Putting the Screws to Google
My Mom sent me this article by Jon Fine of BusinessWeek.com which I think might alternately be titled “Putting the Rubber Screws to Google.” The article describes how a “content consortium” made up of large media corporations might close off their content from Google indexing and sell their own ads. My first thought was I don’t think so. Here are a few more thoughts.
“…we’ll make our stuff available and sell ads around it and the searches for it…”
Google is in the business of helping people find things. Google doesn’t make money from owning content, but helping people find it and showing ads along the way. It’s a real trophy to capture the first page of Google search results pages for a highly competitive keyword or phrase. It means revenue in the pocket. So, it’s difficult to imagine a scenario wherein self penalization (deliberately removing one’s site from Google) would be profitable.
There are already plenty of content networks selling their own ads today. Almost all allow Google to index their pages so that they can receive free organic traffic to those pages and gain revenue from their ads. Google is not competing with them so much as helping them. I believe searchers prefer open information networks over closed.
Why would someone prefer to start their search on a consortium search page which would be dwarfed by Google’s more objective and robust catalogue of billions of pages?
What would a content consortium need to do first to put the metal screws to Google? Develop a search platform that would deliver excellent results.
With all the news media attention l.
Although there’s quite a bit of c.
When I was browsing through differe.