Category Archives: Australia Blog

News and notes from Google down under

Dive into Ningaloo on Google Street View

Editor’s note: Today is World Oceans Day, a day when people around the globe celebrate the world’s oceans and the life they sustain. 
On Australia’s western coast, you will find the world’s largest fringing coral reef: Ningaloo. The Ningaloo Coast is World Heritage listed and home to 300 species of coral, 500 fish species and megafauna such as whale sharks.
Late last year, we got to walk the coastal trails and dive beneath the waves to photograph this ocean paradise--and today, on World Oceans Day, we're inviting people across the globe to gaze at the turquoise waters and virtually swim with manta ray, stingray and sharks on Google Street View. 
Partnering with Parks and Wildlife Service WA and not-for-profit Underwater Earth, we explored Ningaloo from every angle, collecting imagery above, below and along the coast.
Adventurers can meander down to the shoreline of Cape Range National Park and to Oyster Stacks, within the Mandu Sanctuary Zone of Ningaloo Marine Park, before going for a digital snorkel at high tide with a rich diversity of fish--we’ve already carefully navigated the sharp oyster shells for you.
Walk the Oyster Stacks Snorkelling Area before stepping into the water. 
Look beneath the surface at Oyster Stacks Snorkelling Area.
Or travel up to the Muiron Islands and to Whalebone--a dive site named after whalebone that has now been washed away, grown over, or reabsorbed into the fabric of the reef, and known for its swim-throughs and overhangs. This area is exposed to the swell and waves of the Indian Ocean meaning few branching corals can grow here, so it is dominated by a myriad of hard plating corals and stunning colourful soft corals, and is a popular spot for turtles too!
Whalebone is a beautiful dive site on the western side of South Muiron Island. 
Whales, dolphins, manta rays, huge cod, turtles and whale sharks are abundant here, and this is one of many reasons this location is critical to the health of the ocean.
“We have been capturing underwater Street View imagery, partnering with Google, for over nine years. We believe in the importance of revealing precious ocean environments to the world to help educate and inspire ocean protection and conservation. Ningaloo Reef is simply too precious to lose,” said Christophe Bailhache, Co-founder of not-for-profit Underwater Earth, and underwater photographer for this Ningaloo collection.
“What an amazing opportunity to not only let Ningaloo enthral, excite and engage an even broader audience, but importantly help better understand this most beautiful and fragile of underwater wonders in the changing world we live in. Thank you Google and Underwater Earth,” said Dr Peter Barnes, Ningaloo Marine Park Coordinator.
We see this Street View capture as a chance to document the Ningaloo Coast in its current condition and keep track of how it's evolving. And by raising awareness and making sure that as many people as possible see this natural wonder, and get to understand its significance, we hope to do our bit to help protect this incredible place.

