What’s this about?
This is an extract from TWIS SEO News & Updates 25 August 2017.
Read about how Google News is testing new subscription options for publishers, in an attempt to keep them afloat, on-board and viable.
Click here to contact me to discuss how to get into Google News and how to implement First Click Free, as well as ways to design subscription programs that work.
#SEO #SEONews #GoogleNews #FirstClickFree #Facebook
Google Testing New Subscription Options for Publishers
Summary – New Google News Options:
- Following the decimation of the news publishing industry by Google and Facebook, both are now taking steps to improve subscriptions for their news “partners”.
- Google is revamping First Click Free, as well as developing tools for publishers to gain subscriptions and target users.
- This is much-needed, but possibly, too little, too late. It’s also not driven by a sense of altruism.
Actions to take – New Google News Options:
- Keep an eye on Google News. They have made a few moves recently to update their service.
- Read up about micro-payment and subscription models Google has championed, it is likely that Google will offer a version of one, or both, of them.
- Keep pushing Google and Facebook to split ad revenues more equitably with news publishers.
- Click here to contact me to discuss how to get into Google News and how to implement First Click Free, as well as ways to design subscription programs that work.
Discussion – New Google News Options:
For some years, news publishers have had a strong distaste for Google. They disliked the fact that Google News aggregated and published their content. They disliked not being able to directly paywall content, and they disliked Google stripping advertising dollars from them, directly on Google, and as a % from Google’s ad publishing arm.
The news outlets thought Facebook would be a saviour, but recent desertions and back-stepping from Facebook have had an impact there.
In turn, both advertising leviathans have offered temptations to the news publishers to keep their content flowing to Google and Facebook, and keep the ad revenue flowing. The other issue is obviously that in the absence of real news, and due to the thirst for any news, fake news has flourished. This does no one any good.
This move by Google is about eyeballs on Google, and a response to the first move by Facebook to retain publishers. Don’t for one minute think it is about being kind to news publishers.
It is likely that Google will work with news publishers to introduce some kind of micro-payment model, or a subscription model, which also has revenue sharing for Google.
I bet the news publishers wish they had worked together to introduce an online ad system which could have easily rivalled Google’s and Facebook’s. Then they wouldn’t have been so dependent on either, and wouldn’t have had to split such a big revenue percentage with them.
More info:
The State of SEO Mid-2017 Released
TL;DR
- Google is looking for ways to share some of its spoils with news publishers.
- This is in response to news publishers going down the gurgler, Facebook overtaking them for news distribution, and the rise of fake news.
- No word on what the actual options are, but look out for micro-payments and centralised subscriptions with shared revenue.
- Read The State of SEO in mid-2017.
- Read about how Google’s Mobile First Index is not Mobile Friendly.
- Finally, get your content ranking well on Google by starting to understand Find Crawl Index.
Thanks for reading. If you would like to discuss what these changes mean for your web property, or would like to know how to implement them, please feel free to contact me.
