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Back in February, the Wall Street Journal pulled out of Google’s "First Click Free" program, which allowed Google searchers to access some news content without a paywall barrier. While the WSJ benefited with a fourfold increase in the rate of visitors converting into paying customers, there was a catch: Google traffic plummeted 44 percent, as the search company’s algorithms and bots would only see limited portions of articles and rank them lower. Now they're accusing Google of discriminating against paid news sites.
“Any site like ours automatically doesn’t get the visibility in search that a free site would,” Suzi Watford, the Journal’s chief marketing officer, said in an interview. “You are definitely being discriminated against as a paid news site.” The Journal’s experience could have implications across the news industry, where publishers are relying more on convincing readers to pay for their articles because tech giants like Google and Facebook are vacuuming up the lion’s share of online advertising. The Journal’s owner, News Corp., competes with Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, in providing financial news and information.
“Any site like ours automatically doesn’t get the visibility in search that a free site would,” Suzi Watford, the Journal’s chief marketing officer, said in an interview. “You are definitely being discriminated against as a paid news site.” The Journal’s experience could have implications across the news industry, where publishers are relying more on convincing readers to pay for their articles because tech giants like Google and Facebook are vacuuming up the lion’s share of online advertising. The Journal’s owner, News Corp., competes with Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, in providing financial news and information.