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In order to better understand the potential effect of changes in selective analysis of Google users and publisher’s subscription models, we developed a series of experiments in collaboration with our publication partners. We found out that even minor changes in the levels of the sample can worsen the experience of users and, since access is limited, unintentional to influence the ranking of articles in the search for Google.
There are two types of selective analysis that we recommend: a metering that provides users with a quota of articles to read before a subscription or entrance to the system is required, after which paid walls begin to appear, and Lead-in, which offers part of the content of the article without showing it completely.
We urge publishers to carefully experiment with various sample volumes. Here are some general recommendations for the implementation of flexible selective analysis.
In general, we believe that monthly, not daily metering, provides more flexibility and a safe environment for testing. The impact on users from changing one value to the next less significant for, say, 10 articles per month than in 3 articles daily. Monthly metering also has an advantage in the fact that it will focus for paid walls on your most active users, which are more likely to subscribe, while new and less involved users will be able to familiarize themselves with the value of your content before encountering a paid barrier. (In this context, the "Paid Wall" is applied as to barriers requiring either subscription or registration for access to content.)
There is no single value for the optimal sample suitable for various businesses. However, for most daily news publishers, we expect that this value will be in the range from 6 to 10 articles for the user per month. We believe that most publishers will find the meaning in this range, which retains good user experience for new potential subscribers, simultaneously providing opportunities for conversion among the most involved users.
As a starting point for your experiments, we recommend that you provide 10 articles a month users of your site in Google and configure them in the future. We leave the exact number at the discretion of each publisher, who best understands the features of his business. We also urge publishers to analyze the current percentage of users from the search that fall on their paid walls, and choose a monthly amount that will achieve a similar result. You can always reduce the value later, after being sure that everything is stable.
In addition to metering, some publishers show the first few proposals of the article “Above the paid wall” after the sample limit is exhausted. We believe that this is a good practice. By placing the introductory part of the article, publishers can allow users to see the value of content and thus provide more benefits than just a page with completely blocked content. Lead-in also causes users curiosity that can help in increasing conversion.
Publishers must experiment with various sample values in order to determine their influence on referral traffic and conversion.
Remember that our users' research has shown that when users who have seen only a small amount of content are forced to subscribe, their interest in the product is significantly reduced. Our analysis showed that the total satisfaction of users begins to decrease significantly when paid walls are shown more than 10% of the time (which usually means that about 3% of the audience encountered a paid barrier). We recommend caution by approaching this limit, as you can start repelling users who have not yet been convinced of the value of your content.
Publishers with more developed technical resources can concentrate efforts on a narrower audience, for example, on those users who actively use the entire sample limit. Having identified users who are constantly exhausting the monthly limit, publishers can focus on these segments by reducing the limit for these users, simultaneously allowing more free consumption for other users to reduce the risk of deterioration of users and their satisfaction.
Surround paid content structured data to help Google distinguish between paid content from cloacing practice when the content shown by Googlebot differs from what is shown to users.
More information on how to specify paid content using structured data for your Google site can be found in the corresponding materials.
For all questions, you can contact the SEO company "Seo.computer" by email info@seo.computer or through WhatsApp by number +79202044461.
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