Google Allows news publishes to limit free content

Rupert Murdoch most certainly was the first media mogul to air his dissatisfaction at Google. He accused the company of "theft" and "misappropriation"  of content it indexes from his news sites. Google news which has fast become the most favored destination for people looking for news, with its indexing of over 25,000 news sites and blogs. Has been accused by Murdock of indexing content and gaining traction and not paying for the content it indexes.

This has been the hear of the matter. Google has now made an announcement that news publishers will be able to limit free content and decide which parts of their content the search engine needs to index.

WSJ reports that

"For several years, Google has allowed publishers to make individual articles that are behind a pay wall free through Google, through a service called "First Click Free." Previously, users could access an unlimited number of stories this way. Now, it will allow publishers to impose a cap of five free stories a day while continuing to allow them to grant access to more."

The final few sentences from the Google blog is worth reprinting here.

These are two of the ways we allow publishers to make their subscription content discoverable, and we're going to keep talking with publishers to refine these methods. After all, whether you're offering your content for free or selling it, it's crucial that people find it. Google can help with that.

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