The importance of the news aggregation sector to the media industry has been fairly well known for some time, and indeed its importance has underpinned various legal cases between aggregators and publishers over how much of an article can be previewed on the aggregators website.

A new study from the University of Barcelona nonetheless aims to quantify just how influential such sites are to the industry.  The research highlights how aggregators significantly simplify the way people search for news.  They were able to quantify the traffic impact of aggregators after Google News shut down in Spain in December 2014.

The analysis found that daily visits to Spanish news websites fell by up to 14% compared to their peers in France and Italy, where Google News remained in operation.

“Amidst the growing importance of online platforms, news aggregators are one of the most successful new players in the Internet’s new era, quickly rising to occupy top positions in audience rankings,” the researchers say.

Flow of traffic

There was originally significant discontent among the news industry that aggregators were stealing their traffic, but despite being able to opt out of aggregators, most publishers want to be listed, even if they don’t receive any financial compensation for doing so.

They do so in large part because they are aware of the changing browsing habits of readers, and the advertising revenue they secure from the traffic generated by aggregators is considerable.  As such, there has become a somewhat begrudged, yet symbiotic relationship between publishers and aggregators.

“Aggregators create a market expansion effect by bringing visitors to news outlets, but they can also generate a substitution effect if some visitors switch from the news outlets to the aggregators,” the researchers say.

The data showed that sports and regional content were most affected, with national publications suffering a smaller drop in traffic. Business outlets, meanwhile, were largely unaffected. The researchers believe their findings provide a clear indication as to the kind of publications most beholden to the aggregators for their business, and with regional publications of socio-political importance, it’s perhaps something for regulators to be aware of.

Despite the debate around the value of aggregators having died down a little bit in recent years, the findings are still interesting as they provide clear, quantitative evidence as to the role aggregators play in the business of publishers.