SEO strategies for paywalled content
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For subscription publishers, striking a balance between discoverability and monetization is a constant challenge. This dynamic is particularly pronounced when it comes to search engine optimization.
Search engines provide a vital traffic source and discovery mechanism for many publishers. It’s a particularly valuable one given the specific intent that search referrals typically carry. Search traffic often proves most powerful for publishers catering to a highly specific audience or need, such as niche interest publishers, local news publishers, and those creating primarily business-related content.
At the same time, publishers operating paywalls must remain cognizant of their revenue models and business needs when evaluating SEO approaches, including:
- How much content should they give away for free to satisfy the needs of Google and other search engines, while ensuring audiences still have reason to subscribe?
- Can they effectively turn drive-by search visitors into paying subscribers?
- Does optimizing for search traffic make it easier for visitors to bypass their paywalls without subscribing?
Any publisher implementing a paywall across their site must ensure they’re aware of the potential ramifications and risks it may pose for their SEO performance.
How paywalls impact SEO
The goal of Google and other search engines is to crawl and evaluate content, and to present it in search results pages in a way that best serves the interests of their users. SEO specialists go to great lengths to ensure content is optimized and highly accessible both to search engines and site visitors in an attempt to maximize the search traffic it generates.
The use of paywalls runs somewhat counter to the interest of search engines given they’re specifically intended to restrict access to content, rather than to make it as open and accessible as possible.
As a result, any publisher that places content behind a paywall must think carefully about their expectations for search performance, and consider how search traffic relates to their specific business needs and priorities.
While it’s unlikely that paywalled content will perform as effectively as freely available content, a carefully considered and implemented SEO approach can be used to ensure that paywalled content generates as much search traffic as possible without undermining the interests and revenue models of subscription products and businesses.
Technical implementation
In addition to selecting an SEO strategy that best suits their needs and interests, subscription publishers must also ensure paywall implementations do not actively hurt their SEO initiatives.
When implemented ineffectively, paywalls can slow down sites and impact user experience in a way that can negatively impact their search performance. More importantly, paywalls can also trigger penalization by Google for practices such as content “cloaking,” when not implemented correctly to the search engine’s specifications.
This guide outlines approaches, tactics and technical considerations publishers should weigh in relation to their search engine optimization efforts. It’s based on best practices and strategies employed by major publishers and media companies, and is designed to help publishers determine the best course of action for their own products and businesses.
This guide focuses on SEO implications and tactics for paywalled content, but the same principles and approaches can also be applied to “registration walls” that unlock content when visitors take non-transactional actions such as creating an account or volunteering information or data.
Understanding paywall types
There are, broadly, three common approaches for implementing paywalls on publisher sites. Each comes with a unique set of SEO-related best practices and technical measures to consider, and each can have a significant impact on search rankings and the volume of organic traffic that could be referred by Google and other search engines.
These paywall types can be defined as:
Free or “unlocked” content (no paywall)
Most publishers offer access to some level of free or “unlocked” content. This content is not subject to paywalling.
Metered paywall
With metered paywall implementations, visitors are granted free access to a handful of articles or content pieces over a specific period of time, after which they’re required to pay for access. For example: Access to five free articles per month, or 50 articles per year.
Hard paywall
With hard paywall implementations, content is reserved exclusively for paying subscribers and is not accessible without payment. When employing hard paywalls, however, publishers typically use a “lead-in” to offer visitors access to a portion of each piece of paywalled content without displaying it in full.
Approaches for hard paywall lead-ins vary, but can be categorized as follows:
- Short lead-in/Headline only: Visitors can view the first few words or lines of a piece of content, in addition to its headline. Specific lead-in length can vary, but might be 1-3 paragraphs in length. In some instances publishers will forego a lead-in altogether, displaying only a headline to non-paying visitors.
- Long lead-in: Visitors can view a substantial portion of a piece of content, but must subscribe to access it in its entirety.
- Selective paywalling: Visitors can view the majority of content on the page, while access to specific parts — such as charts, data, or particularly valuable information — is locked for paying subscribers only.
The paywall types above can be combined to form “hybrid” models. For example:
- Publisher A might offer free/unlocked access to Type 1 content, but institute a hard paywall on all Type 2 content to create a “freemium” model.
