A couple of days ago, in an interview with Sky News Australia, Rupert Murdoch explicitly said he plans to make News Corp's content invisible to search engines.
Now, News Corp's chief digital officer Jonathan Miller, has revealed a timeframe in which this is supposed to happen. Speaking at the Monaco Media Forum, Miller said it will happen within “months and quarters – not weeks.”
He then repeats Murdoch's mantra, claiming Google's search traffic is next to useless. “The traffic which comes in from Google brings a consumer who more often than not read one article and then leaves the site. That is the least valuable of traffic to us… the economic impact is not as great as you might think. You can survive without it,” he said.
It may seem like quite a crazy idea, but News Corp plans to bring other media companies along for the ride. “We will lead. There is a pent up need for this. There has to be a resolution for the free versus pay debate otherwise we cannot afford to pay for things like news bureaus in Kabul,” Miller said.
In a way, it's a big experiment, and since Murdoch (thinks he) can afford it, the rest of the world can simply stay on the sidelines and watch what happens. My guess is that News Corp's properties will simply get less traffic, and in turn sell fewer ads and earn less money, creating losses that money from subscriptions won't cover.