How Google supports journalism and the news industry in Ireland

Google is committed to supporting open access to information. Our products give people choice and help them find more high-quality journalism — from international stories to community reporting — than ever before.

Over the past 20 years, we’ve collaborated closely with the news industry and provided billions of dollars to support the creation of quality journalism in the digital age. Through both our services and our direct funding of news organisations, Google is one of the world’s biggest financial supporters of journalism.

Our commitment to news

Our products are built to provide relevant and useful information for everyone, ensuring that people around the world are able to find quality news. As part of this, we play a constructive role in enabling a sustainable, independent, and diverse news ecosystem.

We've shown that commitment over decades of financial support by providing billions of dollars — sharing revenue with news publishers via our ad network, developing tools, training and funding through programs like the Google News Initiative, and launching Google News Showcase. All of these have led to us paying news organisations significant amounts of money.

These efforts help people get the quality news and information that matters to them and their community.

We deliver significant value and funding to news organisations

Every news organisation can choose whether they want to be in Google Search and Google News. Most do because it results in valuable free traffic.

Each month, people click through from Google Search and Google News results to publishers' websites more than 24 billion times. The traffic we send to news sites helps publishers increase their readership, build trust with readers and earn money.

Our advertising technology helps news organisations make money by showing ads on their websites, apps and videos. Every year we pay out billions of dollars directly to the publishing partners in our ad network.

We also pay to licence content through Google News Showcase, a new online experience that’s powered by a $1 billion investment in news organisations. More than 700 news publications are part of Google News Showcase, including over 40 in Ireland.

And we’re committed to finding new ways to support the news industry. This includes Subscribe with Google, which we built with news publishers to help them make money from new subscribers, as well the Google News Initiative, through which we provide tools, training and grant funding to help news organisations evolve in the digital age. The Google News Initiative includes a $300 million funding commitment to the future of the news industry.

News, the internet and regulation

The internet, while providing cheaper distribution and more potential readers, completely changed the business models of news organisations, with classifieds revenue moving to specialised online classified services and increased competition from a wider range of publications. Technology companies, news organisations and governments need to collaborate to enable a strong future for journalism and quality content that doesn’t disrupt access to the open web.

The internet was built on the ability to link freely between websites, which allows people to easily browse the internet. Changing this would fundamentally break the way the open web works, and how people use Google Search. This is why we and many others are concerned by some proposals that would require news publishers to be paid just for showing links to their sites from a Google search results page.

Facts about Google & news

News websites are in control

An illustration of Search results displaying news content, and a settings gear icon

Google Search and Google News provide links to useful and relevant news stories to help you find the information you’re looking for about current events.

Every news organisation has control over whether and how their headlines and links appear in Google Search and News. Most welcome the fact that people can find them in Google search results — but if a news site (or any other site for that matter) doesn’t want to show up or wants to control what is shown on Google, they can choose to do so. They can do that whether their site is paywalled or free to view.

Google does not “steal” or “use” news publisher content. We link to it. Publishers decide to be included in Google Search because they want to be found by a broader audience.

We don’t make money from Google News

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There have been wildly inaccurate assertions about the value of news to Google. News websites are a small slice of the information on the internet. In the past year, news-related queries on Search accounted for under 2% of total queries on Google Search globally.

We don’t show ads — or make money — on the vast majority of searches. And we don’t run ads on Google News or the news results tab on Google Search.

Nearly all the ads people see on Google are on searches with commercial intent like “runners,” “t-shirts,” or “plumber,” and generally not from news-seeking queries. And we only make money if ads are useful and relevant, as indicated by your click on the ad.

Although we don’t run ads on Google News or the news results tab, we do help news organisations show ads on their websites, apps and videos. Many news publishers use our advertising tools and platforms. Every year, we pay out billions of dollars directly to the publishing partners in our ad network.

We pay for content

An illustration showing a search bar alongside various websites displaying content including text and images

With Google News Showcase, we have committed $1 billion over the next three years to pay publishers to produce editorially curated content experiences and for limited free user access to paywalled content.

News Showcase is made up of panels that give news organisations the ability to package the most important stories of the day for readers, providing deeper storytelling and more context through features like timelines, bullets, related stories and a list of important articles. This content currently appears in Google News and Discover, bringing trusted news to readers all over the world.

In Ireland, this experience is powered by a series of licensing agreements covering more than 40 national, regional and local publications including The Irish Independent, The Irish Examiner, Connaught Telegraph, Clare Echo, Donegal Daily, Derry Now, Irish Times, Irish Mirror, The Journal, The Sunday World and more.

We look forward to partnering with even more publications for News Showcase.

Google generates traffic and revenue for news publishers

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Each month, people click through from Google Search and Google News results to publishers' websites more than 24 billion times — that’s over 9,000 clicks per second.

By sending free traffic to news sites, we generate significant monetary value for publishers. For example, Deloitte estimated the value of each click or visit we send to large EU publishers to between 4-6 Euro cents (5-7 U.S. cents) as publishers monetize this traffic by showing people ads or offers to subscribe or donate to the publication.

Publishers use Google’s advertising tools to make money

For many years we’ve helped publishers make money by providing tools and technology that help them run digital advertising on their websites and apps.

Our ad technologies enable news organisations to sell their ad space to millions of advertisers around the world — including advertisers they wouldn’t have access to without these services.

When publishers choose to use our advertising services, they keep a significant majority of the revenue that’s generated. Every year, we pay out billions of dollars directly to the publishing partners in our ad network.