- Publisher B might employ a meter for Type 1 content, while placing a hard paywall on content of Type 2.
In instances where hybrid models are employed, it’s advisable to ensure the appropriate SEO approaches and measures detailed below are applied to each independent content type, rather than applying a blanket approach to all content.
SEO considerations for different paywall types
Establishing which paywall type is “best” for a specific publisher depends on a range of factors and variables, including business model, active revenue streams, the nature of content, resources and technical capabilities, and more.
This section will unpack the SEO considerations, best practices and optimal technical implementations for each of the paywall types outlined above.
Free or “unlocked” content
There are no paywall-related considerations for free or unlocked content. Any content that is not subject to paywalling of any kind should typically offer free and open access to both visitors to encourage engagement and readership, and to Google and other search engines to promote optimal ranking, indexing, and organic traffic referral.
Metered paywalls
As far as Google and other search engines are concerned, metered content is technically identical to free or unlocked content. Web crawlers or “bots” operated by Google and other search engines crawl pages with clean “sessions,” and do not exhaust meter limits when analyzing pages as a result. Provided search engine crawlers can freely access metered content with their first “click” or page load, they’ll typically have unencumbered access to analyze it by default.
Google’s recommendations for metering
When establishing where to set content meter limits, publishers should prioritize their own business needs first and foremost, taking into account the nature and value of their content, revenue models, pricing structures and other factors and variables specific to their businesses.
That said, Google has issued its own “flexible sampling” recommendations for how much content publishers should offer for free via metered paywalls:
- For most daily news publishers, Google says it “expects the [meter] value to fall between six and 10 free articles per user per month.
- It “encourages” publishers to provide free access to 10 articles per month for visitors coming to their sites via Google search.
- It also recommends monthly metering over daily to offer greater flexibility and focus paywall views on sites’ most engaged visitors.
Hard paywalls
Publishers using hard paywalls to restrict access to content have six main SEO approaches to consider, each with their own advantages, drawbacks and considerations. These can be defined as:
- No search engine access, short lead-in
- No search engine access, long lead-in
- Search engine access via structured data, short lead-in
- Search engine access via structured data, long lead-in
- Search engine access via HTML, short lead-in
- Search engine access via HTML, long lead-in
No search engine access, short lead-in
This highly secure approach offers little or no free content to visitors, and uses server-side paywall technology to ensure protected content is not present in underlying page HTML. Google and other search engines are limited to evaluating headlines and short lead-in content only.
Advantages:
- Most secure option: Using server-side content protection, neither visitors nor search engines will have access to view or crawl paywalled content.
- Little or no content is offered to visitors without payment.
Drawbacks and other considerations:
- Google and other search engines will not have the ability to index paywalled content, and can analyze lead-in content only. This will likely limit organic search traffic and negatively impact search rankings.
- Visitors are offered little opportunity to sample content or to understand what value it might provide them.
- Server-side paywalls can require more technical input and expertise to implement effectively.
No search engine access, long lead-in
Provides visitors and search engines ample opportunity to sample and index content with a long lead-in, while ensuring protected content is firmly locked away and inaccessible to non-paying subscribers thanks to server-side paywall technology. Google and other search engines can access and evaluate headlines and long lead-in content, but not paywalled content.
Advantages:
- Visitors have an opportunity to sample content and understand what value it might provide them.
- Google and other search engines can freely analyze and index lead-in content, while protected content remains entirely locked and secure.
Drawbacks and other considerations:
- Search rankings and organic traffic might be improved by offering Google and other search engines the ability to analyze and evaluate full paywalled content in addition to just lead-in content.
Search engine access via structured data, short lead-in
This approach provides little or no free content to visitors, and uses server-side paywall technology to ensure locked content isn’t present in a webpage’s underlying HTML. It does allow Google and other search engines to access and analyze full paywalled content, however, using structured data.
(See the Technical SEO implementation section below for further information on structured data, and the Comparing server-side and client-side paywall technology guide for more information on server-side paywalls.)
Advantages:
- Google and other search engines can access and evaluate full paywalled content via structured data, potentially improving search rankings and boosting organic search traffic.
