We now know how some publishers are reacting to Google closing Google News in response to the upcoming “Google Tax” law in Spain… they are attempting to get the traffic back from Google by running Google AdWords on the keyword “news.”

El Mundo and ElEconomista are both currently advertising for “noticias”, which means “news”.

Juan Ramon Sanfeliu shared this screenshot on Twitter.

Google has closed Google News in Spain due to the so-called “Google Tax”.  However, when the news of the closure broke, AEDA decided to pressure the government in Spain to force Google to keep Google News open and pay them for the content.

But now that Google News in Spain is closed and Google has also removed all Spanish publishers from worldwide editions of Google News, it is clear they are missing the traffic already.  And pay per click is the easiest way for those publications to get back the traffic without violating the upcoming Spanish law.

Of course, prior to the law, they were getting that traffic for free, and much more of it, since the keyword “news” won’t be very targeted.  However, for publishers to take advantage of trending news stories, they would need to have a dedicated pay per click team who could quickly create new ad copy and campaigns for every trending story as it happens.

But as publishers get better at pay per click, it also means those with larger budgets will be able to get more exposure through AdWords than smaller publishers whose budgets can’t support an additional ad campaign while the Google situation plays out.

The Spanish publishers and Google News saga continues.