How Google supports journalism and the news industry

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

For more than 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 organizations, 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 to journalism by providing billions of dollars — building products to help publishers monetize their content, developing tools, training and funding through programs like the Google News Initiative, and launching Google News Showcase. 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 organizations

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

Each month, Google Search and Google news link people 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 organizations 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 pay participating news publishers to curate and allow users access to select paywall articles for Google News Showcase, an online experience that’s powered by a $1 billion investment in news organizations. As of June 2023, more than 2,300 publications globally are part of News Showcase and we’ve launched the product in 22 countries.

We’re committed to finding new ways to help the news industry. This includes Reader Revenue Manager, a product we built for news publishers to help deepen their relationship with their readers and diversify their revenue through subscription, contribution, newsletter sign-ups and site registration prompts. We also continue to invest in the Google News Initiative, through which we provide tools, training and funding to help news organizations evolve in the digital age. To date, the Google News Initiative has supported over 7,000 news partners in over 130 countries and territories.


Facts about Google & news

News websites are in control

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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.

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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. News queries on Search accounted for under 2% of total queries on Google Search globally in 2022.

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We pay for content

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With the 2020 launch of Google News Showcase, we committed $1 billion to pay publishers to editorially curate content on this online experience and to give free of charge user access to select paywalled content. Today, more than 2,300 publications are being paid for their involvement in News Showcase. And we continue to add more.

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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.

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Supporting the future of news

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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.

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By the numbers

Google News Showcase

  • $1 billion committed to support the news industry and Google News Showcase partnerships
  • Over 2,300 news outlets globally have signed onto News Showcase as of June 2023

Google News Initiative

  • Through the GNI’s work, we have supported over 7,000 news partners in over 130 countries and territories
  • Over 570K journalists have been trained in over 70 countries, with 3.3m online trainings.

Revenue and traffic for publishers

  • Every year, we pay out billions of dollars directly to the publishing partners in our ad network
  • Since 2018, Reader Revenue Manager has created over 655,000 new, paid subscribers for news partners.
  • 24 billion clicks per month (9,000 clicks per second) from Google Search and Google News results to publishers’ websites — estimated by PwC in this study to have an average value of between US$0.06 - US$0.08 per click.

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