Spanish SEO Executive Patrick Vazquez discusses the implications of Googles’ removal of its news service from the Spanish domain Google.es
What happened?
An Intellectual Property Law, which will come into force on 1st January, states that any site using text snippets or images from the sites it links to must pay for this use. In response, Google has withdrawn Google News from the Spanish domain Google.es, making Spain the first country to lose this service.
What does this mean for Spain?
In effect, nothing much, as news articles will still appear on Google. The News (or Noticias) tab will still remain on Google.es and news stories from all publications can be displayed through Google search. Google.es is a search engine and not a news aggregator and therefore not in breach of the new law.
However, when it comes to traffic, there is some dispute. Whilst the level of visitors to reputable news sites such as El Paso and El Mundo aren’t expected to take much of a hit, data from Chartbeat suggests that traffic to Spanish sites has declined when compared to the same day last week. This drop is likely due to the removal of Googles’ links to Spanish sites from non-Spanish versions of Google News.
Furthermore, there are a number of news publications that do not form part of The Spanish Association of Daily Newspaper Publishers but nevertheless have still been punished by the withdrawal of Google News:
Tension between Google and the AEDE looks set to continue, with the latter seeking the help of Spanish, EU and competition authorities to “effectively protect the rights of citizens and businesses.” The outcome of this petition, however, remains to be seen.
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