Google has rolled out a new tool for users who want to get better information in their searches, both in terms of news and just your general search results called “Preferred Sources”. Doing this is both helpful to actual websites who provide quality and original content as well as users who are looking for reliable information in a time where AI-generated “information” is often incorrect or just flat out stolen from reliable sources and republished by someone who does no work at all but reaps the benefits from others simply by stealing it. With preferred sources when you search for something, those sources will now be atop of your results.
So how can you set your preferred sources? The first thing you need to do is log in to your google account and then you can follow this link to managed your preferred sources via google search. Once there you can type in the website(s) you wish to set as your preferred source(s) and once you click the check box, it will then appear as one of your preferred sources.
Once you do that you will hopefully see our recent stories more often when you search for things. Here’s an example of what it looks like when you search for Rhett Lowder after setting the preferred sources for Redleg Nation, and you can see that new icons appear – with the one in the top right being where you can click to add your preferred sources and then next to Redleg Nation it has an icon that indicates this is one of your preferred sources for all of your Cincinnati Reds related information:
If you want to read more about Preferred sources directly from google, you can click here for all of that.
This may not matter as much for what is Redleg Nation’s competition in the internet space. Reds.com is obviously owned by Major League Baseball, which is a $12B per year in revenue operation.
Sports Illustrated is going to clickbait you to death with titles like “Reds relief pitcher has dominant season in return to organization” but it’s an article about Buck Farmer pitching well in Triple-A for two months after he was released by two other Major League organizations and never even threw a single MLB pitch in 2025. Oh, and they are owned by a company that brings in more revenue than Major League Baseball per year. Blog Red Machine is nearly as clickbaity, and lower quality, and is owned by Minute Media (who also owns the company who supplies Redleg Nation with the video highlight and advertising on that box). They were recently valued at $1.4B.
Our friends at Red Reporter are good ones. But they are also owned by Vox Media, who depending on where you look is worth half a billion to a billion dollars. Cincinnati.com/The Enquirer is owned by Gannett, which is currently valued at half a billion dollars. The Athletic is owned and operated by The New York Times, which is worth just over $9B. I think you are starting to get my point.
I don’t know how to put a “worth” on Redleg Nation. But I do know that yearly we’ve never sniffed 6-figures in revenue. We’re a 5-figure per year operation and we spend thousands per year just to operate the site before paying anyone (which we do).
An extra $5 or $10 per day actually makes a real difference to this website. That’s an unnoticeable rounding error to the companies that own and operate all of our competitors.
If you appreciate the site we would appreciate it if you are still using google search if you would add us as one of your preferred sources. Every little bit helps keep us afloat, the lights on, and some food on our plates.