Posted by Cynthia Wei, Program Manager, Google Street View

*All underwater images © Underwater Earth/Christophe Bailhache

Dive into Ningaloo on Google Street View

Editor’s note: Today is World Oceans Day, a day when people around the globe celebrate the world’s oceans and the life they sustain. 
On Australia’s western coast, you will find the world’s largest fringing coral reef: Ningaloo. The Ningaloo Coast is World Heritage listed and home to 300 species of coral, 500 fish species and megafauna such as whale sharks.
Late last year, we got to walk the coastal trails and dive beneath the waves to photograph this ocean paradise--and today, on World Oceans Day, we're inviting people across the globe to gaze at the turquoise waters and virtually swim with manta ray, stingray and sharks on Google Street View. 
Partnering with Parks and Wildlife Service WA and not-for-profit Underwater Earth, we explored Ningaloo from every angle, collecting imagery above, below and along the coast.
Adventurers can meander down to the shoreline of Cape Range National Park and to Oyster Stacks, within the Mandu Sanctuary Zone of Ningaloo Marine Park, before going for a digital snorkel at high tide with a rich diversity of fish--we’ve already carefully navigated the sharp oyster shells for you.
Walk the Oyster Stacks Snorkelling Area before stepping into the water. 
Look beneath the surface at Oyster Stacks Snorkelling Area.
Or travel up to the Muiron Islands and to Whalebone--a dive site named after whalebone that has now been washed away, grown over, or reabsorbed into the fabric of the reef, and known for its swim-throughs and overhangs. This area is exposed to the swell and waves of the Indian Ocean meaning few branching corals can grow here, so it is dominated by a myriad of hard plating corals and stunning colourful soft corals, and is a popular spot for turtles too!
Whalebone is a beautiful dive site on the western side of South Muiron Island. 
Whales, dolphins, manta rays, huge cod, turtles and whale sharks are abundant here, and this is one of many reasons this location is critical to the health of the ocean.
“We have been capturing underwater Street View imagery, partnering with Google, for over nine years. We believe in the importance of revealing precious ocean environments to the world to help educate and inspire ocean protection and conservation. Ningaloo Reef is simply too precious to lose,” said Christophe Bailhache, Co-founder of not-for-profit Underwater Earth, and underwater photographer for this Ningaloo collection.
“What an amazing opportunity to not only let Ningaloo enthral, excite and engage an even broader audience, but importantly help better understand this most beautiful and fragile of underwater wonders in the changing world we live in. Thank you Google and Underwater Earth,” said Dr Peter Barnes, Ningaloo Marine Park Coordinator.
We see this Street View capture as a chance to document the Ningaloo Coast in its current condition and keep track of how it's evolving. And by raising awareness and making sure that as many people as possible see this natural wonder, and get to understand its significance, we hope to do our bit to help protect this incredible place.

Posted by Cynthia Wei, Program Manager, Google Street View

*All underwater images © Underwater Earth/Christophe Bailhache

Free virtual digital skills training for Aussies from Grow with Google

Since Grow with Google launched in 2019, we’ve travelled across every state of Australia to help Aussies get the digital skills they need to succeed. Along the way, we’ve partnered with local business chambers, entrepreneurial networks, and community organisations to provide free tools and training to help people get the right skills to find jobs they want, advance their careers and grow their businesses.

In the last year alone, we’ve trained more than 100,000 Australians in digital skills, and seen firsthand how technology can create new opportunities for businesses and communities. More recently, we’ve also seen a significant spike in demand for our free online training resources as many people—particularly jobseekers and small businesses—face disruption caused by COVID-19 and look to digital skills training to help them through these challenging times. In fact, we saw a 300 per cent increase in the number of people completing online training modules on our Grow with Google website in April this year, compared with the same time period last year.

Though we’re currently unable to gather in person in large groups, it doesn’t mean the learning has to stop. We’re excited to announce a new virtual program from Grow with Google Australia that will ensure more Australians continue to have access to digital skills training and opportunities. We’re launching Grow with Google OnAir - a series of livestreamed and on-demand webinar trainings that will be available to anyone in Australia for free, for the first time.

The training has been designed specifically for small business owners, people adjusting to remote working and learning, jobseekers, teachers and community non-profit organisations. A series of seven webinars will cover topics like how to connect with your customers and manage your business remotely, improve your job search skills, and connect remotely using tools like Google Meet and Calendar. And all led by specialist Google trainers from our Sydney office.


It will also share more on how businesses can make the most of your free Business Profile on Google, with many businesses using this helpful tool to keep their customers informed as they adapt their businesses and products. One of those businesses is Expo Centric - a Sydney-based builder of exhibition stands and displays. When COVID-19 spread locally, they updated their range of product solutions to include hand sanitiser dispensers, protection screens, room partitions and portable desks to meet changing customer needs - and kept them informed through regular updates to their profile.



Grow with Google OnAir webinars will be livestreamed once a day from 9-18 June in one hour digestible workshops. Attendees will be able to ask live questions via a dialogue box. Register to attend for free at g.co/GrowOnAirAU 



In addition to Grow with Google OnAir, which is available across Australia, we continue to support our team of local Digital Coaches and our network of more than 7,000 local partner organisations, so that they can teach virtual workshops in their communities. 

Since 2014, Google Australia has trained over half a million Australians on digital skills through Grow with Google and other digital skilling programs. It’s our aim to ensure these opportunities remain available to everyone. Visit the Grow with Google Australia website to find a virtual program that’s right for you - no matter what stage of your digital journey you are at.

