Scrunch AI vs Sited: Which Is Better for AI Visibility in 2026?

For most founders and small marketing teams, Sited is the better choice: a single $50 audit gives you a prioritised list of fixes in minutes, with no subscription, sales call or dashboard to maintain. Scrunch AI is a stronger fit for larger brand and agency teams who need ongoing monitoring across multiple AI engines and are willing to pay from $250 a month for it. Which one you need depends less on features and more on whether you want a point-in-time diagnosis or a continuous monitoring platform, and that choice has just become more urgent thanks to a Google change rolled out this week.

What changed?

Google has expanded its Preferred Sources feature with a new embeddable button that publishers can put directly on their own pages, letting readers mark a site as trusted with one click, according to TechCrunch.

This is not a brand new feature. The move follows criticism that AI-powered search features have reduced website traffic for publishers, and it builds on Google's May rollout of Preferred Sources within its AI Mode and AI Overviews experiences, an option previously limited to Top Stories, as reported by Search Engine Journal. What is new is the mechanism: rather than relying on users to find and manually add a site through Google's settings, publishers can now put the "add me as preferred" prompt right on their own content.

The numbers suggest people are actually using it. Google says users have already selected more than 600,000 unique sources, up sharply from the 345,000 figure the company cited when the AI Overviews and AI Mode rollout first launched in May, per Google's own blog.

The mechanics are simple. When a reader selects the button, the website is added to their Preferred Sources on Google, and they are taken straight back to the page they were reading, according to BetaNews. Publishers do not need custom development to add it: the button code is available in Google's Search Central documentation, as noted by The AI Insider.

Google is framing this squarely as a response to publisher pressure. Duncan Osborn, Product Manager for Google Search, said in May that "we're bringing your Preferred Sources directly into our AI experiences, and launching new features to help you discover original content", adding that preferred sources is "coming to AI Overviews and AI Mode, so you'll be able to easily spot links in AI responses from the sources you've already selected. Just like in Top Stories, your Preferred Sources will be clearly labelled to stand out," per Google Search Central.

Why does this matter for your business?

This is one of the only visibility levers in AI search that is entirely opt-in and reader-driven, rather than algorithmic. Google's own data suggests it works: the company says people are twice as likely to click through to a Preferred Source, according to Search Engine Roundtable.

For brands worried about being buried inside AI-generated summaries, this changes the calculation slightly. Preferred Sources status now shapes link labels in AI Overviews, AI Mode and Top Stories, and as more search activity moves into AI answers, that label becomes a clearer visibility signal tied to reader loyalty. This is not about beating a ranking algorithm. It is about converting existing loyal readers into a signal that Google's AI systems can act on repeatedly.

It also fits a pattern Google has been building for months. The same rollout batch adds a way for readers to shape their Discover feed conversationally, using the three-dot menu on content to describe, in their own words, the topics or links they want to see more or less of, and Discover adjusts the feed accordingly and remembers those preferences, per BusinessToday. Together, these moves point towards an AI search stack that increasingly personalises around explicit reader signals, not just crawled content and backlinks.

The commercial framing from Google is direct: becoming a preferred source can drive more traffic to publishers' websites, the company said. That is a meaningful claim given how much anxiety there has been this year about AI Overviews eating referral traffic. Whether it fully offsets those losses is unproven, but it gives brands a concrete, low-cost action rather than another wait-and-see algorithm update.

Where do tools like Sited and Scrunch AI fit in?

Preferred Sources is a useful new lever, but it is only one input into a much bigger picture: how your brand actually shows up across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google's AI Mode and the rest. That is where dedicated AI visibility tools come in, and it is worth being honest about what each one is actually built for.

Scrunch AI is a genuine brand AI-visibility platform, and its strengths are real. It runs continuous monitoring, competitor benchmarking and citation analysis across roughly six engines including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, and its Agent Experience Platform goes a step further by serving machine-readable pages directly to AI crawlers, which is a genuinely differentiated capability. For larger organisations, Scrunch also offers enterprise features such as SSO, a dedicated Enterprise Data API and a go-to-market team, backed by a Series A and an established roster of brand customers. Plans start at $250 a month billed annually ($300 month-to-month) for Starter, rising to $417 a month billed annually ($500 month-to-month) for Growth, with custom Enterprise pricing and a 7-day free trial.

That model makes sense if you are a marketing or SEO team that needs a live dashboard tracking how a brand's AI visibility shifts week to week, and you have budget for a recurring platform subscription. But it is overkill, and over budget, for a founder or small team who just wants to know where they stand right now and what to fix first.

That is the gap Sited is built for. Instead of a subscription starting at roughly $3,000 a year, Sited charges a single $50 payment for a point-in-time audit with prioritised fixes, no trial clock, no onboarding call, no dashboard to maintain. You can start with a free infographic and get a self-serve report in minutes. If your goal is a clear, honest read on your current AI visibility and a practical action list, not a platform to run indefinitely, the maths and the speed both favour Sited: no sales call, no monthly bill, and an answer today rather than after a trial period. For the founder this article is written for, that is the decisive edge.

What should you do now?

Start by claiming the low-cost, low-effort win: add the Preferred Sources button to your own site using Google's documentation, and prompt your existing loyal readers to click it. This costs nothing and directly feeds a signal Google says doubles click-through rates.

Next, get a genuine read on where you currently stand across AI platforms before deciding whether you need a monitoring subscription at all. Checking your own AI visibility with Sited's free audit at https://sited.online is a fast way to see this without committing to a recurring tool first.

Finally, treat this as one piece of a broader shift. Preferred Sources rewards loyalty and trust signals that build up over time, so pair it with the fundamentals that already drive AI citations: clear, structured content with direct answers near the top, and consistent brand presence across the sources AI platforms already trust.

Frequently asked questions

What is Google's Preferred Sources button?

It is an embeddable button publishers can add to their own pages that lets readers mark that site as a trusted source with one click. When a reader selects it, the website is added to their Preferred Sources on Google, and they are taken straight back to the page they were reading.

Does being a Preferred Source actually help with AI Overviews and AI Mode?

Yes, Preferred Sources are now visibly labelled inside those AI experiences. Once you set preferred sources in your Google settings, those sites are highlighted directly within AI-generated responses and new search carousels.

How many people are using Preferred Sources so far?

Adoption has grown quickly. Google says users have already selected more than 600,000 unique sources, up from 345,000 when the AI Overviews rollout began in May.

Is Scrunch AI better than Sited for a small business?

Not usually. Scrunch AI's continuous monitoring and enterprise features suit larger brand teams with budget for a $250-plus monthly subscription, while Sited's one-off $50 audit is built for founders who want a fast, affordable, self-serve answer without ongoing platform costs.

Should I still worry about AI Overviews reducing my website traffic?

It remains a valid concern, but Google is actively building counter-tools like Preferred Sources partly in response to that criticism. Becoming a preferred source can drive more traffic to publishers' websites, Google said.