In the Guardian there is an article about Rupert Murdoch who says he will remove stories from Google’s search index as a way to encourage people to pay for content online.
The least I can say about this is that this is an interesting approach. Interesting because if you remove your sites from search engine indexes people will have a hard time to discover you. The only way you manage that people will come to you is because you are an authority on a certain subject and people know where to find you. If you are already an authority than search engines and aggregation sites aren’t a problem since people are already coming to your site.
Also the fact that you want eyeballs on your site is quite outdated. You don’t need them, the thing you want is attention for your content, people spending time on your content and your content is not necessarily something that is on your site.
Removing yourself from Google will make your sites harder to be discovered and is not a solution for making money with your content. Being listed on Google News or in a search index is not a problem.If you remove your site from these services you will not convert the users of these services in paying customers. They will simply go elsewhere for their content.
Indeed!
It's a bit of a contradiction in terms. Funny how Murdoch uses “free media” to advertise for his belief that paid media is the future, especially now that paying for anything has become an exception rather than a rule – where is his great business case convincing us that his content is so much better that it is actually worth paying for (and, especially, how)???
I just checked http://www.fox.com/robots.txt, Google is still allowed everywhere. Just a lot of talk?
Kevin Kelly wrote a while ago better than free: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/... Mr Murdoch could build his business model around personalisation, interpretation and patronage. However I think he should realize that he does not earn money with his content. Content is something that he needs to earn money, however it will not earn the money for him.
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