The search engine/newspaper standstill we’ve all be waiting for
For years, Google defenders (including Google itself) have been daring newspapers to flip the switch — modify their code ever so slightly as to ward off any search engine spiders and remove themselves from the Google index completely. If Google was such a parasite, then why not simply apply the anti-body? The reason behind this bluff was to extract an admission from the newspapers that they do enjoy the flood of traffic from Google, after all.
And perhaps Rupert Murdoch is issuing a bluff of his own, but recently he said that he was considering turning off the Google hose.
“I think we will, but that’s when we start charging,” he said. “We have it already with the Wall Street Journal. We have a wall, but it’s not right to the ceiling. You can get, usually, the first paragraph from any story – but if you’re not a paying subscriber to WSJ.com all you get is a paragraph and a subscription form.”
There are many who think this would be suicide, but if it is it would be suicide in the name of answering the question we’ve always asked: Can a newspaper survive without Google?
From what I can determine, about one third of News Corp traffic arrives via third party search engines. The number could be higher, it’s hard to interpret the numbers.
This means the News sites will lose one third of their existing advertising revenue. So Murdoch’s plans to charge readers for content will need to replace this before any real extra revenue arrives.
What are the chances of that working?