Google doesn't drive most readers to newspaper sites

The defence that Google has always made for its aggregator news service is that it actually builds traffic on newspaper websites, and therefore revenue. Now it's reported that findings from a survey by Outsell Inc. show that most people simply scan the Google headlines and never go to the original source. (The story was carried on Yahoo.com.)

"Though Google is driving some traffic to newspapers, it's also taking a significant share away," [ [Outsell analyst Ken] Doctor said. "A full 44 percent of visitors to Google News scan headlines without accessing newspapers' individual sites."