Google counsels news publishers

IN A BLOG POST, Google has discussed some of the issues, and controversies, surrounding its linking to news content - a practice that has angered a certain rather litigious Antipodean media magnate.

Rupert Murdoch has made no secret of his annoyance with Google and other news aggregators who he sees as coming in and taking his readers away. The fact that more often than not they are probably delivering fresh readers does not seem to impress Rupert, who is not to be confused with 'Howling Mad' from the A-Team. In fact he wants to start blocking Google's spiders and seems to be suggesting that his sites will only be available on Bing searches - so you can see where the Murdoch confusion could arise.

In a blog post by Josh Cohen, a senior business product manager at Google, the firm appears to be goading Murdoch into trying it. Cohen discusses the ways that Google can help publishers to manage their non-subscription visitors, which the firm can do in two ways, while pouring scorn on the idea of paywalls and paid content in general.

One way that Google can help is through what it calls First Click Free, which is a setting that can be applied so it limits visitors to a handful of clickthroughs on a particular site. Cohen said that this had been increased so that users could click through to five pages on a subscription site, something that we assume Murdoch won't be taking very well. Nevermind the fact that Cohen admits that Google's spiders laugh in the face of subscription controls.

He acknowledges that, as it stands, any 'cloaking' features put in place to stop subscription content being accessed is not very useful. "Our crawlers can't fill out a registration or payment form to see what's behind a site's paywall, but they need access to the information in order to index it," he explains. "We think this approach still protects the typical user from cloaking, while allowing publishers to focus on potential subscribers who are accessing a lot of their content on a regular basis," which, we are left to assume, publishers aren't doing now.

Another option lets publishers offer preview pages through Google's searches, for example a few lines of text and the offer to subscribe. Appealing to users though this may be, Cohen suggests that it, and indeed paid-for anything, may not be the best route to take. "Paid content may not do as well as free options, but that is not a decision we make based on whether or not it's free. It's simply based on the popularity of the content with users and other sites that link to it," he said, possibly while stroking a white cat.

Still, if any publishers do want to turn their back on it, and its many users, Cohen said that it would always keep its doors open, and its spiders ready. "These are two of the ways we allow publishers to make their subscription content discoverable, and we're going to keep talking with publishers to refine these methods. After all, whether you're offering your content for free or selling it, it's crucial that people find it. Google can help with that."

What is it they say about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer? µ