Posted by Richard Flanagan, Head of Business Marketing, Google Australia

A fact-based discussion about news online

As I said earlier this month, the Internet has dramatically transformed the media environment and how we all access information. We know that for news media companies, particularly smaller and regional companies, the transition to digital has increased competition, increased unbundling, and reduced classified and circulation revenue streams. We all care about the importance of a vigorous news industry as it makes progress in transitioning to a digital environment.

At Google, we are actively working on solutions that we believe can help publishers derive more revenue from their content. We've heard the feedback from the Government, regulators, and industry and are in discussions to license and pay to display or provide full access to news content beyond simple snippets and links.

But as we move forward, it’s important that we have a discussion based on facts. There's been some recent talk about the profitability of online news in Australia, including the suggestion that online platforms should be forced to pay publishers AU$600 million or more every year. This is based on an assertion that news accounts for 10 percent of queries and generates about 10 percent of our gross revenues in Australia.

We all agree that high-quality news has great social value, but we need to understand the economics as well. We would like to provide some facts and figures to address inaccurate claims about the economics of links to news content on Google Search, as well as highlight our ongoing commitment to work with media companies to increase the value they get from their news content.

First, the direct economic value Google gets from News content in Search is very small. We don’t run ads on Google News or the news results tab on Google Search. And looking at our overall business, Google last year generated approximately AU$10 million in revenue—not profit—from clicks on ads against possible news-related queries in Australia. The bulk of our revenue comes not from news queries, but from queries with commercial intent, as when someone searches for 'running shoes' and then clicks on an ad. 

Second, the indirect economic value Google gets from News in Google Search is also very small. Users come to Google for many things, whether it's 'how to' videos, recipes, sport, weather, outfit ideas, or home insurance. News is a very small part of this content, and represents only a tiny number of queries — in the last year, news-related queries accounted for just over 1 percent of total queries on Google Search in Australia. The ‘indirect value’ argument also overestimates the relevance of a small fraction of hard-to-monetise queries and fails to consider that 'indirect value' cuts both ways — Google Search encourages lots of traffic to news publishers from users who weren’t originally looking for news content at all. As an example, a search for 'Melbourne' would return results like tourism links, maps, local government information, news headlines, and more. 

Third, there is already a substantial two-way value exchange. As the ACCC Concepts Paper acknowledges, you need to look at both sides of the value equation. To put it plainly, a lot of people (Australians and beyond) click from Google through to Australian news websites, which gives publishers the chance to make money by showing them ads or turning them into paying subscribers. In 2018 Google Search accounted for 3.44 billion visits to large and small Australian news publishers for free. A study by Deloitte in Europe valued each visit between €0.04-0.06 or around AU$0.063—which equates to approximately AU$218 million in value going to Australian publishers each year from Google traffic alone. In summary, news media businesses are likely to derive far more cross-content benefit than they generate. 

Fourth, news content is important to ensure access to quality information. The value of news to Google isn’t about economics, it is about its role in educating and informing Australians, as well as its importance in strengthening democracy. Publishers directly control how they participate in Google Search - whether through a long or short snippet, a photo, or not at all. We are always looking for new ways to support journalism–not because we make money from it, but because we believe that everyone benefits from its contributions to society and its critical role in fighting misinformation. We have for years partnered with news organisations and paid to host content where we show it in full (for example, when we show weather feeds or licensed sports scores on a search results page). 

We recognise the importance of news and are committed to finding new ways to support publishers. The mandatory code will have important consequences for Australians, including how and which types of news they can search and discover through Google. As we work with the ACCC and Government, as well as with media companies to build out new solutions to derive additional revenue, it’s important to base decisions on facts, not inaccurate numbers and unfounded assertions. 

Posted by Mel Silva, Managing Director and VP, Google Australia

YouTube Stories: How Aussies are learning through video

Returning to the simpler things in life, Aussies are picking up spades and spatulas. 

