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I'm pretty sure Google will soon stop indexing WSJ. Why index something if the vast majority of users cannot access the pages behind the links? EDIT: The "pas

I'm pretty sure Google will soon stop indexing WSJ. Why index something if the vast majority of users cannot access the pages behind the links? EDIT: The "paste a headline into Google" trick still works for me, though. If this continues to be the case, they will keep indexing, of course.

ikeboy 11y ago
It doesn't work for me. They did say they're "testing" it, so maybe A/B testing conversion rates. And yes, this violates Google's policies laid out explicitly at https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/40543?hl=en https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/40543?hl=en
Joky 11y ago
Indexing is fine, a great feature would be if Google was able to show it only to the user that can access it.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  Why should Google manage WSJ's paywall?
  - yeukhon 11y ago
    It doesn't. It 1) penalize WSJ, 2) personalize to WSJ subscribed Google users.
rhino369 11y ago
>Why index something if the vast majority of users cannot access the pages behind the links? So people can find it? I'd be pissed if Google de-indexed something like IEEE because it has a paywall. Assuming the internet has to be freely available is a mistake. Especially with the continued growth of an adblocked internet. We could be facing an internet with significant paywalls in the future. I'd support a "free" search term to weed out paywalled results. Furthermore, Google shouldn't be making normative judgements about what people should see. It's an abuse of their monopoly.
- morgante 11y ago
  Google doesn't forbid or de-index paywalls. What they forbid is cloaking (showing Google different content than what users will see). This is, of course, quite critical to maintaining search quality. WSJ is free to institute a full paywall and only serve snippets to Google. They might now like what it does to their rankings though. What they cannot do is continue to sniff the UA before deciding to put up the paywall. (Though I'm still able to use the Google trick, so it seems the experiment might have ended.)

ikeboy 11y ago

It doesn't work for me. They did say they're "testing" it, so maybe A/B testing conversion rates. And yes, this violates Google's policies laid out explicitly at https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/40543?hl=en https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/40543?hl=en

Joky 11y ago

Indexing is fine, a great feature would be if Google was able to show it only to the user that can access it.

jsprogrammer 11y ago
Why should Google manage WSJ's paywall?
- yeukhon 11y ago
  It doesn't. It 1) penalize WSJ, 2) personalize to WSJ subscribed Google users.

rhino369 11y ago

>Why index something if the vast majority of users cannot access the pages behind the links? So people can find it? I'd be pissed if Google de-indexed something like IEEE because it has a paywall. Assuming the internet has to be freely available is a mistake. Especially with the continued growth of an adblocked internet. We could be facing an internet with significant paywalls in the future. I'd support a "free" search term to weed out paywalled results. Furthermore, Google shouldn't be making normative judgements about what people should see. It's an abuse of their monopoly.

morgante 11y ago
Google doesn't forbid or de-index paywalls. What they forbid is cloaking (showing Google different content than what users will see). This is, of course, quite critical to maintaining search quality. WSJ is free to institute a full paywall and only serve snippets to Google. They might now like what it does to their rankings though. What they cannot do is continue to sniff the UA before deciding to put up the paywall. (Though I'm still able to use the Google trick, so it seems the experiment might have ended.)