I just searched Google for a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article titled, “UPDATE: News Corp’s Murdoch: Journalism’s Future is Promising”
The search yielded this result (URL): http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091201-709558.html
I clicked on it and it brought me to this (screenshot):
At first, I didn’t think this was even an article. But if you look closely, it is. The formatting just isn’t very good.
I then performed the same search (by copying and pasting my Google search) in Bing.
It yielded this result (URL): http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091201-709558.html
(Note: Same URL in the Bing search as in the Google search.)
I clicked on it and it brought me to this (screenshot):
The formatting of the article’s contents via the Bing search is much more presentable. It’s how I normally experience WSJ online content through any search engine or through Wsj.com directly. This was the first time it was displayed different for me using different search engines.
As you may know, there’s been discussion around News Corp. blocking its content from Google. It’s also been reported that News Corp. has had discussions with Microsoft regarding potential payment for exclusive search rights for News Corp.’s online content. (News Corp. owns Dow Jones & Company which owns The Wall Street Journal.)
Anyway, I’m not sure if this is significant or anything, but it seemed weird to me.
Should also note that the article doesn’t even show up in a Yahoo! search (screenshot):
