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What I find annoying about paywalled sites is that they provide the full content to Google. And Google is OK with indexing the full content, even though it is n
by jwr 4y ago
What I find annoying about paywalled sites is that they provide the full content to Google. And Google is OK with indexing the full content, even though it is not available on the internet, and even though they explicitly forbid the practice of showing different content to a search engine from what is available publicly.
Paywalled sites are just fine, but they are not part of the open Internet, and should not pretend to be.
- CM30 4y agoYeah, 100% agree with this. It's like these sites want to have their cake and eat it, and both get the traffic the 'open web' provides while not having to actually share any of their work there. It's like if you needed an app to view a page, yet Google had all its content indexed. Why is that (rightly) seen as unreasonable while charging users for content you provide to bots for free isn't?
- donohoe 4y ago> they explicitly forbid the > practice of showing different > content to a search engine from > what is available publicly This isn’t true. This paywall treatment is something they do allow and have worked to accommodate.
- tyingq 4y agoIt's also true that they say "cloaking" isn't allowed, "any type of cloaking" https://youtu.be/QHtnfOgp65Q https://youtu.be/QHtnfOgp65Q
- iicc 4y agoSometimes the full content is available - but only if you navigate to it via a Google results page, and you don't have existing cookies implementing a "free article limit".
- mrobins 4y agoThat’s a Google problem not a publisher problem. Content should be findable and available to people who want to pay for it. Google could easily add an option to filter out paywalled content but that would reduce clicks.