Bing vs Google – Microsoft considers payment for publishers

A new phase in the war of the search engines has been entered, according to the Guardian’s PDA blog.

It reports that Microsoft is attempting to woo publishers, including Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, by looking at the possibility of paying them to put their content on its search engine Bing.

But can Bing beat Google, the most visited website in the world?*

The Guardian suggests that research shows that Google doesn’t depend on publishers’ content and that Microsoft will be unable to dent its revenue.

But, it says, making quality news on Google harder to find would certainly hurt the search engine's image.

But another article, by Joseph Tartakoff, questions whether the money offered by Microsoft will be enough to compensate for the loss of traffic news sites may suffer, if they were to remove their content from Google.

It also quotes Rupert Murdoch as questioning the feasibility of Microsoft’s plan. Asked about the possibility last week, it says, Murdoch said he wasn't convinced even Microsoft could afford it.

Speaking on the Fox Business Network, he said: "If they were to pay everybody for everything they took, from every newspaper in the world and every magazine they wouldn't have any profits left."

*Survey featured in Wall Street Journal