For 15 years, people have been doing things alone, together, on YouTube. It's so common that it has its own hashtag, #WithMe. Our creators and community have used video to help people learn, connect, entertain and thrive. And this has never been more evident than over the last few months.
As Australians (and the world) isolate ourselves and stay home, we’ve been picking up hobbies and learning new skills to occupy our time and feel productive -- and two trends we’ve seen grow are Plant With Me and Cook With Me.
The average daily views of ‘gardening’ videos by Aussies has increased over 120 percent since 15 March 2020, when compared to the average daily views for the rest of the year.
We’re looking for hacks from how to maintain our gardens to stem-cutting methods to regrow plants, for advice on fast growing vegetables and herbs we can plant at home (basil, garlic, onion and coriander being amongst the most common), as well as what set-ups are best for where we live.
One Aussie channel that’s guiding us is Self Sufficient Me (788K subscriber), whose video on 8 Fast Growing Vegetables You Can Grow at Home in a Hurry was one of the most viewed locally between 15 March and 21 April 2020.
Moving from the garden to the kitchen and we have seen the average global daily views of videos with ‘cook with me’ in the title increase by over 100 percent since 15 March 2020, compared to their average views for the rest of the year. Between 15 March-10 April, views of bread baking videos also peaked in Australia for 2020, increasing by more than 260 percent, compared to the prior daily average for the year.
YouTube enables anyone, anywhere, at any time to access information. And with over 500 hours of video uploaded every minute, there are constantly new learning opportunities at people’s fingertips -- and we’re devouring them, with hundreds of millions of views of educational content on YouTube every single day globally.
Cree Monaghan and Tim Hall are locals who used YouTube to learn and follow their passions…
From little things, big things grow 
“If you haven’t grown up on a farm, it’s really hard without a resource like YouTube.”
Cree Monaghan and Tim Hall made the green change in 2014, moving from the city to a ‘blank canvas’, 100 acre property in Margaret River, Western Australia. Their goal -- to try to improve the health of the land, their family, and ultimately, the planet.
The couple, understandably, was daunted when they bought the property as they were starting from scratch with nothing on the parcel of land and knowing very little about farming. Both Cree and Tim recall that every single thing required having to learn something new and that they had absolutely no idea how much work goes into growing food.
“We had input from other people, but our farmer friends are not always alongside us every time something goes wrong. And that’s when we turn to YouTube. How to build a chicken coop, how we increase the fertility of the soil, pruning the orchard, how to set up electric fencing, how to move pigs around.”
But creating their farm wasn’t enough. Inspiring and educating others was critical, so the next step was One Table Farm -- a cooking school to teach people about regenerative farming, whether that be starting to make their own bread, composting differently or knowing how to grow a tomato.
“If we run this farm in isolation and don’t share it with anybody, then it doesn’t reach its full potential.”
Soon, the journey will come full circle with Cree and Tim starting their own YouTube channel to share what they have learned with the world.
This is just one example of the many learning stories on YouTube where we can see the ripple effects of online connections make their way into the real world. Watch more of our YouTube Learning Stories, or start your own learning journey now with YouTube Learning. 

Posted by Ashley Chang, Culture & Trends Manager, YouTube APAC

Further help for Aussie small businesses affected by recent crises

Aussies are known for our mateship both at the best of times and at the worst of times. In light of the recent bushfires and the disruptions caused by COVID-19, it’s been wonderful to see Australians band together to help each other. It’s therefore unsurprising yet very humbling to see that search results on Google for “help small business” tripled in late March as many businesses were forced to alter operations and general uncertainty was mounting in response to COVID-19 (1).

 While we have seen this rise in Aussies’ eagerness to back their local businesses through this period - for business owners, it’s no doubt been a challenging time as they’ve dealt with this evolving and uncertain situation.

For Barney Martin, it’s been incredibly disruptive for his hair salon business. He’s had to deal with closure, time limits on appointments, and strict distancing protocols. To help keep his business running and customers informed, Barney implemented strict new health and safety measures in his salon and uploaded videos of these to his Google My Business profile to give his customers peace of mind they were in good hands.


