As shown after the tragedy at Virginia Tech, news media companies are pouring more dollars into buying news-related ad keywords, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The paid search placement ad has taken the place of old-fashioned corner barkers as newspapers vie for the attention of today's online users. Some spend tens of thousands of dollars for keywords a year.

Buying keywords lets a news outlet appear at the top of search results for breaking news instead of waiting for webpages to organically filter to the top of searches. This means that costs related to news-relevant keywords increase, thereby intensifying ad spend and competition for those terms.

The practice of buying keywords has led to significant audience numbers for some players involved. Each outlet has a different strategy.

As previously reported, use of search engines for breaking news updates shows a lack of singular loyalty by consumers to one outlet or another.