Gating in an AI world: What to hide, what to show, and why
Invisible content earns zero authority. Learn how to unlock visibility without giving away your best assets.
Topic: Paywall
News site traffic is shrinking, but Google and AI aren’t solely to blame
Nearly every top U.S. news site lost traffic in July. From paywalls to shifting habits, publishers saw single or double-digit declines.
Google drops AI while browsing feature
This feature allowed you to, while browsing a webpage, ask Google to generate key points from the page.
Driving traffic to gated content and paywalled sites: SEO tips + examples
Explore SEO tactics to effectively market premium content and drive site traffic while preserving the value of your gated assets.
Google Rich Results Test now supports paywalled content
You can use this new feature to validate that Google Search understands your content is paywalled.
X (Twitter) paywalls XPro (TweetDeck)
The move is expected to negatively impact the discoverability of content on X (Twitter).
Google Search Generative Experience adds SGE while browsing
Paywalled content will not work with the new SGE while browsing feature. Google SGE also added definitions and color coding syntax.
ChatGPT Browse with Bing temporarily disabled
Open AI said they disabled this feature "out of an abundance of caution" after users were able to access content behind some paywalls.
Twitter didn’t just block unregistered users, it blocked Google Search
While Google still has access to the Twitter firehose, Google has still dropped over half of the Twitter URL it indexed.
TikTok opens its premium content feature, Series, to more creators
Creators can now apply to get the Series feature, which lets creators charge users to access paywalled premium content.
Google agrees to start paying for news content
Germany, Australia and Brazil are the first three countries, with more coming.
Google News Initiative kicks off with Subscribe With Google, other efforts
Subscribers will see articles from their subscribed publications higher in the search results and be logged in to those publications across devices.
LaterPay offers first paywall platform for AMP pages
The German-Swiss payment infrastructure provider allows readers to maintain a running tab of per-article charges until a threshold is met.
Google extends olive branch to publishers, lays out new focus on subscriptions
The corporate-level commitment to subscription programs comes as executives acknowledge the challenges publishers have been facing.
SearchCap: Google’s new flexible sampling, paywall schema & HTTPS migrations
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google: First Click Free is over, being replaced by Flexible SamplingOct 2, 2017 by Greg Sterling Google is rolling out a suite of tools to help news publishers drive more subscription […]
Google adds structured data for subscription & paywalled content for new flexible sampling program
Excited for the new flexible sampling program for Google web search and Google News? Well, make sure you don't get in trouble for cloaking by using this new structured data.
Google: First Click Free is over, being replaced by Flexible Sampling
Google is rolling out a suite of tools to help news publishers drive more subscription revenue.
Report: Google ending ‘first click free’ to help publishers boost subscriptions
The WSJ pulled out of FCF and saw traffic losses but higher subscription revenue.
Google making renewed effort to help news publishers drive more subscriptions
Google effort appears to be a modified version of existing tools and approaches with some new, unspecified wrinkles.
Wall Street Journal’s Google traffic drops 44% after pulling out of First Click Free
Despite less traffic, paid subscriber conversion said to be up fourfold.
No more free ride: Wall Street Journal pulls content out of Google’s “First Click Free” program
WSJ move might cause other publishers to remove content from Google's program, if it turns out "Subscription" label doesn't hurt conversions.
Google News “First Click Free” Gets Less Free To Appease Publishers
Google's First Click Free program drops user access requirements from 5 to 3 free clicks.
Is It Time For Google To Rank News Content Behind Paywalls Better?
If Hollywood's paid content can be shown without fear of upsetting searchers, why not news? But with more visibility, all access subscription may be needed.
