WSJ.com Could Lose 25% of Its Traffic if Murdoch Blocks Google

Whenever Rupert Murdoch goes back to his home country of Australia, he loosens up and says things to the press (usually his own outlets) that he might not say in the U.S. Of course, everyone in the U.S. picks up on it and it becomes a big story, as it did Monday after Murdoch told his own Sky News that he might start blocking Google (GOOG) and other search engines from giving searchers full access to articles on the Wall Street Journal’s website, WSJ.com. Asked whether he realized that Google was sending his news site a ton of traffic, Murdoch responded, ”We’d rather have fewer people coming to our Websites, but paying.”

If Murdoch wants fewer people coming to the WSJ.com and other news sites he controls, blocking Google from indexing those sites is the perfect way to achieve that goal. Just over 25 percent of the WSJ.com’s traffic comes directly from Google or Google News, according to estimates by Hitwise. About 12 percent of that comes from Google News, and another 15 percent from Google search directly.

About 44 percent of visitors to the WSJ.com are new to the site, so Google is doing a good job of introducing new readers to the WSJ. But Murdoch clearly would rather have loyal readers than those delivered by search engines. Or at least that is his story, and he is sticking to it. Never mind that in order to get people to pay for content, they first have to be able to find it.

Meanwhile, the WSJ.com still has a deal with Google which allows the search engine to bypass the paywall and show readers the full text of articles when they click through. Perhaps the WSJ is learning that it can’t be half-pregnant. Either you charge everyone for content, or you make it free, because if there is a back door everyone will find it. All the strange arrangement with Google is doing is training people to search on Google News for stories on the WSJ, rather than go directly to the WSJ. But I digress.

Here is the full video interview with Murdoch below:

Original post

Comments

[bobaka:]

*#&@ Rupert Murdoch

Nov 10 10:03 AM

[Nikola:]

It might actually work. Think about it. WSJ is already a brand. If I don't know what they are saying (and most of the time they are saying whatever everyone else is saying so I don't go look), maybe, just maybe, I might consider actually going to the site wsj.com once in a while to check it out. And maybe, just maybe, I might be tempted to actually pay for some content. Why? Because I don't know what's behind the wall. If I knew, if Google told me, I'd know it's just the same old same old. But since I don't know and Google doesn't know..... what's behind there? Some really good stuff? Maybe I should check it out.

I think Murdoch is on to something. It's counter intuitive, sure. So is a fact that if you want to relieve traffic congestion you want to actually close down some roads, not build new ones. But that's shown to be true. If anyone could test this hypothesis it's Murdoch. I say more power to him.

Nov 10 10:54 AM

[Ricard:]

This move makes sense.

As it stands, Google basically controls media content by making all the money from it, while publishers like WSJ and the NYT make next to zero (outside of their own advertising streams).

A corollary would be for phone books to make the profits that would normally go to the plumbers and etc that actually perform the service. Doesn't make any sense.

Of course, wsj.com makes a tidy sum off the outlandish $150/year subscription fee.

Nov 10 10:57 AM

[dieuwer:]

Why pay if you can read the EXACT same "cut-copy-paste" news item on ANY other site?

Nov 10 11:06 AM

[gsm60018:]

What if ONLY Google is banned from access?

Nov 10 12:13 PM

[Hedged In:]

For this to work, the WSJ has to have (1) a unique enough offering to make it worth paying for, and (2) a strong enough brand to attract customers. It has the brand, but Murdoch seems to be watering down the quality of the journalism.

One of Murdoch's key points was that visitors from Google don't become loyal paying customers, and have little value to advertisers. If he's right about that, it doesn't matter to him that 44% of its visitors come from Google.


On Nov 10 11:06 AM dieuwer wrote:

> Why pay if you can read the EXACT same "cut-copy-paste" news item
> on ANY other site?

Nov 10 12:13 PM

[Jason Rines...:]

It goes to show, authors of anything need to make a living. Google is a saavy intermediary but forgot to povide A living wage to content providers. Google just had a strong warning shot delivered across its bow.

Nov 10 12:28 PM

[Thomas J. G...:]

If Murdoch turns of google access to wsj I hope he fixes his own search first. I am an online wsj subscriber and I constantly have to use google to find articles on wsj that I know are there but can't find in wsj search.

Nov 10 01:07 PM

[bobbybutte:]

Murodch didn't build what he built by being a stooge

He needs to figure out how to raise revenues with his content

Nov 11 10:00 AM

[La Marque:]

Murdoch would be smart to end the Google-wsj.com deal.

Nov 11 10:37 AM

[Julio:]

In response to the post that wsj.com makes a tidy penny from a $150 subscription fee: I canceled my wsj.com subscription just this morning. I paid $99/yr. the first year, $119 the second and they wanted $197 for the current year. I don't know what kind of price elasticity exists for wsj.com subscribers, but I'm not willing to pay double within two years for the product.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems to me that the issue with Google could be remedied by tweaking the ratio of content that is free vs. behind a pay wall.


On Nov 10 10:57 AM Ricard wrote:

> This move makes sense.
>
> As it stands, Google basically controls media content by making all
> the money from it, while publishers like WSJ and the NYT make next
> to zero (outside of their own advertising streams).
>
> A corollary would be for phone books to make the profits that would
> normally go to the plumbers and etc that actually perform the service.
> Doesn't make any sense.
>
> Of course, wsj.com makes a tidy sum off the outlandish $150/year
> subscription fee.

Nov 11 11:40 AM