Thanks for the post.
As someone who is new here, I find it highly annoying that you do not clearly identify who you are (I assume this is Danny Sullivan’s blog). Nor do you have dates on your posts. It would be nice to know how current a post is, as this “industry” can change very quickly.
That being said, thanks for you efforts on behalf of the SEO and SEM community.
- Ryan Nagy

Danny — Fair enough. Google doesn’t errect barriers to google news, but GN traffic is immaterial vs. Google search, macro-ly speaking. Newspaper sites can’t monitze the traffic b/c they are local creations, with local advertisers, who don’t care about users/readers coming in from India if they own an auto parts store in Indiana. That’s not necessarily the case for for national media, which can make a compelling advertising argument for more global traffic. Nor is it true for bloggers, who don’t have the same cost structure and are estatic to generate 100K a year using AdSense. It’s also true that local advertisers are using AdWords to offer their products directly to the consumer, bypassing local media companies. So what’s the solution? A better mousetrap — a market-beater local search engine married to compelling local conent that isn’t available anywhere else. Easier said than done.

Danny — I’ve been doing Internet journalism since ‘95 and your arrogance rivals that of some of the worst newspaper managers I’ve met along the way. Talk about an echo chamber. Your arguments about why mainstream media is failing is stale, boorish and unenlightened. It’s the same drivel one hears from every blogger and it’s tedious. Let’s try to at least have an honest debate. Yes, old-line media is responsible for the decline of their business model, but that was true long before the Internet came along. Their franchise has been shrinking for years; the Internet sped the demise faster than anyone could have imagined. On the other hand, aggregators, whether search engines or portals, are not, on average, capable of replacing the lost revenue dollar for dollar, which means the inherent cost structure built into a traditional media operation is unsustainable. That’s the reality. But it’s also true that aggregators don’t give a rat’s ass about the cost of producing content and could care less about referring traffic to the content creator. And why would they, since they only lose money when a user leaves their site for another. This is especially true among the portals. Don’t believe me? Then you’ve never sat in on an internal biz dev discussion with a major online distributor. The cards are stacked against the content providers, since distribution — and the only real distribution that an advertiser cares about generally is repeat traffic and big numbers — is key to long-term success. Until distribution is equalized, it will continue to be true. Microsoft’s 80~% of the browser market and Google’s control of search traffic makes it extremely difficult for media companies to create a biz model (loyal, repeat traffic) that can support their cost structure — and I don’t care how much SEO they do. And, unless someone steps in, it’s only going to get tougher. All Internet users should be concerned about msft’s Yahoo designs, it’s Facebook “investments”, and Google’s ownership of YouTube and it’s own portal aspirations. You’re naive, Danny, if you think Google is the answer. You’re nearly as naive as the old-media managers and having a shouting match with them everytime they complain is a waste of everyone’s time and confirms you really don’t understand what’s happening at a macro level. And that’s a pity, becuase this really is an important topic.

Danny,
I’ve been thinking about your essay all week, and finally published a longer response in the Seattle area’s main startup blog, TechFlash.
http://www.techflash.com/venture/The_tragedy_of_the_commons_42716802.html
The point that you seem to be ignoring is that no business, not even Yahoo, can afford to be excluded from Google’s index; as everyone knows who complained about Google’s favoritism toward Knol, it would be inappropriate for Google to use its index as leverage for competing in areas like news aggregation.
Perhaps you find traditional journalism to be, at this point, a contemptible enterprise (your friends in journalism notwithstanding) but there has to be room in the world for some writers and artists to charge directly for their goods. Google for its own excellent reasons makes such an endeavor more, not less, difficult. And that in the end may make the Internet a poorer rather than a richer place.
I think Google can be part of the solution to this problem, but first we have to acknowledge it’s a problem rather than saying Google, love it or leave the index!

I hear alot of Physical Newspaper vs Internet; and until recently haven’t considered a different medium.

Now I think i’d rather get newspapers and magazines from some type of ereader device. Like the one Amazon has, or a larger Apple Ipod intended for reading, in addition to its other uses. Then I could go to the Apple Online Store or other similar service and select them all, get billed all in one place, and have them all synced to my device everytime I log in.

Then I can read the newspaper the way it was intended, lounging in the chair .

I won’t hold my breath.

