Microsoft might pay for Search Results

Posted by Mike (11/24/09)

A recent article from CNN.com reveals that Microsoft is in talks with NewsCorp to “de-list” its news sites from Google. This is interesting news coming off the recent interview with Rupert Murdoch (NewsCorp chairman) in which he spoke out against Google.

Financial Times has reported that Microsoft has contacted other big name online publishers in hopes of persuading them to “de-list” their websites from Google as well.

“This is all about Microsoft hurting Google’s margins,” said a web publisher familiar with the plan.

Are we about to see a bidding war between Google and Microsoft for content?

This could be good news for the newspaper industry, which has yet to develop an online business model that could support their declining revenues from print and advertising.

Matt Brittin, Google’s UK director, told a Society of Editors conference that Google did not need news content to survive. “Economically it’s not a big part of how we generate revenue.”

After Microsoft’s launch of Bing (which reportedly receives around 10% of search traffic; reported by ComScore) they have been actively trying to steal users from Google. Striking deals with Twitter, Yahoo, and now possibly large news publishers, Microsoft is actively pursuing paying for content in order to gain in users.

Do you think Google, which currently holds about 60% of the total searches online, would suffer from a “de-listing” from large news sources?

More importantly, how would this affect our current search results? Would paid content get priority?

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