Murdoch’s anti-Google Microsoft partnership
Having been forced to delay its plans to erect pay walls, Rupert Murdoch’s News International appears to have floated a different, perhaps more innovative, idea: charge search engines to index its sites.
It’s an idea that turns search engine optimisation on its head. Most website owners are desperate for Google to include them in search results and do all they can to get in the top ten for popular search terms. And yet Murdoch is right when he points out that having millions of casual readers who generate no significant income is of no use to a profit seeking business.
This apparently simple idea would see Microsoft pay for the — perhaps exclusive — right to include results from News International properties in its flagging Bing search engine.
Sadly for Microsoft and Murdoch, the evidence is that News International content would be a weak USP, but given that users can switch search engines at a mouse click Google may still be vulnerable.
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