News Corp. honcho Rupert Murdoch's plan to block all of the publisher's content from Google seemed more than a little harebrained, but the plan is picking up speed with reports that News Corp. and Microsoft are forming an anti-Google axis.
The Financial Times reports that Microsoft has been in discussions with News Corp. about helping the publisher de-index its pages from Google. Microsoft has also reportedly approached other publishers about the same Google-blocking scenario.
There are no other details at this time, but one possibility of the discussions could be that the content only appears in Bing search results, with Microsoft paying for that privilege. A publisher approached by Microsoft told the Financial Times that the plan "puts enormous value on content if search engines are prepared to pay us to index with them."
Bing has increased its share every month since launching this summer, but there are questions about whether it can continue that progress when its $100 million ad campaign comes to an end, Ad Age reports.
