![\"Members](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/whatsappimage2026-06-29at07.58.21-e1782726532627-1038x778.jpeg\")
\n Members of the SEO for news panel at The Audience Club in London on Thursday 25 August. Left to right: The Audience Club\u2019s Clara Soteras, Reach SEO and Discover director Nicola Agius, Daily Mail director of SEO Carly Steven, ex-Telegraph SEO director Harry Clarkson-Bennett, and SEO experts\/strategists Lily Ray and Steven Wilson-Beales. Picture: The Audience Club<\/p>\n
Google has started replacing publisher links in its Discover feed with AI-written posts summarising related stories.<\/p>\n
The new feature, deployed sporadically so far, follows Discover changes which have already downgraded publisher posts in favour of content from X and Youtube. Publishers have seen a sharp drop in referral traffic from the news aggregation feed served to smartphone users.<\/p>\n
The Discover AI summaries are similar to AI Overviews deployed in in the main search results, with Discover showing around two sentences before publisher logos appear in thumbnails indicating who has been cited. <\/p>\n
The arrival of this feature in the UK was first flagged by Reach<\/a> SEO and Discover director Nicola Agius on Linkedin.<\/a><\/p>\n She noticed a grouping of 14 publishers that covered Jennifer Lopez\u2019s appearance at an Ariana Grande concert, and was only able to click on a link for the main publisher (People).<\/p>\n But, as Agius noted, the outlets included had taken several different angles on the story so did not duplicate each other. She said she would happily have clicked on more than one of the stories if she was given the chance by Google.<\/p>\n Speaking on a panel about the future of news SEO at an event hosted by The Audience Club in London on Thursday, Agius said: \u201cA load of publishers all got bunched together, and what I noticed was that loads of publishers that were grouped together actually covered different angles, so one was about her outfit, one was about her dig at Ben Affleck, one is about her relationship with her daughter.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so the AI summary that Google used when it was grouping all these publishers together wasn\u2019t even relevant to all of the stories that were being listed. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s something that Google is going to address.\u201d<\/p>\n Google has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n \u2018Youtube is everywhere\u2019: Video becoming even more key in Google products<\/p>\n The changes to how websites appear in Discover are happening alongside an increase in links to X and Youtube posts appearing in the feed from publishers and non-publishers alike.<\/a><\/p>\n Lily Ray, vice president of SEO strategy and research at Amsive, said: \u201cGoogle\u2019s making it really difficult, especially for publishers. One thing also that they\u2019re doing in Discover that they\u2019re also doing in AI Overviews and everywhere else, and with the recent core update it\u2019s even more exacerbated, which is Youtube is everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n She said Youtube has jumped \u201coff the chart\u201d in search visibility analysis platform Sistrix over the past two weeks.<\/p>\n Ray continued: \u201cOne thing they\u2019re doing in Discover is they not only group all the brand icons together as citations, but then when you click on the brand citation, it often takes you to the brand\u2019s Youtube account. <\/p>\n \u201cSo I feel like, especially for journalists and publishers, as much as possible, taking your best people and trying to get them more on video and building up Tiktok accounts, Youtube accounts where they\u2019re doing short videos and doing kind of data journalism through video, I think is going to be really effective as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Google is reportedly separately developing a video tab for Discover.<\/a><\/p>\n Discover traffic to The Times \u2018up a third\u2019 since last year<\/p>\n Discover changes such as the increase in non-publisher social media posts have already led to referrals to publishers like Reach plummeting over the past year.<\/a><\/p>\n Agius noted that \u201cthe publishers that were doing really, really well in Discover this time last year were getting monster traffic\u201d but the \u201cDiscover landscape has changed a lot\u201d.