3 ms·

How is Google supposed to know if you have access or not? (because if you have, and it doesn't show you the relevant result, it is doing a disservice to you)

mitchdoogle 5y ago
I don't think they are blaming Google. It's the news org's fault in that case, for showing the Google bot a full article while actual people get a paywall.
- freediver 5y ago
  Well again, the people that have a subscription do not get a paywall, they get content when they click the same Google link and are probably very happy with that outocme. How is Google supposed to know who has access?
oh_sigh 5y ago
Google could log which sites have a paywall, and put an icon next to search result that you might need to pay money to access the article. I could also let google know which sites I subscribe to and if I have a WSJ subscription, it could rank those articles a little higher to similar results on sites I don't have a subscription to. For example, something similar happens when you google TV shows, e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=mad+men https://www.google.com/search?q=mad+men There is a panel on the right hand side showing which streaming services stream the show. I can tell google which ones I have and it will improve the recommendations based on that.
erik_seaberg 5y ago
Even if I were to subscribe to a hundred newspapers (which nobody does), that would leave tens of thousands I don’t. Google should avoid showing me results that are 99% useless.
PeterisP 5y ago
Google is indexing public pages as "someone" who does not have any specific access. Google has chosen not to know or care whether I have special access, and index the content as if it's not there - perhaps it's a disservice, but that's the service they're offering to their users. And the actual news sites do not and should not have any say in this, the decision of what to index and what to show to users should remain between each search engine and their users. So if a search engine chooses to index the "content-as-if-you're-anonymous-and-not-logged-in" and if you try to trick this service into showing something else than what's actually published to everyone (serving visitors and search engines different content), then it's quite reasonable for google to treat it as a cheating attempt (because, really, it is one) and choose to penalize it in their search policies - because that's what I as a search engine user would want.

mitchdoogle 5y ago

I don't think they are blaming Google. It's the news org's fault in that case, for showing the Google bot a full article while actual people get a paywall.

freediver 5y ago
Well again, the people that have a subscription do not get a paywall, they get content when they click the same Google link and are probably very happy with that outocme. How is Google supposed to know who has access?

oh_sigh 5y ago

Google could log which sites have a paywall, and put an icon next to search result that you might need to pay money to access the article. I could also let google know which sites I subscribe to and if I have a WSJ subscription, it could rank those articles a little higher to similar results on sites I don't have a subscription to. For example, something similar happens when you google TV shows, e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=mad+men https://www.google.com/search?q=mad+men There is a panel on the right hand side showing which streaming services stream the show. I can tell google which ones I have and it will improve the recommendations based on that.

erik_seaberg 5y ago

Even if I were to subscribe to a hundred newspapers (which nobody does), that would leave tens of thousands I don’t. Google should avoid showing me results that are 99% useless.

PeterisP 5y ago

Google is indexing public pages as "someone" who does not have any specific access. Google has chosen not to know or care whether I have special access, and index the content as if it's not there - perhaps it's a disservice, but that's the service they're offering to their users. And the actual news sites do not and should not have any say in this, the decision of what to index and what to show to users should remain between each search engine and their users. So if a search engine chooses to index the "content-as-if-you're-anonymous-and-not-logged-in" and if you try to trick this service into showing something else than what's actually published to everyone (serving visitors and search engines different content), then it's quite reasonable for google to treat it as a cheating attempt (because, really, it is one) and choose to penalize it in their search policies - because that's what I as a search engine user would want.