New Google News Publishing Deal - Stealing Traffic & Revenue?

Google News has commenced publishing full news stories from four major news agencies - a move that is likely to take traffic and revenue away from other online news sources.

The new deal will see content from Britain's Press Association, The Associated Press, Canadian Press and Agence France-Presse, published on Google pages as they don't have their own websites.

Along side the announcement of the deal, Google has discussed the implementation of the "duplicate detection" process, which aims to give more value to original news content providers.

According to the release post by Business Product Manager Josh Cohen:

"Our goal has always been to offer users as many different perspectives on a story from as many different sources as possible, which is why we include thousands of sources from around the world in Google News. However, if many of those stories are actually the exact same article, it can end up burying those different perspectives. Enter "duplicate detection."

Duplicate detection means we'll be able to display a better variety of sources with less duplication. Instead of 20 "different" articles (which actually used the exact same content), we'll show the definitive original copy and give credit to the original journalist."

In an attempt to appease news syndicating websites, Google suggests that no ranking favors will be given to the articles they publish on behalf of press agencies. However with the "duplicate detection" process in place - there will be more space in the results - hence pushing the press agency content higher in the rankings anyway.

At this stage, Google hasn't implemented any advertising next to the articles, but many suggest it's only a matter of time before the search giant monetizes such valuable news content.

Expect to see a backlash as newswire websites, that are paying for content, see a drop in traffic and start the cries that "Google is stealing their revenue".