Publishers use Google's subscription tools to make money

Subscribe with Google helps publishers drive new subscribers and engage existing subscribers across the web. Since launching in 2018, this technology has generated over 400,000 new paid subscribers for our news partners. In the last six months alone, partners have grown their subscription base by 100,000.

Publishers control how they deploy Subscribe with Google on their own sites, and keep 85% to 95% of the revenue, while also owning the customer relationship.

Supporting the future of news

A ladder and various "building block" images sit around and in front of an illustration of a webpage.

Through the Google News Initiative (GNI), we collaborate with the news industry in creating, testing and implementing new ways to reach readers in the digital age.

Thirty years ago newspapers were one of the only sources of information in their communities. But now they must compete with thousands of new sources of information, while classified revenue and circulation have plunged. This has necessitated the development of new business and distribution models and new techniques to produce news.

The GNI works directly with news organisations of all sizes on developing new products, programs and partnerships to help news publishers grow their business. It includes a $300 million funding commitment to news organisations.

Since 2018, the GNI has supported more than 6,250 news partners in 118 countries around the world. We’ve provided training for over 400,000 journalists on skills including digital verification, data visualisation, and machine learning through in-person trainings. And journalists have visited the GNI Training Center more than 1.7 million times to access free online courses..

Many news publishers have successfully used technology and tools to diversify business models, and find growth and new revenue. The GNI is intended to support these efforts.

By the numbers

Google News Showcase

In Ireland, 40+ news outlets signed onto Google News Showcase as of November 2021.

$1 billion committed to support the news industry and Google News Showcase partnerships.

700+ news outlets signed onto News Showcase as of February 2021.

Google News Initiative

Since 2015 Google News Lab has provided training to 2,385 journalists and journalism students across the island of Ireland.

Through the GNI’s $300 million commitment to the news industry, we've spent $189 million in 118 countries over the past two years, including $40 million for GNI Innovation Challenge and YouTube Innovation Funding programs covering 213 news organisations.

GNI has also supported over 10 Google News Initiative Student Fellowships in collaboration with Irish publishers.

Revenue and traffic for publishers

Every year, we pay out billions of dollars directly to the publishing partners in our ad network.

Subscribe with Google has created over 400,000 new, paid subscribers for news partners — 100,000 of those in the last six months.

Over $100 million in Google marketing investment committed to news organisations globally in 2020.

24 billion clicks per month (9,000 clicks per second) from Google Search and Google News results to publishers’ websites — estimated by Deloitte to have a value of between 4-6 Euro cents (5-7 U.S. cents) per click.

What others are saying

We see Google News Showcase as an opportunity to engage our audience even further with the ease of access to our latest news and sports stories.

Brian Keyes, Iconic Media Group Editorial Director, The Keyword

… Publishers make more money from the traffic and subscriptions they gain through platforms than platforms do from monetizing the material publishers put there.

Washington Post editorial board

If a publisher doesn’t like how Google displays snippets of its content, for instance, it’s free to adjust those settings or to opt out entirely. Neither aggregator impedes consumers from visiting news sites directly if they so choose. And … [Google has] voluntarily committed hundreds of millions of dollars to newsrooms around the world in recent years.

Bloomberg Editorial Board

The truth is many publishers have failed to find a workable digital business model.

FT Editorial Board

The precedent of having to pay for the privilege of linking to someone is antithetical to the core ethic of the web: that the edges finally win over the power at the center.

Jeff Jarvis, Author, Journalism Director, City University of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism

The nature of a search engine is to index websites and provide ranked lists of results to users. This is both a service to consumers searching for a product or information, and to individuals, companies and other providers that offer products and information. Traditionally, users would have to pay for access to such a service and providers would have to pay for listing. But Google has been a pioneer of novel advertising models that have made this free to both consumers and providers.

David M W Powers, Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science, Flinders University, Australia

Independent media including local and smaller outlets are the lifeblood of democracy … [A] "link-tax" approach ultimately won’t work for smaller media outlets.

Iverna McGowan, Europe Director, Center for Democracy & Technology

Turning every instance of link sharing into a government-mandated monetary transaction would forever alter the fundamental openness of the internet.

Timothy Karr, Senior Director of Strategy for Free Press Action Fund

… After 20 years in the media reform movement, I can’t believe the answer to the problem of ensuring production of local news from diverse sources — especially traditionally marginalized voices — is to have a government-supervised wealth transfer between the biggest digital platforms and the biggest media conglomerates.

Harold Feld, Senior Vice President, Public Knowledge

Before search engines were effective on the web, following links from one page to another was the only way of finding material. Search engines make that process far more effective, but they can only do so by using the link structure of the web as their principal input. So links are fundamental to the web.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web

Even though a number of newspapers close their doors every year, research tends to find that newspapers are remaining profitable. This is due in part to large price increases. A recent study found that newspaper subscription prices in the US climbed 153 percent on average from 2008 to 2016 and newsstand prices more than tripled. This helps explain why newspaper distribution revenue in the US was near an all-time high in 2018 when it hit $11 billion.

Mark Jamison, Visiting Scholar, American Enterprise Institute

I actually don’t terribly like regulators and governments getting involved in this. I [don’t like] the idea of governments kind of in the end being able to pick winners, which is normally going to mean picking incumbents and might even mean picking incumbents who are politically useful or close to them if they’re politicians or regulators. I’ve myself preferred the idea of freely negotiated commercial partnerships between publishers and big platforms where the big platforms actually get something which is useful to them out of it. The people who are succeeding aren’t doing that by badgering the government to try and shut down competitors or to shut down public service broadcasting. They’re doing it by fixing their models.