Long considered the "little brother" of Google News, Google Discover has carved out a very nice place for itself on the web in record time.
Although Google communicates very little about this tool, it is nevertheless used by millions of Internet users every day.
Google Discover: opportunity or threat?
Faced with the numerous opportunities brought by this Google service, the "pure players", only present on the web, are rubbing their hands.
Google Discover having the capacity to present press articles without the Internet user even needing to carry out any research, its algorithm based on interests and navigation still has no serious competitor.
But if pure players see in Google Discover an opportunity to gain traffic, traditional media see this arrival as a potential threat...
+48.8% traffic from Google Discover in one year
As we read in the "Diffusion Barometer" from APIG (Alliance de la Presse d'Information Générale) published last March, the share of Google Discover in the traffic of press sites has increased by 48.8% in just one year.
Taking into account both Google's search engine and its Google Discover service, 67% of French press traffic comes from the American giant.
For example, out of 820 million visits last December, 569 million came from Google Discover, or nearly 69%, compared to 189 million from Google search, and only 63 million from Google News.
A dependence on Google Discover?
While the print press does not seem to be recovering from the scale of digital, traditional media accounted for up to present on online subscriptions to keep their heads above water. According to the APIG report, these subscriptions represent 35% to 69% of circulation, a figure that has been growing for 10 years now.
But if online subscriptions grow, more and more editorial offices fear a dependence on Google Discover. Since Google is very opaque about its algorithm, the media believe that the company now has the power of life or death in the event of a downgrade.
And if this tool is currently only available on smartphones, the situation could soon change. At Search Central Live in Madrid on April 9th, Google announced the upcoming arrival of Google Discover on desktop, which could boost the use of its solution.
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