Google patent: indexing documents with restricted access

[nealrodriguez]

Library citation integration [patft.uspto.gov]

An online search system generates an index of documents using index information received from a library. Some documents have restricted access; some documents may not be available online. The search system provides links to documents in the library as well as other sites based on a search, and may include link resolvers received from the library. The search system provides access links to the link resolvers if an identifier, such as a user identification or IP address, matches an affiliation list from the library.

i am wondering if 'first click free' feature was designed in creation of this patent:

First click free: 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.

[google.com...]

i wonder what other features they'll come up with which could help webmasters with indexing and redirection issues on subscription-based sites.

[tedster]

Here's a recent discussion of "first click free": [webmasterworld.com...]

I don't see any way to supply googlebot with a library of identifiers in the existing program, however.

[Marcia]

First click free: 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.

Nope. They haven't got it down yet.

I came across an article in Google News yesterday that had the title right and an excerpt (snippet) taken from the article page. But when you clicked on the link you were taken to nothing more than a sign-up page you had to PAY for.

Those folks used a 302 redirect from the article, which I used a header checker to find out, so either they cloaked for Google, or 302's are not being handled properly.