Danny,
Oh, OK then.
If I’ve insulted the wrong person, apologies. I just interpreted what I thought were a few too many digs at newspapers in general.
My rant still applies to many others who I bet run in your circle, but I guess not to you.
Newspapers were not “late” to the web, though. In fact, newspapers were some of the first to hit the web.
They decided to give all their content away at first, to build critical mass. Some of that thinking has been a mistake. Then again, maybe not.
Most big newspapers now have at least 1 million unique visitors a month. The NY Times had 16 million last month. They’ve reached critical mass in eyeballs, in other words.
Before, when their websites were just starting out, they didn’t have that kind of critical mass. People are coming to newspaper websites, and they keep coming back, along with new people every day. They generally like what they’re getting.
My guess is this: About 10-percent of those current unique visitors will pay to continue to keep receiving that paper’s website content.
That’s the general rule of sales – 10 percent will buy what you have to sell, provided it’s a decent product and reasonably priced.
Now, you’ll say “well, 90 percent won’t pay for it, that’s awful.” And they’re right, 90 percent won’t pay. But once you have a critical mass of people already receiving your product, a return rate of 10 percent means papers now have 100,000 people paying a few bucks a month for content. Now they have, let’s say if the price per month is $4.99 for the content, $500,000 a month in new revenue coming in, or $6 million a year. That’s still not huge money really.
But it’s a start.
The trick for papers will be to keep that 100,000 people paying for the content happy and satisfied with what they’re getting. The 90-percent who may flee the site won’t matter much to advertisers anyway. Most advertisers expect only a 10-percent “buy rate” with the ads they place in print papers today anyway.
Advertisers will like pitching to those 100,000 paying paper customers, because they’re locked in to the site and come back every day. I think the term is “stickiness” to the site that is attractive to advertisers.
And the paper will like it because not only can they now charge higher rates to advertisers to access that 100,000 people, but now they finally have revenue from the subscriptions themselves.
Newspapers will defeat local blogs or aggregators because their content will be superior. Flight to quality is always what happens in the end.
Yeah, newspapers have made lots of mistakes. But I see hope on the horizon.
And if I’m wrong, you can chide me for it at that cocktail party.

I’m late to this one but want to chime in because the post and the ensuing conversation are so important.
I too prickle at all the Google Bashing and am upset that search engines have become a convenient straw man for what ails news companies.
The web did dramatically alter the distribution (and hence the consumption) of news. This started happening back in the 90s and the writing has been on the wall for a decade and half.
Web content distribution undercuts two big things that are dear to news organizations.
One is the ad-based revenue model, whether that means page advertising or classifieds. Page ads would still be viable if print subscriptions were viable. As for classifieds, they’re simply better in every way online, whether you’re looking at Craigslist, eBay, AutoTrader, you name it.
The second is that digital distribution undercuts commodity articles. Major news sources do excellent online when they either create unique content or garner reputations as being the trusted curator of other’s content. As Danny stated, newspapers in particular have been cutting local reporting and adding wire stories and syndicated pieces in cost-cutting efforts. In doing so, they have undercut what differentiates them as information providers. While this commodification has slowly eroded offline readership, it’s a death-sentence online. There have been some horrible management and editorial decisions at news companies, but part of the decay is the marketplace saying that commodity articles or rehashes of other articles are no longer valued or needed.
Danny, you are correct when you say that Google and Google News give mainstream news outlets special treatment, and it is in their interest to do so. Their business model relies on returning the best, most trusted results; if Google can’t do this, they too will wither. This is symbiotic relationship between media orgs and search engines should be embraced, not avoided. Search is not just about traffic, it’s about visibility. If you write an article that can’t be found, it might as well not exist.
I do not want to see the end of expert news gathering. Media organizations would do well to think about their strengths and unique value to their readers, whether that is expert investigative journalism, local news, or expert analysis. Not every outlet is suffering, and even a few print newspapers (the Economist, for example, which only recently invested heavily in the web) are thriving because they offer something valuable and unique.
I’ve spent a lot of time in recent weeks defending search engines and Google News. Luckily, I don’t have to do this at my company, as management and editorial are well aware that the benefits search engines give us far outweigh what we give up.
As a non-profit, we’ve absorbed the financial shocks better than most, but by no means is NPR immune. Even in this dark time, our mission to create a better informed public means we worry about our content and our audience first. While I’m new to news, when I worked in the private sector, a relentless focus on giving the customer the best was the only way you survive.
My biggest concern with search engines is not whether they are “stealing” our content, but rather am I doing my best to optimize the huge gift of authority they have bestowed on our site. I am also particularly keen on working with our local member stations to increase the visibility of their excellent local content.
Javaun Moradi,
Product Manager, Search
NPR Digital Media