back to article Google drives a tenth of news traffic? That's bull-doodie, to use the technical term

Google has been forced to retract a claim that it only delivers 10 per cent of traffic to news sites after one of those cited – The Guardian – said the figure was "nonsense." The 10 per cent figure was supposed to act as a counter-argument to the European Commission's decision to formally accuse Google of illegally abusing its …

  1. FF22

    The real problem

    The real problem with this is not that Google "delivers" traffic to news outlets, but that the traffic the news outlets are getting from Google is traffic that has been diverted from them in the first place, by and to Google's (and other) aggregation services. So, it's not additional value and traffic that Google generates, but it still has complete control over who gets it and who doesn't.

    1. Richard Jones 1
      WTF?

      Re: The real problem

      @FF22 Frankly I am unable to follow the logic in your message. If I look at a news site for information I am already on that site. However if I ask Google 'Is there any news information about X', then hopefully Google will tell me where I can find the news about X.

      You appear to suggest that I should first have gone to a site that I did not know about, to find the information about the item that interested me. That does not make sense. If I knew about the site I would have gone there first. Most days I go via my book marks to a few sites. If I either do not find something about what interests me or if I feel that those prime sources have failed to give me the coverage I need I will then go to Google.

      Hopefully Google will then link me to something that I would otherwise have missed. Is this not the way that most people would work?

      Or are you suggesting I should bookmark every possible news source and only when I have visited everyone should I then do a web search? If so please give me a couple of spare lifetimes.

      To be honest I would tend to ignore a link to the Garudian(tm) as a first choice in favour of other news sites.

  2. RyokuMas
    Coffee/keyboard

    "... although Google is the most-used search engine, it is not abusing its dominant position"

    Amit Singhal, you owe me a new keyboard.

  3. David Pollard

    What sort of traffic?

    Presumably there is a big difference between the number of visitors and the number of page views. With traffic to the Reg, for example, many of the visitors who start from a search engine will simply read the one page, in contrast to regular readers who are likely to take in several pages when they visit.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What sort of traffic?

      If the Intent is serviced and there's strongly flagged onward journeys, then a Search acquired User can consume more page views than, for example, Twitter, where the use case is different.

      I came here because I wanted to (Search)

      I came here because someone told me to (Social)

      But, I can see what you mean, a Navigation User landing on a site with an intention to browse will take more pages, but that was considered a diminishing use case even in 2009 (atomic unit of consumption)

      1. Joe_Weil
        Thumb Up

        Re: What sort of traffic?

        Love your user name.

  4. T. F. M. Reader

    Whatever you wish to measure, you will

    Somehow I doubt people search for news on Google. They search for something in general, and Google serves news sites, such as The Register or The Guardian, among other things. Any complaint is presumably about The Guardian not being offered enough. This is not "news traffic", this is "The Guardian also published something relevant at some point" traffic.

    Besides, how many of search referrals are due to "I read about this on El Reg/The Graun recently, so let's search for 'left-handed underpants +guardian'" is unclear to me. Probably a lot, but I cannot back it up. This is seaching specifically for Guardian traffic.

    When a user is interested in the news he/she may go to The Register or The Guardian directly, or may fire up Google News. This (all of the above + The Telegraph) is what I do to check the news. It seems that this activity leads to 12% of The Register's traffic coming from Google News, which is quite in line with the quoted 10% ballpark.

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: Whatever you wish to measure, you will

      Sorry for any confusion: when we say search traffic, we mean people searching for things like "hp notebooks", and Google pushing news articles about HP netbooks to the top of the results. People click on those, and that's your traffic.

      For example, if you Google search right now for "Nvidia's GTX 900" the top hit is The Register's article on the open-source Nvidia Linux driver faff. If you search for "Miliband Cameron poll" you may get a Guardian article about the UK election campaign. That's search traffic. A stupid number of people use Google so getting even a tiny slice of that each month is valuable to publishers.

      Ultimately, it's about ads. You could shift 50 million page views a month but if you can't extract any ad impression cash from that then you're just another VC-funded blog burning through money.

      C.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Whatever you wish to measure, you will

        So you are complaining about free advertising?

  5. Warm Braw

    How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

    A lot of people appear to use Google as a glorified address bar and simply type "the guardian" or whatever into Google (their default home page) and then click on the appropriate search result. So a proportion of these "Google" leads will not be as a result of an intentional search, per se, but inflate Google's referral rate nevertheless.

    That's rather less likely to be the case for readers of The Register, though, so the figures for Google referrals do seem unexpectedly high. What would be interesting to know is the stickiness of those visitors compared with those who come directly.

