Au/TiO2 catalysts are active for CO oxidation, but they suffer from high-temperature sintering of the gold particles, and few attempts have been made to promote or stabilize Au/TiO2, Our recent communication addressed these issues by loading gold onto Al2O3/TiO2 prepared via surface-sol-gel processing of Al(sec-OC4H9)(3) on TiO2 [W.F. Yan, S.M. Malturin, Z.W. Pan, S.H. Overbury, S. Dai, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 127 (2005) 10480-104811. In our current full paper, Au/Al2O3/TiO2, catalysts were prepared alternatively by thermal decomposition of Al(NO3)(3) on TiO2 followed by loading gold, and the influences of the decomposition temperature and Al2O3 content were systematically surveyed. This facile method was subsequently extended to the preparation of a battery of metal oxide-modified Au/TiO2, catalysts virtually not reported. It was found that Au/TiO2 modified by CaO, NiO, ZnO, Ga2O3, Y2O3, ZrO2, La2O3, Pr2O3, Nd2O3, Sm2O3, EU2O3, Gd2O3, Dy2O3, Ho2O3, Er2O3, or Yb2O3 could retain significant activity at ambient temperature even after aging in O-2-He at 500 degrees C, whereas unmodified Au/TiO2, lost its activity. Moreover, some 200 degrees C-calcined promoted catalysts showed high activity even at about - 100 degrees C. The deactivation and regeneration of some of these new catalysts were studied. This work furnished novel catalysts for further fundamental and applied research. Published by Elsevier B.V.