Auctions. Freelance sites. Custom Anything. Ponoko. Ancestry.com. Etsy.com. New Media. Associated Content - associatedcontent.com. Associated Content. Dirty Little Secret about Search Traffi. Posted by Tom Foremski - November 9, 2009 Every time Rupert Murdoch complains about Google and says he will cut off access, a mass of Twitterati, Digerati, and Diggerati think the old newspaper tycoon has lost his marbles and doesn't "get it.
" Surely, they chorus, all that traffic that Google sends to the Wall Street Journal is the equivalent of sending a fire hose of cash straight into his pocket. Why would he want to turn off such a lucrative spigot?! The answer is that he wouldn't, if that were indeed the case. The ugly truth is that Google traffic is hard to monetize. It's not the bonanza that people think it is. Google traffic is low quality, it is people who stumbled upon the article. More importantly, Google traffic doesn't help the newspaper advertisers much because they are trying to buy a specific sector, a specific readership. Mr Murdoch knows his businesses. In contrast, Google doesn't have any levers to pull. Novelty is extremely important to Google. Please see: