The impact of the preparation method on the activity and stability of gold supported on ceria-zirconia low temperature water-gas shift (WGS) catalysts have been investigated. The influence of the gold deposition method, nature of the gold precursor, nature of the washing solution, drying method, Ce: Zr ratio of the support and sulfation of the support have been evaluated. The highest activity catalysts were obtained using a support with a Ce: Zr mole ratio 1: 1, HAuCl4 as the gold precursor deposited via deposition precipitation using sodium carbonate as the precipitation agent and the catalyst washed with water or 0.1 M NH4OH solution. In addition, the drying used was found to be critical with drying under vacuum at room temperature found to be most effective. DRIFT spectra of CO adsorbed at room temperature over the range of catalysts synthesized showed that the Au-CO band area (major species: metallic gold) varied with preparation method and could be correlated with the observed activity of the catalysts under the WGS feed. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.