Google To Allow Publishers To Limit Free Access

by Philip Bump | 1:45 am, December 2nd, 2009

» 1 comment

The BBC is reporting (as noted by Dave Winer) that Google appears to have reached a deal to placate content providers: users accessing more than five articles via the search engine over the course of a day can be routed, directly from Google, to publisher payment or registration pages.

In a blog post by Google’s Josh Cohen, the deal is explained further.

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…in a day.

In essence, the existing system allows any visitor accessing a publisher’s website through Google to view the content – a system Google calls “First Click Free”. The workaround, of course, was that, instead of continuing on the publisher’s website to view more, one could double-back to Google to avoid roadblocks. Under the new system, a publisher can choose to limit how many times that works.

The BBC article states that this will be perceived as a victory for Rupert Murdoch following his threat last month to pull his content from Google. The BBC is right. Few thought the ploy would result in any real impact on Google – much less presage a shift in how Google interacts with content publishers. It’s a massive win for Murdoch – and a possible blow to Bing, which was rumored to be courting Murdoch on his terms. Which, of course, may be why Google’s mind was changed.

UPDATE: As the Internet begins to process news of Google’s acquiescence, it’s worth noting that the definitive, go-to assessment of the policy change (as cited by Romenesko, for example) comes from the Wall Street Journal – now owned, of course, by Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch’s contribution to the appeasement is noted in article’s third paragraph.

BBC, Bing, First Click Free, Google, Philip Bump, rupert murdoch, Rupert Murdoch Google

http://www.sailrabbits.com Magister

Perhaps unknowingly, but this post gives a good example of why such a solution was needed.

If a non-subscriber were to click on the above WSJ link, they just get the opening two paragraphs and a “to continue reading – subscribe now”, while if you take the author’s name and punch it into Google: News, you get the full article for free. Savvy webusers have known this for years and because I don’t subscribe to the WSJ, it’s how the method I’ve used to access their content.

Right now, I’d venture that the WSJ may be the only website to benefit. A lot of the smaller papers that were “subscriber-only” have either migrated away from that model or they’ve switched to offering e-editions to subscribers and only an article or two to those who won’t pay.

There are still a few small papers out there, who are subscriber-only, but I assume they’ve fenced Google off with a robots.txt. Out of the larger papers, I’m guessing that because he’s made so much anti-Google noise over the years, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette also uses a robots.txt and I believe Google does scour the Albuquerque Journal, but you just have to watch a commercial to get through their fence.

IOW: The Wall Street Journal may provide great analysis, but they’re also the only ones who will benefit in the short term. I don’t think five articles is low enough to get through to the Little Rock paper and it’ll be some time and it’ll take an educational push to get the remaining pay-only small town papers on board.