Its ridiculous to assume that a popular newsletter and site which had been running for 15 years would be "left with no alternative but to shut down" because one search engine won't index their content. I don't buy that for a second. Does ALL their traffic comes from organic search?
Also, as someone else pointed out this company's meta tag structure is awful. They've clearly invested no time in trying to optimize their site for search engines.
This is a ploy to get media attention. Why am I contributing to the probelm?
I have read that Google is more and more explicitly ignoring meta tags (with the exception of description). It makes perfect sense. You can game the meta tags, but you can't game real content as easily. What's the point if your content sucks?
Also, as someone else pointed out this company's meta tag structure is awful. They've clearly invested no time in trying to optimize their site for search engines.
This is a ploy to get media attention. Why am I contributing to the probelm?