Rupert Murdoch: “I think we will remove our websites from Google’s search index”
Rupert Murdoch sent a strong signal, in an interview with Sky News Australia, against major search engines saying that they will disallow from indexing his News Corp. websites.
As Murdoch put it, “I think we will remove our websites from Google’s search index but that’s when we start charging.”
Further added:”The people who simply just pick up everything and run with it – steal our stories, we say they steal our stories – they just take them. That’s Google, that’s Microsoft, that’s Ask.com, a whole lot of people … they shouldn’t have had it free all the time, and I think we’ve been asleep.”
This means media mogul is gearing towards pay-to-read model for visitors. In recent times, news business has witnessed large losses and here is a desperate move to restore the dominance of traditional news industry.
Do you think it’s a right move by Murdoch? Signal of time to come?
About the author: Lohith Amruthappa is a Search Engine Marketing specialist and blogger, currently managing inhouse SEO and PPC projects. You can visit for more information on SEO, PPC and Google analytics at http://www.lohithamruthappa.com
About the author - The article has been contributed by guest author. If you would like to share your opinion/insights/write a guest post, please get in touch [ashish at pluggd.in]
yes, its very much needed.. Search engines supposed to give the website, not d contents.. I’ll die hard to gather all the data about a article these guys simply index it and dispaly in one single place.. who knows whether they are changing the data and updating the sytems (E.g. Maps, Local Services) Do you think they are collecting their data.. So we need sort of consortium about what to index and what not? Moreover, if so they have to pay the money to the ppl..
Am I ryt?
Am I on TechCrunch or what?
pluggdin rocking these days…TC is boring with twitter all over the place….
yes i agree
That is up to you to decide.
Well..if Murdoch is thinking of this, imagine what’s happening to smaller publications..
This is harbinger of days to come.
This is news.. Even Murdoch hasn’t figured out how to make ’serious money’ from online advertizing.. This space should be interesting to watch – how do you prevent news from ’spreading’ if it’s on an easily reproducible medium like Internet..Though specialized news providers like Bloomberg and WSJ can continue to be premium/paid due to their professional value-add and niche audience, online news publications providing general stories may face tough times putting a price to read their content.
Murdoch and likes should know: the process is irreversible:-)
No one can set the rules of the game!!
PAY TO READ could have been a story of past. Now its time of open-free-mobile world!!
Ooh ! finally , in a way this is absolutely critical . Seeing the way various search engines work , they pose a huge challenge to the media industry , rather every industry .
The resource that various organizations dedicate for generating content has to be managed , and should not be available for free , or atleast should cover the opportunity cost.
In producing content an organization spends X , the cost to generate or garner content cannot be compensated by providing the content for free through search engines and further by generating revenue by online advertisements , which in any case is miniscule .
By bringing in a system , further to Mr. Murdoch comment , I believe some sanity can be induced in the way internet business operates . Basically free content is a waste and needs to be contained at some point .
Also , I believe with a move like this internet domain shall become less cluttered and further create an opportunity for much serious vendors or absolutely innovative ventures .