    1. Enrico Vanni

      Re: How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

      Coupled with the fact that Chrome browser directs anything that isn't a properly formed URL (or a close enough approximation) typed into the address bar through Google search as well, so even those who think they are not using Google as a glorified address bar actually are (if you see what I mean).

    2. Rich 2 Silver badge

      Re: How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

      I second this. Even tech savvy people use Google as an address bar. I know my wife uses it exclusively like this - she never taps in a url directly - and she's reasonably techie.

      Google has very successfully managed to engrain itself into normal web use. They are now doing exactly the same thing with media - Google TV, YouTube of course, etc. It is very much getting to the point where there is no choice but to use Google

      1. Degenerate Scumbag

        Re: How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

        What utter bollocks, of course there is a choice. Nothing that Google have done in any way prevents or impedes anyone from getting to the information they want using alternative methods.

        Google's search dominance is based on the fact that their product is the best, by a long way.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

          Google's dominance is based on the fact that they give the user what the user is searching for, not someone else's agenda shoved down your throat.

    3. Alan Johnson

      Re: How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

      Well I use google as a sort of enhanced address bar even when I know the site I want becaus ei tis much easier.

      If for example I want to go to Texas Instrument web site and look at the data sheet on a paticular component I can go to www.ti.com and then navigate through the product heirarchy or use the sites own search tools or I can just type TI [abreviated Part number] and then select the best looking link within www.ti.com. Google is much better at this than most sites and it is a consistent method across all sites.

      The same is true of the guardian and other news sites. I can go to the guardian and struggle to find something or I can type a search for example "guardian left handed LGBT software discrimination" into google and go straight to whatver article I already know I want to read.

      I only tend to type addresses when I want to go to the home page of a web site I know.

      1. Major N

        Re: How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

        I had to google that phrase. Your comment is already tagged (and the only hit, too) :P

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

      My Thoughts as well. Unfortunately you can no longer see the keywords used for searching a site like "The Register" so you don't know whether it was a generic search for "IT Tech News" or for "The Register". However based upon a time when Keywords were available and from other sites where keywords are still shown I would say the "on brand" searches would be very high (one of our stats treat these as direct searches rather than referred from search engine)

      1. ratfox

        Re: How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

        That's a good point. Maybe The Register can give us the breakdown of how many users coming from Google go to the home page, vs. to an article. Those going to the home page probably googled for "the register" and clicked on the first link.

        1. Queasy Rider

          Re: How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

          I type 'el reg' when using someone else's computer and search engine to find a recent (this week or so) article, and then select and scan Register's home page. Of course the site is bookmarked on my computers and browsers.

    5. keith_w

      Re: How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

      I have noticed that a lot of people do that - they actually know the address but have google as their home page, so they type "guardian.com" in the search bar in the middle of the screen and then click on the first search entry displayed.

      1. Primus Secundus Tertius

        Re: How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

        Duh?

        Am I the only one who just clicks on a URL in my favourites list?

        1. Jeffrey Nonken

          Re: How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

          "Duh?

          Am I the only one who just clicks on a URL in my favourites list?"

          Yes.

        2. lurker

          Re: How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

          "Duh?

          Am I the only one who just clicks on a URL in my favourites list?"

          That was the norm back in the 90s. But I suspect that most people (like myself) found at some point that ever-growing favourites folders are cumbersome, and become a crutch rather than a valuable tool.

          Nowadays I only tend to bookmark very specific pages, usually reference pages which required a bit of digging to search up.

  6. Lost in Cyberspace

    Lack of feasible competition

    Google don't force me to use them because of any underhand bully-boy anti-competition tactics, it's just that I'm yet to find a better alternative. One that doesn't involve scrolling all the way down the page and squinting to see where the organic results start, after the ads.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Lack of feasible competition

      Google aren't being threatened with a wrist-slapping (or worse) for their search monopoly. They're allowed to operate a monopoly, which they won fair-and-square.

      What they're being accused of (in various markets) is leveraging that search monopoly to win there as well. As Microsoft were allowed their Windows monopoly, but weren't supposed to use it to win the search engine wars. Or the office wars. In both cases they used un-documented hooks in the operating system, and with IE they installed it for free on new systems.

      So Google are being accused of using their top-notch general search engine to push for dominance in specialist search, by downgrading the results of other companies. Hence pushing their own shopping search results (admitted by their own testers to be inferior apparently), above other companies'. The same accusation is made with maps and whatever Google call their user reviews service nowadays (over Yelp and TripAdviser).

      Now in some cases you may say that Google's is better, so why worry. But then that's because you might not have seen the alternative, as Google weren't linking to them, and those alternative companies never got a chance to access the market, because Google have a monopoly on search, and blocked them.

