Big publishers to Google: Treat us special

By Don Day 

Several big newspaper publishers (and ESPN) have formed a group to pressure Google to rejigger the PageRank feature to give them preferential treatment.

Many publishers resent the criteria Google uses to pick top results, starting with the original PageRank formula that depended on how many links a page got. But crumbling ad revenue is lending their push more urgency; this is no time to show up on the third page of Google search results. And as publishers renew efforts to sell some content online, moreover, they’re newly upset that Google’s algorithm penalizes paid content.

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