Quick post on something I only found out about a few weeks ago:

Google has a program to allow publishers with paywalls to include their results in Google’s rankings, whilst allowing searchers to read the article they click off to for free.

I’m sure most publishers considering paid content have seen this, but for those who haven’t…

It’s called First Click Free, and more information can be found here. The summary:

We’ve worked with other subscription-based news services to arrange that the very first article view by a Google News user (identifiable by referrer) doesn’t require subscription. While the first article can be seen without subscribing, all clicks on the article page are “trapped.” This means that if users click anywhere else on that page, they’ll be prompted to sign up. This allows our users to view the article of interest while also exposing them to your site, encouraging an actual subscription. There is some evidence that this model yields more subscriptions and more return visits. This is our preferred solution since it benefits both you and our users. By default, first click free will apply for both Google News and Google Web Search results… Please let us know if you’d like this setting to be applied only to Google News results.

For publishers, its a great way to opt for paid content without losing much in terms of search. And for Google it allows paid content news sites to be searchable. But allowing searchers to read the first article for free is a tough term for a publisher to accept. It once again demonstrates the power Google has in the news market.

There are two problems from a publishers perspective, although these probably shouldn’t dissuade publishers from using First Click Free.

1. If the first click from Google is free, it is pretty trivial to access all of the publisher’s content for free, by routing through Google each time, or by using a URL extension or browser plugin that mimics that process. This is discussed in this post and the appended comments (re the Wall Street Journal).
2. More importantly, First Click Free strongly encourages users to use Google and Google News as their news interface, because individual publishers or other aggregations probably contain some content behind registration or paywall. This exacerbates the issue that publishers already face, where news is atomised and publisher brand strength is minimised in the face of news search engines and news aggregators. But can any publisher stop this trend?