Google relaxes ‘first click free’ policy

SAN FRANCISCO: Google announced on Sunday that subscription news websites would no longer have to provide users three free articles per day or face less prominence in search results, relaxing its rules following complaints from media giants that their sales were suffering.

For the last decade, Google’s “first click free” policy helped ensure that non-subscribers wouldn’t be stifled by paywalls when they clicked on news articles from searches.

Google had contended that free samples would lead to increased subscriptions.

But apart from a few publications, online subscriptions haven’t taken off, and media companies such as the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) increasingly complained that freeloading users were cutting into sales.

This year, the WSJ stopped abiding by Google’s policy, corresponding to a drop in search rankings but an increase in subscriptions.

Google is now counting on the relaxed rules and subscription software that is under development to stop publishers from holding back content.

From hereon, publishers will be able to choose how many, if any, free articles they want to offer to Google searchers.

It also plans to launch free software for publishers that enables users to pay for content with credit card information that they’ve previously supplied to the search giant. Reuters