      Europe also seem to be looking at Android now. Where they may be arguing that Google has abused its monopoly in online advertising/search to offer Android for free, and destroy competition from other players. That looks a lot less cut and dried.

      As does news. Google have an uncomfortable amount of power in the news market, but don't actually compete in it, at least in some ways. On the other hand, if they can hoover up the lion's share (or even a big chunk) of the advertising revenue using their search dominance, it could be argued they're also abusing their monopoly. Even if not, it's a concern. As Google produce no news content themselves, and the content providers are already cash-strapped. The less money gets paid to news gathering organisations, the less quality news we'll get, and the less well our democracies will work. So this is a politically significant issue, as well as a legal/business one.

    2. Chris Beach

      Re: Lack of feasible competition

      Yep, I've yet to see how it hurts consumers. I use their products because they are best in the market, and I've yet to see any proof that they've intentionally blocked a competitor.

      There's an underlying issue in that due to the utter mass of sites, gaining any relevance in search results is getting exponentially harder...shrinking search engine companies though, is NOT the solution to that problem.

  7. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    It's interesting that you talk about Germany. Because it's arguable that Google's fight with news organisations in Germany is what lead to this whole Commission reappraisal of the case in the first place.

    Juncker was looking unlikely to be EU Commission President. No-one has ever been given the job before, if one of the large countries has objected. Actually I think every country has had a de facto veto on the Commission President. And it was only because of a power grab by the European Parliament, with their Spitzenkandidaten wheeze, that Juncker even got seriously into the running.

    Even then, because Cameron didn't want him, and Merkel didn't really either, he wouldn't have got the job. Then the German press suddenly got on the case, and campaigned for him, that it was a disgrace that Merkel was over-ruling the EP's agreed scheme - that the candidate picked by the biggest party in the Euro elections should get the top job. Merkel I guess wasn't that committed eitherh way, and decided not to waste political capital on the issue, so broke her deal with Cameron and he got the job.

    What's interesting is that his campaign manager had just had a meeting with Axel Springer after the elections, and then their papers ran the big campaign in Germany that got Merkel to change her mind. And Axel Springer have been fighting Google in the courts for years over news aggregation, and other things.

    Plus privacy and control of personal information have been a top political issue in Germany for years. It was a big thing when I worked for a US multi-national, and we wanted to hold our employee data on our central servers in the US, but weren't legally allowed to with the German stuff. Although I have a feeling they eventually decided to just do it anyway, and pay the fine if they ever got caught... But I suspect the German staff would have ratted them out if they were ever so foolish.

    So the new commission may well have been going to go after Google anyway. And that may have persuaded Axel Springer to support them. Or this may be a pay-off for a large political favour. Or just co-incidence, as the last Commission had failed to get a satisfactory resolution with Google, and so further action was inevitable.

    In my opinion this has been coming for a long time. Google are way too big for their boots. They've been getting more-and-more arrogant for the last decade, and they've been obviously heading for a Microsoft monent for ages. They don't seem to have learn from MS. The damage done to their reputation by poor security and monopoly abuse is still ongoing and huge. Despite them having actually been quite good for the last nearly 10 years (in that they're now way better on security, and also much better on standards compliance). Obviously many people still regard Metro as evil, but that's not illegal-evil...

  8. Jan 0 Silver badge

    Suddenly I see why el Reg doesn't think it needs a subscription model

    I'd always thought that el Reg readers were like me. They'd have el Reg bookmarked and visit it when they had some spare time, or needed to search it directy. However, this article says: "At The Register, looking over the past 30 days, Google brought in about 47 per cent of our readers, with Google News making up a further 12 per cent; more than half, in other words." If 59% arrive from Google, presumably a lot of other traffic comes indirectly too.

    Gone is the hope of a truly advertisement free el Reg by subscription. We regulars truly can't be that important. The fact that we use ad. blockers is doubly unimportant. The Google driven masses don't know about blockers.

  9. ratfox

    The publishers in question found that their images and headlines were simply removed from its service, prompting them to accuse Google of blackmail.

    It's a little bit hard to make the case that Google should be forced to display their snippets and pay for the privilege. Seems to me, giving the permission to Google should be considered as a cost of doing business, just like marketing. If your competitors pay more for advertising than you do, your sales will suffer from it. And if your competitors allow Google to display their snippets and you don't, your traffic will decrease.

    Google News is a place where publishers have to compete for attention. They can refuse to participate, or dictate what Google is allowed to display of their own data, but they can hardly complain that other publishers are willing to go further than them; no more than they can complain about their competitor's bigger marketing budget.

    Of course, big publishers might well consider that it's more advantageous for them to just make Google shut down the whole service like in Spain. Users probably then search for news on the biggest websites, to the detriment of smaller ones.

