Google: Newspapers' new friend
By Erina Lin, Tuesday 13 May 2008 at 22:55 :: Online/Digital Publishing :: #1654 :: rss
Google is now playing an increasingly critical role in the business of newspapers – it accounted for almost two-thirds of search traffic going to U. S. newspaper Web sites in March, according to data from Hitwise.
People are heading online for news in larger numbers, and more and more of them start at a news aggregate site such as Google News or Yahoo! News. These sites do not actually produce content, but direct users to other sites, according to Josh Cohen, head of business development at Google News, at the Newspaper Association conference in Toronto last week.
In terms of unique visitors, Yahoo! is the market leader, but many media companies choose Google because it accounts for the majority of all search queries in the United States, far ahead of Yahoo!
“News stories also show up in regular Google searches, that means a whole lot of eyeballs,” added Cohen, according to the Financial Post.
The amount of traffic Google drove to print Web sites climbed by one third between 2006 and 2007, according to Hitwise.
In the past, newspapers publishers have showed fear that aggregate news sites eat into the number of people who visit their main homepage. But the level of traffic Google drives to newspaper Web sites indicates they have no choice but to make their content available to Google.
“Newspapers must also view Google as simply one channel of many they use to distribute content,” Cohen said.
For example, Google said the traffic it leads to The New York Times site doubled after the paper ditched its subscription model.
The problem is how to monetize the increased traffic into advertising dollars.
"When radio came on board, at a certain point in time there were so many people listening to radio online, but the marketing dollars hadn't moved to radio yet," Cohen added.
Critics also charge that Google exploits news stories that other companies pay to produce. Others raise ethical questions about a company that does not actually produce any news being viewed by consumers as a news source.
Search engine optimization expert Anthony Muller said what newspaper companies fear most is Google becoming too powerful.
"They worry what would happen if Google ever got into content," he said, according to the Financial Post. An example would be Google actually buying media Web sites and piping more traffic to them at the exclusion of others.
However, Cohen said Google has no such plans.
"We're not looking to be The New York Times or the Washington Post," he said. The company's mission is to act as a platform for content others produce.
“People like having a paper to read while eating breakfast or riding on the subway. Newspapers will always exist as one of many ways people choose to read their news,” Cohen said, responding newspaper companies' fears, the Financial Post reported.
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