Google Changes "First Click Free" Policy For Google News and Search

[engine]

Google has updated its First Click Free policy over subscriber content behind a paywall. Previously, Google had a limit of five clicks per day, but now it's said it's reducing that to three clicks per day.

Today we are announcing a change to the FCF limit to allow a limit of three articles a day. This change will be valid on both Google Search and Google News. Google Changes "First Click Free" Policy For Google News and Search [googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com]

The spirit of the First Click Free effort was - and still is - to help users get access to high quality news with a minimum of effort, while also ensuring that publishers with a paid subscription model get discovered in Google Search and via Google News.

In 2009, we updated the FCF policy to allow a limit of five articles per day, in order to protect publishers who felt some users were abusing the spirit of this policy.

[Xpat]

Interesting. I've been procrastinating for two years over making the move to this model (putting my content behind a free 'registration wall'). I think I'll make the move before year end.