Media sites have traditionally worked to keep their content collections proprietary while preventing user churn to other sites. Now, as search engines gain more power, and users become more fickle, it might be time to make it easier for consumers to discover content on other sites – effectively tearing down site “garden walls.” We’ll get to the bottom of this choice in a three part series.

Search Portals - The Other Side of the Wall

During the web’s adolescence, the relationship between content producers and content consumers was direct, and web content promotion efforts were limited to internal site factors – UI, navigation and basic site search. If a site’s content was in demand, it developed a loyal user base and became the trusted authority for that type of content.

Today, search portals like Google, Yahoo! and MSN disrupt the relationship between sites and audiences, offering unfettered access to highly specific content from across the web. As a result, customers can freely churn to competitive sites. Such liquid content discovery and consumption erodes your site’s competitive advantage and position as the trusted content authority.

The Media Site Response – Tear Down Your Walls?

How should content owners react to the more competitive marketplace resulting from search portals’ influence on the value chain? The most obvious answer is to improve content quality - but this is often too expensive. Instead, some sites are expanding content offerings by including content from other sites. Others are offering discovery of other external web content through search. But these tactics present a tradeoff: they build engagement and pageviews while making it easier for users to be lured by external sites.

This is the core of the choice between maintaining a ‘walled garden’ content site and tearing down the walls. A walled garden site ignores the broader needs of users while aggressively promoting proprietary content. The hope is that users will focus on what’s in front of them, remain engaged, and drive revenue accordingly. Yet without incorporating external content, users will inevitably explore elsewhere. And a site without walls encourages consumers to use the site as a portal. On sites like these users can discover and access proprietary and broader web content alike, and generating the associated page views. Boston.com has recently adopted this tactic, with some early success. So what’s to be done – build walls and keep users focused on your content alone, or tear them down in the hopes that engagement and pageviews will improve?

For many sites, pageviews and user loyalty will go up when the walls come down. Yet, the choice of opening is not for everyone. As we’ll discuss in the next installment, the answer to the walled garden question depends on whether you believe own content, or customers.

Next week: What’s your biggest asset, content or customers?