• Search Engine Land, Thursday, May 28, 2009 12:15 PM

At Google's I/O event on Wednesday, co-founder Larry Page answered questions about Google's relationship with newspapers; Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan was on hand to take notes. Firstly, Page noted that Google wants good content to do well, otherwise there would be "nothing to search." He added that in the last year, Google paid over $6 billion to all types of content sites through AdSense.

In spite of the tough economic climate, Page said, "I'm pretty optimistic that the business models will evolve, and we'll hopefully get even higher quality information as a result...but I don't think I know the magic cure." If existing revenue models aren't working, he suggested that content owners work even harder to push the envelope, like Google did.

"If you give it time to evolve and give people a chance to experiment, much as it took us in search a long time to find the magic answer." He added that creating AdWords, "required a lot of evolution and a lot of work, but it happened. And I'm optimistic, because I think we at the time knew that we were delivering a lot of value ... so we were confident that at some point we could figure out how to make enough value out that to have a sustainable business. And I think these newspapers and other forms of media that your talking about also deliver very valuable content ... and even in this time of transition, if you take the time to figure it out and experiment ... ou will also have a strongly sustainable form of revenue."

Read the whole story at Search Engine Land »