Murdoch to Block Google from Searching News Items?
Media titan and News Corp czar Rupert Murdoch seems to be on a warpath against Google's spiders, particularly with regard to Google News' indexing of News Corp items.
In an interview today with Australian media outlet Sky News, Murdoch hinted that when News Corp sites start charging users for access to content around June 2010, said content will be de-indexed from all search engines. It's an old-school approach to the burgeoning threat of new media, but who wants to argue with a 78 year-old billionaire? And exactly how much share does News Corp hold in the search engine news v. old-guard media battle?
Australian-born Murdoch said in the interview, "There are no websites... anywhere in the world making any serious money. Some may be breaking even or maybe making a couple of million."
Murdoch continues to criticize Google as plagiarists who steal News Corp content, just as he claims users should never have had access to free content in the first place. Take a look at this video of the interview. Beware: It's long and deeply fascinating:
The most fascinating thing about the interview is that Murdoch points out the sticking points of traffic valuation and monetization that only a 4-billionaire has the right to comment on. Does inclusion in Google News results guarantee clickthroughs? Do clickthroughs guarantee loyal readership? Does loyal readership in any way convert to ad dollars?
Taking it a step further, when one considers the absolutely abysmal rates of conversion of clickthrough users on advertisers' websites, does the funnel of Google News traffic generate revenue from consumers to advertises and thence to publishers?
Or is it all a rhubarb goulash, as Murdoch would have it?
Clearly, there are subtleties to the case, which carries with it every complexity ever pondered by those who attempt to provide value to users - most of whom indignantly refuse to pay for content and accept pirated content as a substitute - and those who guard the economic and cultural longevity of traditional media, many outlets of which continue to provide the most valuable and insightful commentary in a news environment that revolves around instant deadlines, fast-beats-best reportage, and shoddy fact-checking.
But as much as the newsprint-and-ink old guarders among us can appreciate Murdoch's last stand, one appreciates - as a user and as a technologist - the cooperation and innovation of companies such as the New York Times, the BBC, and other very traditional news outlets that have seen the value of distribution, aggregation, and mass information.
If, however, News Corp decides to deny Google bots access to its content, Google news will likely suffer little. Between the Associated Press, Reuters, and other print and broadcast news services, one wonders how much the absence of News Corp listings - primarily represented by the Wall Street Journal and FOX - will affect Google News.
Share
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
There is a concern here - The pretty cool Myspace/Google Music thing may suffer, or disappear outright, if grumpy Gus makes good on is promise.
http://google.com/music
P.S. Hey Ruppey, Go back to your pile of money you sleep on at night, stay there you old dinosaur! The innarwebz don't want to hear from you any moar.
"Some may be breaking even or maybe making a couple of million."
To a multi-billionaire, six of one, half-dozen of another...
To me, Murdoch sounded unsure about his own play to charge people for content.
The fact that he claims Google and others are stealing News Corp content also shows that he doesn't value, or seemingly understand, search at all. The fact that he places no value in an occasional visitor also demonstrates it. It's up to his sites to provide an engaging enough environment to keep them and convert them.
To say that they shouldn't have had their content free from the beginning shows a man who discounted the threat of digital and is now trying to play catch up with the world.
Add to that the fact that he didn't stop short of asserting that newspapers will disappear, and I have to agree with Mark Scott - empire in decline indeed.
I read a comment recently that if you're not in Google's listings then you're invisible. News Corp: the invisible media giant?
Murdoch was all over the place in that interview. He does not definitively say he'll prevent News Corp. content from being indexed by Google and Microsoft. In fact, he seems to not understand the fundamentals of search engines at all, and doesn't give any clear answers (or completely misses the meaning of David Speers' questions). He does reference what he deems an acceptable model: a paragraph of content that links to a subscription screen. What is clear, tho, is that he values a smaller paying audience more than a mass drive-by audience. Watch the first 5 minutes of the interview and you'll see the mess for yourself.
I still don't get how linking to an article is stealing. Someone please explain.
Not that easy, as can be seen if one visits the spider forums. He could certainly use a robots.txt file or noindex/nocache attributes, but those are certainly no guarantee.
Isn't part of the issue here the old argument about opt-in vs. opt-out? The SE's have established a defacto system that requires one to opt out of their index, but early on there were good arguments that publishers should opt-in.
Cast in those terms the ramifications hardly change everything, but they could certainly change the landscape in terms of who is best able to monetize their own published material - publisher or parasites.
Brilliant! Go for it, dude! Let us know how that works out for ya.
Somebody needs to send Mr. M a gift certificate to Borders so he can read up on that Internet thing.
BB
Why not? He already got respectable regular traffic; he doesn't need Google nor SEO to get people to visit his website. Happy him.
He is also completely misstating the french three strikes law by talking about having music "on sites". Worrying since he's probably the kind of person that could possibly bankroll initiatives to establish similar laws in the USA.