Google is changing the way it displays news stories by European publishers in France.

This is to tie in with new copyright law there, which gives more rights to news publishers online.

This is the first implementation of the European Copyright Directive, which was approved earlier this year.

The company says it will no longer show previews of articles from late October.

Currently when Google displays news results, a headline is shown which links directly to the news site.

For some results, it also shows a short preview of the article - such as a few lines of text or a small thumbnail image.

Google says these headlines and previews "can help you decide whether a result is relevant to your search, and whether you want to click on it."

A preview of changes to Google News indexing in France | Image: Google

When the French law comes into force, it will not show a preview of content in France - unless the publisher has agreed to it.

Google says there are more than eight billion visits to news publisher websites each month in Europe alone.

This is more than 3,000 visits every single second.

Research from Deloitte has estimated that each one of the clicks that Google sends to publishers is worth between 4 and 6 cents in additional revenue.

Richard Gingras, vice-president of Google News, said: "The vast range of information on the internet is a competitive challenge for newspaper publishers and their business models are evolving as a result.

"We are committed to our ongoing collaborations with news organisations and publishers, big and small, old and new, to help them evolve in the digital age."

The internet search giant is also investing $300m (€274m) over three years in the Google News Initiative - which helps publishers develop new revenue streams and explore ways of presenting news.