  10. acd2050

    if you don't like it don't use it

    I completely agree with ratfox. you can't expect google , a private for profit business to be forced to display new media content and then expect them to display what you want them to. if you don't like it don't participate. as a consumer if you don't like it don't use google. its not like google is a necessity it is a convinence. They leverage thier services to get customer just like any other business. it seems to me news, and content providers what the free advertising that google gives them but is not willing to offer anything for that privilege. i am glad they pulled out of spain and germany.

    Also it is not like there are not other search services _bing, yahoo, duck duck,ect. it just they are not as good and customers flock to the best service when prices is not a factor.

    this is simply companies competing for add revenue and loosing and then complaining about it. how else would a reader in in the US find their way to a UK site for content. they don't seem to be complain when a view gets to their site that would never have been there if it were not for google.

  11. Lee Wright

    Google's obligations and unintended consequences

    The underlying presumption of the article is that Google should have some legal obligation to support the business models of others and look out for their well-being.

    Instead, Google's sole legal obligation is to their shareholders, and by extension, their customers.

    The point at which a single news organization, or a group banding together, provides a better alternative than, say, news.google.com, I'll use it. Until then, I'll use Google News as my start page, which today brought me to this story.

    The decision in Spain and the most recent actions of the EU benefit lawyers, lobbyists, legislators, and regulators. There may also be some small short-term benefit to competitors. However, by restricting the ability of a company to provide services to people who want them, you primarily hurt the end consumers. There is also an intermediate- to long-term cost: Sheltering businesses from competition and from changing consumer behavior by providing an alternative to innovation in order sustain the incompetent or inefficient.

  12. Joe_Weil

    Google Domination

    About the only thing of Google's that I use is their news page, no Fluff, no embedded advertisement. They offer a choice in what news provider you wish to use and that is extremely useful if you want to compare.

    I don't use a lot of other Google stuff, for instance I use Firefox and sometimes IE, no Google Chrome. I think that Euro is pushing a socialist agenda with this one.

  13. oneeye

    El Reg...ads? what ads?

    The ad model is just fine,so long as websites don't abuse their viewers. The Register does a very good job of not being in your face,or causing the site to dance while loading. I notice the ads,but they are tastefully done. Some websites like Zdnet,are ridiculous,they keep jumping around loading over 40 different advertisers,beacons,analytics,etc.

    Now,as for Google,they are the ones who bring the whole world to anyone with access. They give choices based on your interest. Mine are techno oriented,and so,Google introduced me to El Reg,and many more. I signed up not long after and now Google delivers the emailed newsletters. Tthey also show me links to articles in the Google now app. Which means I will see something sooner,or even something I might have missed. The fact is,publisher's should thank Google,and use them to their advantage. That said,there are things I absolutely hate about Google, but I won't punish myself over those things. Google creates opportunity for millions,and being run by humans,they sometimes get it wrong,and that goes for those who attack any large corporate entity. Sometimes they too get it wrong.

  14. Indolent Wretch

    "It did the same thing in Germany when publishers sued Google for running their headlines without paying licensing fees. The publishers in question found that their images and headlines were simply removed from its service, prompting them to accuse Google of blackmail."

    I mean this is just a classic example of the crap Google puts up with.

    >> You aren't allowed to use our headlines without paying us

    << But they're only headings in the same way show titles in search results

    >> You aren't allowed to use our headlines without paying us

    << We don't pay other websites for permission to search their pages why should we pay you?

    >> YOU AREN'T ALLOWED TO USE OUR HEADLINES WITHOUT PAYING US

    << OK, well in that case we will remove your articles from our news aggregator, sorry for the inconvenience

    >> OMG, I can't believe you are blackmailing us!

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Google sandbox. A direct threat to capitalism on the web.

    Another thing they might want to look at is the Google "sandbox effect" whereby new sites are excluded from search results for an indeterminate time (anywhere from 4 months to a year - depending on how generous Google is feeling).

    It's especially damaging to new entrants to the market because they aren't given a "fair" evaluation of what they're offering compared to the established players. By the time the sandbox expires, that new player will have run out of cash and gone bust.

    Imagine this happened in real life. You'd go to a shopping mall, but all the shop windows are covered over so you can't see what they sell. You have to tell the doorman what you want, and he'll tell you which shops to go to. Now imagine the doorman will only mention shops that have been open more than 6 months.

    From the customer's point of view, everything's fine with that system. The doorman tells them relevant shops that sell what they want, so they're happy. The problem is, they'll never know about that new shop that had 5 times the choice at half the price simply because the doorman didn't like new shops. Ultimately the customer loses out - they just don't know it.

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