News outlets with an online presence may soon be getting knocked off the Google News search results soon. Google has signed deals with four news agencies to carry stories on Google’s website and block out the same story from other publishers. This move could cost news outlets ad revenue, something newspapers at least, need in these electronic times.
As it stands now a search result in Google News will show all stories from a vast number of websites. This could mean that many sites, carrying the same story, will show up in the search. News services provide these stories to news outlets to help “bulk up” their web sites.
The four agencies that have signed the contract will allow Google to provide the content on its website. These feeds will come from the Associated Press, The Canadian Press, Press Association, and Agence France-Presse. Google search technology will block out news that is the same as these “feeds” and only post the content provider.
The four agencies do not have a traditional website for consumers but the do charge a handsome fee to groups who want to use the news and sometimes an additional “online fee”. This is providing another revenue source for these four groups.
Newspapers will be affected by this the most. They have lost traditional ad space revenue in the paper and rely more heavily on online ad revenue. The less traffic coming to their site translates into less money they can charge for online advertising…hence loosing more revenue. Maybe local newspapers need to rely more on original content than that of a news wire service to stay afloat.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.