Google is the lifeblood of small publishers.
Australia is the latest country to consider mandating that Google pay news publishers for “content,” even if this content is just a headline and short snippet.
Google and Google News have become a bogeyman for news publishers who are frustrated by plunging revenue due to the move to digital.
People often go to Google News or Google’s cards on their phone instead of a publisher’s home page because Google News provides a broader range of information from multiple sources and viewpoints than a single publication.
But this means publications get more “drive-by” traffic that only views a single article, and might not be a paying subscriber.
This is a real struggle. Yet forcing Google to pay for showing a headline and snippet is a lousy way to fix the issue. Publishers should try to adapt to offer some of the value that Google News provides instead.
Let’s be clear. The headline and snippet are akin to a search engine results listing for any topic. People want as much free traffic from Google as they can get, but large publishers don’t think this way.
When Spain passed a law forcing Google to pay publishers for Google News, Google shut down News in the country. That didn’t help anyone, and it disproportionately hurt small publishers who depend on Google for traffic.
Even if Google has to pay small publishers, it will likely be a nominal amount of money. Only the larger publishers would receive enough to make a line item for it.
I understand why government leaders are responding to lobbying from the publishing industry. It’s a shame smaller publishers’ concerns aren’t also considered.
Sean Smith says
Not much evidence to back up the claims in this article or what alternatives might be.
Andrew Allemann says
Ask a small publisher I’m Spain how the law changed their traffic
JohnH says
I just Googled… ‘Google is the lifeblood of small publishers’, and found your snippet and related headlines/snippets probably sufficient to answer my curiosity. No need to click through. Google is greedy and have expanded their ‘snippets’ far beyond what is IMO justifiable. That Google has the kind of (indiscriminate, algorithmic) power to make or break a small business owner in Spain is the problem! France has recently passed similar laws. Let Google News shut down there too. And the rest of the EU. Maybe another less greedy, more equitable to publishers, system could emerge.