End free news the Murdoch way

News International will close thelondonpaper in September, the Guardian and others reported today. It will end a phase of UK newspaper publishing that people have called the "free-sheet wars".

James Murdoch (CEO of News International Europe and Asia) talked about "streamlining operations" and "focusing on core titles" which some commentators have taken to mean it was losing too much money (£12.9m in the year to the end of June).

But the closure is part of a bigger shift in the news business. When it launched in 2006, thelondonpaper was one element of a complicated strategy to take on competitors: the Evening Standard and Metro. Both made money in a market which News International had no presence. Phase 1 of the strategy was successful: profits at Metro have slipped and ES has been sold.
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Tops and lefts for SEO

Search engines give particular weight to words that appear in the top and left of a web page. You can use fact in two ways:

1. Force the most significant words into those positions: the first two words that appear in the title bar and in your main heading are most important.
2. You can see which words you have naturally placed in those key positions and work out how much value they give to any visitor.

In this example, the words that appear in the key positions don't really help.

Pushing key words into the key positions will improve SEO