Barney’s hair salon is just one of thousands of Aussie businesses who have turned to online tools — some for the first time — to help them keep their business ticking over, and to continue to keep their customers informed. We want to make it as easy as possible for businesses to adopt new ways of working and manage through the uncertainty - whether that be from COVID-19 or from the recent Aussie bushfires.

To help them in this, Google Australia has been working to provide businesses not only with direct funding assistance but with access to timely information, tools and resources. I’m pleased to share an update on some of these resources and information on how we’re continuing to help.

Delivering digital skills training to SMBs in bushfire-impacted communities 

While our planned Grow with Google bushfire recovery roadshow had to be postponed, the team wasn’t going to let physical distance laws stop them. Our Google small business experts conducted numerous one-on-one small business consultations with a number of business owners from fire impacted communities throughout NSW and Victoria from Bega to Bermagui and other towns in between. The calls enabled our Google small business experts to answer questions relating to the business owner’s Google Business Profiles and questions about how to help them improve their online presence.

Supporting small businesses with free resources

Thanks to partnerships with authorities like Bega Valley Innovation Hub, Northern Beaches Council, Business Australia and ACCI, Grow with Google team have been able to scale free small business resources like our Small Business Pack widely. The team further partnered with community groups such as Bega Valley Innovation Hub to host group training webinars led by one of our Grow with Google trainers, Yash Godbole.



We also launched a new Google for Small Business (http://g.co/smallbiz-covid19) hub to provide helpful resources to local businesses as they navigate these challenging times.

New support links for Google My Business profiles 

Establishing a free Business Profile with Google My Business is one of the quickest and easiest ways a small business owner can help their business show up in Search results. I’m really pleased to share the rollout of new support links that let business owners add a donation link, gift card link or both to their profile, giving customers options to support them at this challenging time. They can also share a personal message in a post to inform customers how funds will be put to use.

$20 million to support small businesses and government crisis response 

Our CEO Sundar Pichai announced additional support for small businesses, and community and government organisations, in March - so it’s great to see this support being rolled out locally.

We’re providing A$20 million of free Google Ads to our Australian ads customers, government agencies, and to support community organisations. Already we’ve begun passing on ad credits to our Australian customers, with notifications appearing in Google Ads accounts and which can be used at any point until the end of 2020 across our advertising platforms. We hope this will help alleviate some of the costs for Aussie businesses of staying in touch with their customers.

We’re also providing support to Many Rivers through a global response and recovery program being coordinated by Youth Business International and funded by Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, to support under-served small and medium businesses to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Many Rivers will use the funds to increase the accessibility of its online business support tools. We’ll continue to partner with businesses, government, industry groups and the wider community to help all Australians get through COVID-19 and back on to the road to recovery.

Keep your eyes peeled for more updates to be announced shortly.

Posted by Richard Flanagan, Head of Business Marketing, Google Australia

 1) Source: Google Trends, May 2019 - May 2020

YouTube Music is Making it Simple to Transfer Over Your Google Play Music Library

Over the past few years, we have enhanced YouTube Music to deliver a comprehensive listening experience, and have also added features to make Google Play Music users feel right at home. Starting today, we’re excited to officially begin inviting Google Play Music listeners to effortlessly transfer their music libraries, personal taste preferences and playlists to YouTube Music, their new home for music listening and discovery.
For now, users will continue to have access to both services. We want to ensure everyone has time to transfer their content and get used to YouTube Music, so we’ll provide plenty of notice ahead of users no longer having access to Google Play Music later this year.
Easy Transfer and Transition 
We know many listeners have spent a lot of time creating their perfect music and podcast libraries in Google Play Music, so we’ve made it simple to move both to their new homes. All Google Play Music users will soon receive an email with detailed instructions on how to begin transferring your full Google Play Music history and content, as well as podcasts, to their new homes.
Music fans will be able to start the transfer process of their music library to YouTube Music by following these simple steps:

  • Download the YouTube Music app (iOS/Android). 
  • Click on the transfer button in YouTube Music, and your uploads, purchases, added songs and albums, personal and subscribed playlists, likes and dislikes, curated stations and personal taste preferences will move right over. 
  • Your updated recommendations will appear immediately on the YouTube Music home screen, and we’ll notify you via email and notifications when your music library transfer is complete and your music is in the “Library” tab. 