How Google Fails To Enforce “First Click Free” — An Eric Schmidt Case Study
News publishers often want to be listed in Google. News publishers also often want to have paywalls or registration barriers. The good news is Google has rules that allow for this. The bad news is that Google routinely fails to enforce these rules. Below, a case study involving content in a major publication authored by […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 25, 2012
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: The Current State Of PPC Keyword Match Types I’ll start with a big thank you! It’s been a busy few months with advertisers and Google forcefully exchanging opinions back and forth […]
WSJ Pulls Back On What Google Searchers Can Read For Free
Are you used to using Google as a way around the Wall Street Journal’s paywall? Think again. The WSJ has been holding back stories available through Google’s “First Click Free” program, a move that I suspect other newspapers might soon emulate. Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that I wasn’t able to read some […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 29, 2011
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google’s Android To Dominate Globally In 2011: Report Tech consulting firm IDC has predicted that Google’s mobile operating system will become the dominant mobile platform this year, achieving a global market […]
The New York Times Paywall Meters All Google Visits, Not Just Search Visits
The New York Times launched its paywall globally today, and I’ve been putting the barrier through its paces. Visits from search engines like Google, for convoluted reasons, are limited to five per day. But as it turns out, visits from any Google site — search or not — appear blocked. To test how the new […]
The Leaky New York Times Paywall & How “Google Limits” Led To “Search Engine Limits”
How did we go from the New York Times seeming to single out visitors from Google with a “5 free visit per day” policy to supposedly all search engines being limited in such a way? And what’s up with there being no limit for visitors coming from anything that’s not a search engine, including Twitter […]
Google One Pass: Publisher Payment System
The Google Blog announced a new tool to help news publishers earn money online with their content. The system is called Google One Pass and it enables publishers to use Google to charge for content and subscriptions to their content. Google said, “publishers can maintain direct relationships with their customers and give readers access to […]
Google Prepping A Payment System For Newspapers: Report
Via paidContent comes news that Google might launch a micropayment system for newspapers by the end of the year. paidContent references this article from the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, which says Google is encouraging publishers to try out a system called NewsPass. In its article, paidContent describes NewsPass like this: La Repubblica says that, with […]
Linking Food For Thought
This week, I’m stepping away from my usual article format and instead, address several linking related questions and comments I haven’t seen discussed as much across the link building blog/twitter/feed o-sphere. I welcome your feedback, comments, opinions and answers. People will tell you that one of the better ways to spot link targets is to […]
Google Adds Googlebot-News User Agent To Allow Blocking Google News
Google announced they have added a new supported user agent that can be used to block Google from indexing stories specifically on Google News. You can now specific the user agent Googlebot-News in your robots.txt file to exclude documents from being crawled and displayed in Google News. Google has several user agents for controlling how […]
Google Modifies “First Click Free” Policy To Accommodate Publishers Gating Their Content
Google’s “First Click Free” (FCF) policy was intended to provide a better experience for Google users and for premium content and news publishers (e.g., the Wall Street Journal) by allowing their content to be indexed and exposed for subsequent sale to consumers. However, as most of you are aware, the publisher pay walls are going […]
Hold On: Are More Papers Really Joining Murdoch’s Google Block Party?
Bloomberg has a story out suggesting that the publishers of the Denver Post and the Dallas Morning News may be joining Rupert Murdoch’s coalition of the willing to block Google. But I don’t think that’s what going on at all, and I’m trying to clarify things. Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group, which publishes the […]
Thoughts On A “Killer” Bing-News Corp Deal & The Myth Of An “OPEC For News”
It’s back, the prospect that Microsoft might try to make Rupert Murdoch happy by offering a “get listed with Bing” exclusive deal. Later, I’ll revisit the topic in a coordinated fashion. But for now, I’ve collected a number of thoughts I’ve put out on Twitter, in blog comments and elsewhere. First, I’ll point readers back […]
Josh Cohen Of Google News On Paywalls, Partnerships & Working With Publishers
Want to do a paywall with no “first click free?” That’s fine with Google, says business product manager Josh Cohen. Want to do micropayments? Google will be “flexible” in considering support of new business models like this. But if you charge, expect less traffic, and also expect that your competitors will be “ecstatic” to pick […]
Would Someone Please Explain To News Corp How Google Works?
Yet another News Corporation executive is talking about Google, and yet again, I feel like they have no concept about how Google interacts with their web pages. Which is frightening, since they’re being very vocal about how they’re supposedly wronged by Google. Please, someone, give them a search marketing 101 course. In the latest volley, […]
Why An Exclusive Wall Street Journal (or News Corp) Deal Wouldn’t Help Bing
With Rupert Murdoch talking about blocking Google, Jason Calacanis suggests that Murdoch should cut an exclusive deal with Bing. If that doesn’t kill Google, it might at least win Bing a 10% search share or more within 6 months, he argues. I suggest Jason needs a reality check. Here’s one for him. From his post […]
Google To Murdoch: Go Ahead & Block Us
The long-running debate over Google and its impact on newspapers and journalism took another turn today when News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch said his company may makes its sites invisible to Google, and Google fired back by saying, in essence, bring it on. It began with this interview on Australia’s Sky News (which Murdoch owns), […]