Google expands its newspaper archives

Google expanded its effort to offer historical newspaper articles online, scanning publications and letting users browse pages just as they were printed, complete with photographs and advertisements.

Historical queries including "Nixon space shuttle" or "Titanic located" display the printed pages, the company said Monday. Google, which has already scanned millions of articles from more than 100 publications, included small newspapers and notable ones such as the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph, the oldest in North America.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are fighting for readers who are increasingly turning to the Web for their news. Yahoo News, MSNBC and CNN.com, the top sites, each had more than 28 million users in July and grew more than 10 percent from a year earlier, according to researcher ComScore. Google, with 11.3 million users, is seeking to narrow that lead.

Google started its archive project in 2006 by working with publications such as The New York Times and Washington Post. Users could create a timeline of events, organizing stories by year.

With the new program, users can see the actual printed page, and are able to zoom in and out to browse articles. Google displays ads using its AdSense software and will split revenue with newspapers, with most of the money going to the publishers, Google Vice President Marissa Mayer said Monday.

In addition to appearing on Google News, the archive content will also be included in Google's search results in the coming months.

The program will widen the readership of old newspapers, and will contain links to the main newspaper site, subscriptions and ads, said Jennie Johnson, spokeswoman for Google.

Visitors in the U.S. to Google's news-search site increased 18 percent July, while Yahoo's news audience rose 14 percent to 38.3 million, according to ComScore in Reston, Va. Visitors to MSNBC, a joint venture between Microsoft and General Electric's NBC Universal, increased 19 percent to 29.1 million.

U.S. newspapers' average weekday print circulation fell to 41.1 million in the six months through March from 42.6 million a year earlier, the Audit Bureau of Circulations said in April.