<\/p>\n Citing data from Newzdash\u2019s Discover Pulse tool, she said social media now makes up \u201calmost a quarter\u201d of the Discover feed but there are simultaneously \u201cmore publishers than ever getting into Discover\u201d \u2013 about 64% more than last year. This includes more regional, hyperlocal and niche publications appearing, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo this time last year was a lot easier. There was less competition.\u201d<\/p>\n But some publishers are still finding growth. Times<\/a> deputy head of digital Anna Sbuttoni revealed on the panel that the newsbrand\u2019s traffic from Google Discover was \u201cup by more than a third year on year\u201d in May.<\/p>\n She said the types of Times stories that are getting traffic are now increasingly \u201coriginal reporting, serious news, hard news\u201d.<\/p>\n This compares to last year when the \u201cwild\u201d Discover hits for The Times were more likely to be \u201cquirky news stories\u201d like shark bites. But The Times puts most importance on whether people are signing up, and then sticking around, as paying subscribers.<\/a><\/p>\n Sbuttoni added: \u201cWe very much position Google Discover as bonus traffic in the newsroom. We know it can boom and bust, and it doesn\u2019t convert in the same way as search does, nowhere near. So, when you actually put the two pie charts together, they\u2019re almost complete opposites, and search is our most valuable source of sign-ups, so that\u2019s the area to protect. <\/p>\n \u201cWith Discover we enjoy the traffic when it comes, and if it doesn\u2019t, it doesn\u2019t actually change that important sign-up metric for us.\u201d<\/p>\n The experts on the Audience Club panel were positive about the recently-added Preferred Sources feature on Google, although Agius questioned whether people outside the news and SEO industry would be sufficiently aware of it.<\/p>\n Preferred Sources means that users can go into their source preferences in their Google settings and select their favourite sources so that they are more likely to see those websites in search results, AI Overviews and AI Mode.<\/p>\n Google has said<\/a> people are \u201ctwice as likely to click through to a Preferred Source\u201d.<\/p>\n Google has also begun to roll out search profiles giving publishers and other creators a page where people can showcase their latest content and let people choose to follow them. These pages can be found by clicking a publisher name in Discover or via direct URLs.<\/p>\n Ray described Preferred Sources as \u201cexciting for publishers\u201d. <\/p>\n She noted that in the US, Google<\/a> is rolling out a more personalised AI Mode in which the platform can access a user\u2019s email and calendar to make answers more personal.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I do think, in a sense, if they are really encouraging this Preferred Sources thing, they\u2019re probably trying to get it to a point where they\u2019re going to give you more news from the sources that you trust,\u201d she said. \u201cSo hopefully that\u2019s helpful, because you might be more likely to click through.\u201d<\/p>\n Reach\u2019s Agius said: \u201cI love Preferred Sources. I think it\u2019s a step in the right direction. My only concern about it is that we obviously know what it is, but does my mum know? Does my sister? Does she care? No. But I think, like, that\u2019s not Google\u2019s job, that\u2019s our job to educate our readers what it is, and to try and encourage them to sign up to it.\u201d<\/p>\n Many major publishers now have a button near the top of article pages on their websites inviting readers to \u201cprefer\u201d them on Google.<\/p>\n Agius also advised: \u201cYou need original content. You need to establish what your brand identity is if you want people to start adding you as a preferred source or start following your publisher profile.\u201d<\/p>\n Agius also noted that the rate of spam websites appearing in Google Discover (including untrue stories from publishers that popped up overnight<\/a>) appears to have been addressed after an influx of them over much of the past year.<\/p>\n She said Google \u201cseem to have worked on the spam issue. It looks a bit better to me\u201d.<\/p>\n \n
\n<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/jenniferlopezgooglediscover-709x800.webp\")
Google Discover screenshot showing Jennifer Lopez picture with People.com link, AI summary, and thumbnails indicating 14 publishers have been grouped together. Picture: Nicola Agius<\/p>\n![\"Top](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot2026-06-26153623-800x347.webp\")
Top of a Guardian article on 26 June 2026 to show \u2018Prefer the Guardian on Google\u2019 button<\/p>\n