At the World Newspaper Congress at Hyderabad this week Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton ?took on Google and used some strong language to stir things up. He called Google a digtial vampire and a parasite. He goes on to further bash the internet content Kleptomaniacs whose business model depends on purloining the expensive journalism of mainstream media (read more about what he said over here).
The issue that i want to highlight is what gives the Newspaper industry so much courage to take on Google (Rupert Murdoch: “I think we will remove our websites from Google’s search index”). Is it foolhardy or is it based on some statistics. So here is the rub. With the rise in social media the landscape has changed dramatically. In the same conference Associate editor of Daily Mirror, Matt Kelly shared why his company is relying less and less on Google SEO. According to Matt Kelly the traffic from Google Search is now much lower than what they are getting from referrals, bookmarks and Social Media platform like Twitter and Facebook.
Why the Newspaper industry feels it can take on Google