You can also check out the video with transfer details HERE.

And if you’re a podcast listener, you can visit this web page and transfer your subscriptions and episode progress to Google Podcasts with a single click. Google Podcasts is our dedicated podcast player available for free on Android and iOS, and accessible from Google Assistant, Google Search, Google Home and more.
We’re looking forward to Google Play Music users transferring their libraries, so they can begin listening and exploring on YouTube Music and Google Podcasts.
Your New Home For Music: YouTube Music
For listeners new to YouTube Music, the streaming service is your personal guide to the world of music, simply organised in an app and web player. A bit more on what YouTube Music has to offer:

  • Catalogue: YouTube Music offers over 50 million official tracks, albums and high quality audio, as well as deep cuts, B-sides, live performances, and remixes you can’t find anywhere else. 
  • Listen everywhere: Explore YouTube Music’s audio-first music app, desktop and smart speaker experience. 
  • Recommendations: Discover new music through YouTube Music’s home screen recommendations and personalised mixes - My Mix, Discovery Mix, and New Release Mix - based on taste, location, time of day and Play Music preferences after transferring. 
  • Official Playlists: Listen to thousands of official playlists from both YouTube Music and Google Play Music. 

We’ve listened to Google Play Music user feedback and recently introduced additional new features to YouTube Music for fans to enjoy. Some of the YouTube Music features we’re most excited to share include the following (with more updates on the way!):

  • Playlist Creation: We’ve increased playlist length from 1,000 to 5,000 songs to make room for even more of your favourite songs. 
  • Uploads: You can listen to your uploaded and purchased music from Google Play Music after your transfer, or add up to 100,000 personal tracks to your library in YouTube Music (an increase of more than 50,000 compared to Google Play Music). 
  • Offline listening: Paying members can download any song, playlist, music video or let smart downloads (Android only for now) do it for you so you always have something to listen to, even when you don’t have service. 
  • Lyrics: Lyrics offer highly visible access to follow along to tracks. 
  • Explore Tab: An all-new Explore tab offering one go-to place to discover new music and YouTube Music’s vast catalogue of playlists through New Releases and Moods & Genres sections. 

Pricing 
Existing pricing is the same between Google Play Music and YouTube Music. Fans can enjoy the ad-supported version of YouTube Music for free, or enjoy YouTube Music Premium, a paid membership that gives listeners background listening, downloads and an ad-free experience for $11.99 a month. Or you can try YouTube Premium to extend ad-free, background listening and offline playback across all of YouTube for $14.99.
Google Play Music Unlimited members will be automatically granted the equivalent tier of YouTube Music Premium or YouTube Premium based on the level of benefits with their current subscription, at the same price*.
We can’t wait for you to start exploring YouTube Music features and discovering new music favourites along the way. Have more questions or need help? Check out all of our support resources here.
*Some users may see a price difference upon transfer. Learn more here.

Responding to the revised publisher code process in Australia

Over the past two years, the ACCC Digital Platforms Inquiry explored the dynamics of the rapidly changing digital ecosystem, with a specific focus on the impact on businesses that include news media interests.

One thing was clear at each stage of the process: consumer behaviour has evolved rapidly and there have been wide ranging benefits through improved access to information (as noted in the DPI Final Report). Consumers now can and expect to access information anywhere, anytime. Looking specifically at news, these shifts have increased the range of sources available, improving choice, discovery and access - including to smaller and independent publishers, local and global news sources. In parallel, this has also enabled news media businesses to reach global audiences.

These changes in consumer behaviour, combined with advances in technology, have contributed to both challenges and opportunities in the economics of news media. Technology has significantly increased the availability of news and other content and increased competition among publishers - at the same time enabling new digital classified businesses that benefit from car, real estate and job advertisements.

The ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry considered many of these dynamics. In response, the Government recommended a voluntary code to govern the relationship between digital platforms and companies that have news media interests. Google welcomed the recommendation and was advancing a code, based on extensive and continuing consultation with news media businesses.

