Internet Search Engines scared of Content Providers - starting all kinds of innovative services to enhance business model
N.K. Subramanium, Special Correspondent
December 15, 2004

The core business of Internet search engines is being threatened by the evolution of new generation of content providers. The search engines like Google or Yahoo make money by indexing the web sites all over the world and provide a web surfer through a key word search mechanism the ideal sites to visit.

But these search engines face a virtual death if one day content providers get together and decide they will charge Yahoo, Google and other search engines money for being able to bring in web site visitors.

The Web surfers can either go to a site by typing the URL in the browser or go through a search engine to find the content of choice. Today all the content on the net is more or less free. It may not be that way in coming years. Content managers are slowly deciding that visitors who visit them on a regular basis will be registered users and will be allowed to use the site free. But those who searched the search engines for a specific topic and found the same in this specific Website may be charged. The mechanism will obviously be to charge the search engine which will in turn generate the revenue though advertisement or charging a subscription fee to the customer.

In the next few years, Internet will evolve into paid premium services. Certain basic services will be still free.

The search engines in recent days have panicked over these possibilities. They have created ways and means to act as a clearing house of Internet ads for the content managers.

Stacks of hard-to-find books are being scanned into Google Inc.'s widely used Internet search engine in its attempt to establish a massive online reading room for five major libraries. Material from the New York public library as well as libraries at four universities — Harvard, Stanford, Michigan and Oxford — will be indexed on Mountain View, Calif.-based Google under the ambitious initiative announced late Monday. 

The Michigan and Stanford libraries are the only two so far to agree to submit all their material to Google's scanners. The New York library is allowing Google to include a small portion of its books no longer covered by copyright while Harvard is confining its participation to 40,000 volumes so it can gauge how well the process works. Oxford wants Google to scan all its books originally published before 1901. Scanning books so they can be read through computers isn't new. 

Both Google and Amazon.com already have programs that offer online glimpses of new books while an assortment of other sites for several years have provide digital access to some material in libraries scattered around the country.

But Google's latest commitment could have the biggest impact yet, given the breadth of material that the company hopes to put into its search engine, which has become renowned for its processing speed, ease of use and accuracy. "It's a significant opportunity to bring our material to the rest of the world," said Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library. "It could solve an old problem: If people can't get to us, how can we get to them?"

Librarians are also excited about the prospect of creating a digital record for the reams of valuable material written long before computers were conceived. "This is the day the world changes," said John Wilkin, a University of Michigan librarian working with Google. "It will be disruptive because some people will worry that this is the beginning of the end of libraries. But this is something we have to do to revitalize the profession and make it more meaningful." The project gives Google's search engine another potential drawing card as it faces stiffening competition for Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN. Attracting visitor traffic is crucial to Google's financial health because the company depends on revenue generated by people clicking on advertising links posted next to the main body of search results.