Google had made available a 'first click free' policy which
allowed newspapers to choose to show articles in Google searches
even when they were part of subscription-only services. Users could
read that article but when they clicked on links to visit other
pages they were presented with a screen demanding payment.
Google has now altered that system to allow publishers to
restrict any single web user to seeing just five such pages in any
one day.
"First Click Free is a great way for publishers to promote their
content and for users to check out a news source before deciding
whether to pay," said Josh Cohen, senior business product manager
at Google. "Previously, each click from a user would be treated as
free. Now, we've updated the program so that publishers can limit
users to no more than five pages per day without registering or
subscribing."
"If you're a Google user, this means that you may start to see a
registration page after you've clicked through to more than five
articles on the website of a publisher using First Click Free in a
day," he said.
Some newspaper publishers have criticised Google for its use of
their material. News International head Rupert Murdoch has been
particularly critical recently, calling Google a "parasite".
Newspapers can easily hide their sites from Google, though, by
adding a small file to their websites called robots.txt or by
adding code to individual pages. Collectively known as the Robots
Exclusion Protocol, these instructions will tell search engines not
to access and index sites or pages. Publishers are reluctant,
though, to forego the traffic that Google can deliver.
Google's Cohen said that the company would also now begin to
index article preview pages and label them as 'subscription'
content.
"We will crawl, index and treat as 'free' any preview pages –
generally the headline and first few paragraphs of a story – that
[publishers] make available to us," he said. "We will then label
such stories as 'subscription' in Google News."
Cohen warned, though, that publishers who put content behind
paywalls could struggle to find an audience for that content.
"The ranking of these articles will be subject to the same
criteria as all sites in Google, whether paid or free. Paid content
may not do as well as free options, but that is not a decision we
make based on whether or not it's free. It's simply based on the
popularity of the content with users and other sites that link to
it," he said.
The newspaper industry has produced an alternative system to
Google's which it hopes search engines will adopt. Called the
Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP), it is designed to give
publishers more options for how they want their material to appear
in search engines than is currently available with the Robots
Exclusion Protocol.
Search engine expert Danny Sullivan, though, noted this week
that newspapers including the newspaper publishing group most
fervently behind ACAP, Independent News and Media, only use ACAP to
perform functions that robots.txt is also capable of
performing.
"There’s nothing I see within ACAP that provides some type of
crucial control that if only news publishers had, all their online
woes would be over,"
said Sullivan.
Disclaimer: We hope you find OUT-LAW’s content useful. It’s prepared by the lawyers at Pinsent Masons. Please remember, though, that it’s intended as general information only. It’s not legal advice. If that’s what you’re seeking, please
contact us. See also: our
full disclaimer
