Small earthquake in Belgium, no-one hurt
OK, so there are essays a-plenty re: Google and Belgium, and all the coverage you could ever need over at Search Engine Land. The world hasn’t changed. There are still appeals to go. Let’s not get over excited. But, I think the final bit of John Battelle’s FAQ puts it in context.
Q. So this is all about renegotiating the relationship between traditional media companies, their distribution networks, and the role of search in the new media landscape?
A. Yup.
And obviously I realised the whole case was a travesty after reading Rachel Whetstone’s explanation on the Google Blog. But I think things are getting a little more complex than this oft repeated Google mantra
We believe search engines are of real benefit to publishers because they drive valuable traffic to their websites. If publishers do not want their websites to appear in search results, technical standards like robots.txt and metatags enable them automatically to prevent the indexation of their content.
OK well, We believe that publishers are of real benefit to search engines because they provide valuable content for them to sell ads against. We also believe that when it comes to a news product - the timely use of even a headline and first par is actually a significant part of a story….but that is another matter.
It would be interesting if there was a spare academic/ economist out there to do some real number crunching and actually start to evaluate the mutual dependencies between content providers and searchengines/ aggregators and quantify the benefits each brings to the other, rather then rely on an endless stream of assertions on both sides. But until that day, it’s boom time for lawyers, methinks..
James Cridland wrote:
We believe that publishers are of real benefit to search engines because they provide valuable content for them to sell ads against. We also believe that when it comes to a news product - the timely use of even a headline and first par is actually a significant part of a story….but that is another matter.
Not sure I follow what your argument is here.
Until Google, in order to get traffic to your website, you needed to advertise (and pay some media owner megabucks for the privilege). Now that Google/Yahoo/Live has appeared, you no longer need to pay. Of course they earn money from presenting a small portion of your content, and others, to their visitors. Their product wouldn’t deliver you traffic otherwise.
But you do retain control. If you strongly believe that your snippets in Google News benefits them more than you, you are entirely welcome to add the little snippet of robots.txt and remove your content from their site. No lawyer needs get bothered.
I don’t think anyone at Google would disagree with your argument that content on other websites makes Google a better place to be. So, I don’t think this is an argument; other than perhaps a deep-seated need for recognition by Mountain View.
A reliance on lawyers instead of the application of existing technology and common-sense is what’s wrong with so many things today. I know you’re cleverer than that.
Posted on 14-Feb-07 at 9:27 pm | Permalink