Blocking Google Could Cost WSJ.com 25% of Traffic

If News Corp. opts to remove its publications from Google News, the company's flagship publication, The Wall Street Journal, could lose up to 25 percent of its traffic, according to Monday data from Experian Hitwise. "On a weekly basis Google and Google News are the top traffic providers for WSJ.com, account[ing] for over 25 percent of WSJ.com's traffic," Bill Tancer, general manager for global research at Hitwise, wrote in a blog post. In a Friday interview with Sky News, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said that he plans to shift the company's publications to a subscription-based model in the future, and will then pull his newspapers from Google News. In a statement, Google defended its news aggregation site as a means for publishers to show ads, win loyal readers, and sell subscriptions.