Posted on 06/05/2017 2:05:24 PM PDT by jeannineinsd
- Publisher says Google visitors dropped after hardening paywall
- Google says ‘first click free’ good for users and publishers
After blocking Google users from reading free articles in February, the Wall Street Journal’s subscription business soared, with a fourfold increase in the rate of visitors converting into paying customers. But there was a trade-off: Traffic from Google plummeted 44 percent. -snip- The reason: Google search results are based on an algorithm that scans the internet for free content. After the Journal’s free articles went behind a paywall, Google’s bot only saw the first few paragraphs and started ranking them lower, limiting the Journal’s viewership.
Executives at the Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., argue that Google’s policy is unfairly punishing them for trying to attract more digital subscribers. They want Google to treat their articles equally in search rankings, despite being behind a paywall.
(Excerpt) Read more at bloomberg.com ...
“Executives at the Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., argue that Google’s policy is unfairly punishing them...”
Poor babies.
“The Journal decided to stop letting people read articles free from Google after discovering nearly 1 million people each month were abusing the three-article limit. They would copy and paste Journal headlines into Google and read the articles for free, then clear their cookies to reset the meter and read more, Watford said.”
The other way to get around the limit was to right click an choose “Open Link in New Private Window” (on Firefox)
If they want a pay wall - if they want to block a free and complete reading of their article - then they can piss off.
I won’t bother with them as a credible source.
“They want Google to treat their articles equally in search rankings, despite being behind a paywall.”
well, of course they WANT that. but it makes no sense to rank things highly that no one can read.
try to live by the paywall, then you should die behind the paywall.
an online publication has to be free to be “credible”? srsly?
Google isn’t doing anything wrong here.
Screw the WSJ and Google.
Better news on Reddit and Free Republic.
Google and Facebook are much too powerful.
Bunch of cry babies. What’s the point on clicking on a search result if you only get a few sentences of the article?
Google nailed it!
This is at least the 2nd time the WSJ has pulled this juvenile stunt and they’ve had the same result both times.
Either they are slow learners or under the cosh from Murdoch’s idiot sons.
You can have the best content in the World, but if it is behind a paywall, nobody will see it.
Why should Google direct users to a page they cannot access? I get annoyed when Google directs me to the WSJ. What do I care what they have on their website? I can’t read it, so I don’t need to know.
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