Comments on: What Are The Conversion Rates for Google's "First Click Free"?

By: air max 90

air max 90 — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:33:43 +0000

Its up to them to offer content that is of high quality and make people to want to subscribe..

By: Jaren Green

Jaren Green — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:03:59 +0000

his is interesting. A Google rep told me that Google wants all information to be free. That comment has been quoted before, but this time it was said in the context of my client's subscription-fee-based information. To Google, the password is an irritant.

Danny mentions Google Scholar, but that door closed for us too. We built the XML for Google to index and they promised to keep it secure, but then Scholar went silent. So now, there is NO way (not even Google Scholar) for a publisher of subscription-based information to get it published.

We will soon have subscription-based content on our new site SolutionPipe.com. If anyone knows how I can get the content indexed without giving it away, please tell me.

By: Antonis

Antonis — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:43:14 +0000

I totally agree with Craig. That is just google throwing the ball back to mr.Murdoch. They dont want to appear as the bad ones in this case. Google try to do there part and "protect" the news industry or at least to seem like they are trying...

however people will most probably go to the next newspaper when they reach 5 hits.

Its up to them to offer content that is of high quality and make people to want to subscribe..

By: Michael Martinez

Michael Martinez — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:57:15 +0000

There are way too many news organizations out there to make it economically affordable for a consumer to subscribe to them based on finding stories in major search engines.

If the news industry comes up with a low-cost universal subscription service or consolidates down to about 3 news organizations, they might have a chance.

By: Olivier Travers

Olivier Travers — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:01:53 +0000

@Danny Sullivan, not in the main web index you can’t, as per your own article. The confusion is entirely coming from Google and their autistic behavior. Google News drives a tiny fraction of the traffic generated by the main site. Standing 100% by what Dan wrote, as another paid content publisher.

By: Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:22:24 +0000

Dan, you can totally have your paid content be in Google and not give any of your clicks, first or whatever, away for free. There's a lot of confusion about this. I just did an entire article/interview with Google explaining this in more depth:

http://searchengineland.com/josh-cohen-of-google-news-on-paywalls-partnerships-working-with-publishers-29881

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:04:33 +0000

Craig makes a good point. The fix was likely an easy one for Google to do, and they’ve generally been standing by while Murdoch et al shout into the wind.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:02:39 +0000

I think you may have it wrong, John. As someone who own's a business that sells content, we interpret the 1st click free program as a way to get our restricted content indexed by Google.

Because our content requires both registration and payment to be viewed, Google will not index it unless you let any and all traffic from search results to view content for free. In fact, If you took matters into your own hands, by say allowing literally 1st click free, but then place a cookie on a machine to prevent any further repeat views, you'd also get banned. 1st click free is a misnomer. It really means "All Clicks Free" so long as they come from Google. And yes, people do cancel subscriptions because of this: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-lets-paywall-sites-limit-free-access-to-five-clicks-per-day-2009-12

Sure, only one person who actually cancelled a WSJ sub, but what all the others who just never bothered subscribing. I would guess that number is much higher.

By participating in the 1st click free program, a paid content provider is essentially playing by Google's rules to get their content indexed. So, it is not the other way around as you suggest. Google is not appeasing the publisher sites. It is saying...if you want your content indexed in the main search results, it has to be free all the time.

At least that is how we interpreted it.

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:59:21 +0000

This is nothing more than a peace offering to try and cut the tension but the model doesn’t work, it will simply promote the idea of hopping away from the papers and finding news in a variety of other publications once you’ve hit your five.

This ‘payment dodging’ will be extremely easy to do (this news alone had 1,200 or so articles relating to it, it won’t be hard to skip around keeping off the five a day radar)

By: haber

haber — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:38:48 +0000

I think very successful Google adwords advertising policies for users. But I do not think the same thing for publishers. Close the account can now unnecessary and meaningless. And do you know about any defense can not. In general, I agree John. I wish to continue their success.