The Government has now announced it will move to a mandatory code and has accelerated the original timeline. In light of this, we want to respond to some misconceptions and explain how we work with a wide range of publishers, large and small.

Did Google engage with the voluntary code process? 
From the outset, Google actively engaged in the voluntary code process. Google acted in good faith, working constructively by consulting with more than 25 news media businesses - broadcasters, print and online publishers from metro and regional areas. We met with some publishers on multiple occasions to work through and understand complex issues. The ACCC asked Google to deliver a progress report by the end of April, which we were on track to deliver before the Government changed the deadlines and shifted focus to a mandatory code. We have sought to be constructive in our approach from the outset and have provided our update to the ACCC this week.

Is Google making money from publishers’ content? 
Google Search doesn't make any money when a user clicks on a news search result, rather when users click on ads. News.google.com has no ads, nor does the news results tab on the search page. And even more broadly, searches for journalistic related queries are a very small proportion of all searches and very rarely return ads. When a search query does return an ad, it’s up to the user to decide if they click on the ad - Google does not get paid for showing the ad, only if the user clicks on it.

People have come to Google for reliable information for more than twenty years. On Google Search, we show a range of results based on a user’s query and provide links to the relevant website. In the case of news, publishers can determine how those results appear, setting the length of the short snippet from a story or turning snippets off entirely. Studies show that snippets encourage people to click through to websites, meaning that publishers get more visitors seeing ads on their sites.

Is Google driving traffic away from publisher sites? 
The fact is Google drives traffic to news sites more than 24 billion times a month globally. When someone types a query into Google Search, they receive a list of search results relevant to their query. These results respond to the intent of the query -- for example someone searching for fitness tips may be shown a range of results, from workout ideas to healthy recipes, from millions of online publishers in Australia and around the world. Depending on the query, the search results may also include news results, which link through to news publisher websites.

All publishers on the internet want to be found by new users, alongside businesses that include news media interests. Publishers have always been able to decide whether their content shows up in Google Search. Most choose to be found via Google to attract more visitors to their sites. This is traffic they say is important for their businesses, allowing them to build relationships and make money by showing people ads or opportunities to subscribe to their publications. News media businesses recognise the economic value they receive from this referral traffic.

Why doesn’t Google pay news publishers for displaying their sites in Search results? 
In the offline print world, publishers have long paid retailers, newsstands and kiosks to distribute their newspapers and magazines - acknowledging the value of acquiring audiences to a publishers’ content and the advertising publishers sell alongside it. Publishers provide posters with headlines for newsagents to display in their windows to help draw customers to buy papers.

In contrast, Google Search sends readers from Australia and all over the world to the publishers’ sites for free - helping them to generate advertising revenues from those audiences and convert them into paying subscribers. The traffic we send has substantial value. In 2018 alone, Google sent more than two billion visits to Australian news sites from Australian users, and a further billion visits from users outside Australia.

Everyone benefits from this exchange. While news content has significant social value, it is often difficult to make money from. And primarily news-seeking queries make up only a tiny percentage of queries we see. But by including news results next to other search results, we encourage users to click to view stories they might not have otherwise read, giving publishers the ability to show ads against those stories.

People trust Google to help them find useful and authoritative information, from a diverse range of sources. To uphold that trust, our Search results, including links to news stories, have always been determined by relevance—not by commercial considerations. Google does not accept payment to appear in organic search results nor does it pay for sites to appear in search results.

Next steps 
The Government’s response to the Digital Platforms Inquiry acknowledged the substantial two-way value exchange between news media businesses and digital platforms. We’ve worked closely and constructively with news media businesses, the ACCC and the Government and will continue to do so to ensure we can continue to support publishers, help the wide variety of Australian businesses who advertise with us, and deliver relevant and helpful information for Australian consumers.

Posted by Mel Silva, Managing Director and VP, Google Australia

2020 Computer Science grants for Australian educators

Now, more than ever, it’s important that teachers have the tools and resources they need to undertake their work. Understanding, creating and using technology are critical skills for all students and teachers, regardless of where they live.

This year our annual Computer Science (CS) Educator Professional Development (PD) Grants program is focused on bringing digital technologies training to teachers in regional and remote communities and to those who might otherwise miss out on such opportunities.

