details. "If you like what you see here, add us as a preferred source on Google" followed by the deeplink. The footer reaches people who are already on your site looking for the phone number or ready to book. They are reading your pages, so the trust is already there.

Front-desk QR code or window decal. A vet clinic with a small counter sign or a window decal can print a QR code that resolves to the deeplink. Pair it with a sentence that does not need explaining: "Scan to favorite us on Google." The customer scans, lands on the Google preferences page, and taps the star. The whole process takes under twenty seconds. Place the QR code at the spot where the customer is already paused, like the counter where they finish paying.

A few honest limits worth naming

A few things to keep in mind before you build this into a campaign.

Google reports the 2x click lift on the Preferred badge from general Search. The same lift inside AI Overviews has not been measured separately yet. The setup uses the same Preferred badge in both places, so the effect is likely to carry over to the AI box, though Google has not published a separate number for that yet. Treat the lift as a smart bet worth setting up because the time cost is tiny, while accepting that the exact AI lift could land higher or lower than the 2x reported for regular Search.

Search Engine Journal reported 345,000 unique sources have been favorited globally since the feature launched in 2024. That total spans every category and country, with no breakout published for small business specifically. Adoption is still early enough that a few customer votes will help you stand out from the competitor down the street.

This feature only works on Google. ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity have no equivalent customer-vote tool right now. The work you do here lifts you inside Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, and it does nothing for the other AI assistants until they ship their own version.

The vote is tied to the customer's account, so it only kicks in for searches that customer makes while signed in to Google. Most regular Google users on a phone are signed in already, so this is less of a limit than it sounds. Still worth knowing.

What to do this week

Build your deeplink today. It is one URL, and you only need it once. Put it on the touchpoint that gets the most repeat customer eyes, which for most service businesses is either the post-visit email or the booking-thank-you text. Add a second touchpoint two weeks later, once the first one is wired and tested. Send the link in a text message to a friend and make sure it opens the right Google page on their phone.

A small note for operators with a blog on a subdirectory. Build the link off your root domain. If you later move the blog to a subdomain, you can add a second deeplink at that point. Right now the simpler ask is one link per business.