Can newspapers survive online without Google?

News Corp Sites 'To Be Removed From Google' [Sky News]

Could Wall Street Journal and Fox News articles be pulled from Google's search results? If recent comments from News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch are any indication, all articles from News Corp. web sites may be disappearing from the search results of the Internet's most popular search engine. Murdoch, who has championed the use of paid, subscription-based content on all of the sites that News Corp. owns, believes that advertising can't support the production of content for the Internet. According to Murdoch, search engines like Google, "simply pick up everything and run with it - steal our stories ... without payment."

Murdoch's solution - simply eliminate the files on the News Corp. web servers that allow Google to index their content, effectively removing them from the search engine's results. Sky News Australia's political editor David Speers asked Murdoch recently why News Corp. has not removed the files already, Murdoch responded, "I think we will."

Many of those in the newspaper business have gritted their teeth at the fact that Google sells advertising on search results that direct users to the newspapers' content, while the advertising revenue that newspapers earn via their web sites is miniscule in comparison to Google's. The question has been asked whether newspapers need Google to help users find their content. Now it appears that at least one company plans to answer that question.

Comments

[Steve Huff]

If you think any news organization is not biased in one direction or another, your crazy. Your just against the ones that are not biased in your direction.

[sineswiper]

Good riddance. That means I don't have to filter through his yellow journalistic newspapers when reading news on Google.

And the answer to your question Michael is "no". I, among many other people, exclusively get my online news from Google. It gives me a wide selection of newspapers to glean my information from. (At least the ones that aren't clearly biased.)

News Corp trying to go this angle is going to remove a lot of business. But, I guess their audience only wants an exclusive "rose-colored red-state" view of the world, which is what this business model is going to offer them. Furthermore, right-wing bloggers will have to look for more legitmate news sources to link to, as News Corp's pages will be off-limits to non-subscribers. Maybe this will show just how biased News Corp's news truly is.

Good luck, Citizen Kane!

[Rob Jones]

The crazy Fox News network not being searchable on the internet, how awesome is that. I'm all for it Murdoch, take your crap and go home.