Google’s Educator PD Grants program has been running in Australia since 2011 and, in that time, has trained over 20,000 teachers. The program aims to equip teachers through practical professional development workshops, giving them the skills and tools to confidently teach computational thinking and computer science concepts. 

We’re excited to announce the following recipients of the 2020 CS Educator Grants:

This year all funded workshops have a focus on access and inclusion, aligning with Google’s global diversity commitment. Some workshops will be delivered virtually, given current movement restrictions, and others will take place later in the year.

The impact of PD Grants for educators 
These grants help to expand CS skills for more educators and we’ve heard from past winners about the positive impact. At James Cook University in Northern Queensland, Leanne Cameron is excited to build on the work done with last year’s grant, forging relationships with local Indigenous communities to develop new resources for their Teacher Education subject and share curriculum expertise with Indigenous educators.

This year they’ll expand on that work, offering Primary, Early Childhood teachers and trainee teachers a workshop that addresses the content of the Digital Technologies curriculum and the Outcomes of the Early Years Learning Framework to help them feel comfortable about teaching with technology.

The workshops will draw teachers from all over Northern Queensland and offer 'train-the trainer' sessions to assist those who feel confident in teaching Digital Technologies to mentor others in their area. These 'trainers' will provide ongoing support and resources for their schools and build capacity in the communities that need it most.

We’re pleased to support the CS Educator PD Grants program once again and look forward to seeing how these amazing educators apply their new skills.

Posted by Marie Efstathiou, Program Manager, Computer Science Outreach and University Relations

How we’re supporting Aussie AI talent

Whether it’s preserving Australia’s indigenous languages, helping marine biologists track endangered dugongs, or supporting doctors to detect prostate cancer more quickly, more and more Aussie researchers, organizations and businesses are using artificial intelligence (AI) to help tackle big problems.

In fact, we believe that there are numerous other challenges that could be addressed with AI and have made it our mission to make the benefits of these technologies available to everyone. Helping foster AI talent with programs like online AI courses for teachers is a key component of that.

Today, we’re excited to announce the Australian recipients of two global research grants.

Google TensorFlow Faculty Award 
Mary-Anne Williams, Distinguished Research Professor of the School of Computer Science at UTS has been awarded a “Google TensorFlow Faculty Award" for 2019 to develop educational content with TensorFlow 2.0, Google’s open-source machine learning platform. She’ll be receiving financial support and technical mentorship from the Google TensorFlow team to help her develop a machine learning course, as well as Google Cloud credits and access to Tensor Processing Units, custom-built computer chips made for machine learning.

Google Faculty Research Awards
In Spring 2019, we opened our annual call for the Google Faculty Research Awards, a program focused on supporting world-class technical research in Computer Science, Engineering and related fields at some of the world’s best computer science departments. Five researchers from University of Adelaide and Monash University will now be supported with funding for one year to help them advance their research in areas like algorithms and security:

  • Sebastian Baltes, Markus Wagner and Christoph Treude, University of Adelaide. The team is working on developing and evaluating techniques that can automatically detect issues in software documentation to remove barriers, biases, and obstacles for non-native speakers and open up the software development community to a more diverse group of participants. 
  • Graeme Gange and Peter J. Stuckey, Monash University. Graeme and Peter aim to extend multi-threaded constraint solvers, which search for solutions to complex combinatorial problems faced in many industries. This research will enable these solvers to learn efficiently, not only from each thread's own mistakes, but from each other's, too. 
  • Marcel Böhme, Monash University. Marcel is working on ‘fuzzing’, a technique to automatically discover security vulnerabilities in software. 
For the 2019 awards, we received 917 proposals from about 50 countries and over 330 universities, with all proposals undergoing an extensive review process involving 1100 expert reviewers across Google who assessed the proposals on merit, innovation, and alignment with our research philosophy.

Congratulations again to Mary-Anne, Markus, Sebastian, Christoph, Graeme, Peter, and Marcel!

Posted by Marie Efstathiou, Program Manager, Computer Science Outreach and University Relations, Google Australia