Back in Time With Google

Google has added archives to its news search, a move one industry watcher
called a play for more searchers today and increased Google
Checkout adoption tomorrow.

Google News Archives, announced today, allows users to search over 200 years of archived
content from news organizations and news aggregators that partner with
Google.

Articles are available free from sources such as Time.com, The
Guardian and others, according to a statement.

But users will have to pay a fee or own a subscription to view
content from news organizations such as the New York Times, the Wall
Street Journal and or aggregators such as LexisNexis.

As of July, Google News owned 48 percent market share searches for
news, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

Danny Sullivan, industry
watcher and editor, for the time being at Search Engine Watch, said
Google probably hopes the new service will attract more searchers
immediately.

But he said Google might have plans beyond that.

“In the future, [Google News Archives] might lead to revenue on the
back of archive content sales, ” Sullivan told internetnews.com.

Google is always hollering that it is not a publisher. That’s not
what Sullivan is suggesting.

Instead, he said that Google would remain a switchboard, connecting
users to content elsewhere.

But because some of the archived sites charge users to access their content, Google might be able to reduce the transactional friction with Google Checkout, a service allowing users to complete credit card transactions atparticipating online stores with one Google login.

And maybe earn a few bucks while they’re at it, too.

“Give it a year,” Sullivan said.

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