The Washington Post is exploring an alternative revenue source outside of traditional advertising. They are planning to license their proprietary CMS system to local and regional newspapers.
The Washington Post ranks fairly well, so there will be many SEOs anxious to get their hands on the CMS to see if it has any hidden advantages that could be utilized for ranking purposes.
It is also an interesting way for newspapers to earn more revenue, especially one as large and well respected as the Washington Post. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, purchased the Washington Post with his holding company in 2013. And since then, many people have been wondering exactly what Bezos would be doing with it, especially with the huge Amazon background behind.
The Washington Post created this new CMS, called Pagebuilder after using a legacy CMS and porting parts of their site to WordPress. They began hinting earlier this year that they might consider the option for outside groups to use their CMS as well.
It is unclear just how much the Washington intends to charge for their CMS, whether it would be a flat rate or based on other metrics such as number of pages created. However, this will definitely be a CMS to watch, especially for SEOs to could either use the CMS or take inspiration for features on their own.
The Washington Post has not released any further information about when the CMS might become available.
Jennifer Slegg
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