- Relatively secure option. Using server-side content protection, paywalled content is not present in underlying page HTML.
- Little or no content is offered to visitors without payment.
Drawbacks and other considerations:
- Visitors will technically be able to access paywalled content if they go to the effort of retrieving its structured data. Tools such as Google’s “rich results test” can be used to gain access to structured data, although it’s returned in a format that’s difficult to read and is unlikely to be attempted by the average user.
- Visitors are offered little opportunity to sample content or to understand what value it might provide them.
- Server-side paywalls can require more technical input and expertise to implement effectively.
Search engine access via structured data, long lead-in
Offers visitors an opportunity to sample content with a long lead-in, ensures content is not present in underlying HTML using server-side paywall technology, and allows Google and other search engines to access and analyze full paywalled content using structured data.
Advantages:
- Google and other search engines can access and evaluate full paywalled content via structured data, potentially improving search rankings and boosting organic search traffic.
- Relatively secure option. Using server-side content protection, paywalled content is not present in underlying page HTML.
- Visitors have an opportunity to sample content and understand what value it might provide them.
Drawbacks and other considerations:
- As with a short-lead in, visitors will technically be able to access paywalled content if they go to the effort of retrieving its structured data.
- Server-side paywalls can require more technical input and expertise to implement effectively.
Search engine access via HTML, short lead-in
This approach provides little or no free content to visitors, and employs client-side technology that results in paywalled content existing in the underlying HTML of a webpage. (More on client-side paywall technology here.)
Advantages:
- Google and other search engines can easily access and evaluate full paywalled content in the underlying HTML of pages, potentially improving search rankings and boosting organic search traffic. (Paywalled content must still be indicated to Google using structured data, however. (See the Technical SEO implementation section below for further information.)
- Little content is given to visitors without payment.
- Client-side paywalls are typically relatively easy to implement compared with server-side ones, and can offer greater flexibility for controlling paywall setup without significant technical input.
Drawbacks and other considerations:
- It’s relatively insecure. Visitors will technically be able to access paywalled content by examining the underlying HTML of pages.
- Visitors are offered little opportunity to sample content or to understand what value it might provide them.
Search engine access via HTML, long lead-in
This approach offers visitors an opportunity to sample content with a long lead-in, and employs client-side technology that results in paywalled content existing in the underlying HTML of a webpage. (More on client-side paywall technology here.)
Advantages:
- Google and other search engines can easily access and evaluate full paywalled content in the underlying HTML of pages, potentially improving search rankings and boosting organic search traffic. (Paywalled content must still be indicated to Google using structured data, however. See Technical implementations section below for further information.)
- Visitors have an opportunity to sample content and understand what value it might provide them.
- Client-side paywalls are typically relatively easy to implement compared with server-side ones, and can offer greater flexibility for controlling paywall setup without significant technical input.
Drawbacks and other considerations:
- It’s relatively insecure. Visitors will technically be able to access paywalled content by examining the underlying HTML of pages.
Technical SEO implementation for paywalled content
In order for Google to index any content that’s placed behind a hard paywall, it must be given an opportunity to access and evaluate it. This can be achieved two ways:
- Including paywalled content in underlying page HTML, which can be freely accessed by Google but hidden from the view of non-paying visitors on the front-end. (This is typical with client-side paywall implementations.)
- Using Article schema structured data to enable Google to access content that is not included in a page’s underlying HTML.
The following technical elements are important. Neglecting them or failing to implement them correctly can cause significant damage to search performance. Publishers introducing paywalls to previously free sites must tread particularly carefully, or risk seeing significant dips in their search rankings and organic search traffic.
Showing Google paywalled content with structured data
In instances where a publisher opts not to include paywalled content in a page’s underlying HTML, schema.org structured data can instead be used to offer Google an opportunity to evaluate it.
Google provides clear guidance on how to implement structured data for paywalled content using JSON-LD and microdata formats. Implementing structured data requires relatively technical expertise, but tools and plugins may be available to help when using content management systems and publishing platforms such as WordPress.
Once structured data has been implemented on a site, publishers should take care to ensure that Google has permission to crawl and access pages. They might also choose to implement a “noarchive” robots meta tag to prevent Google from showing cached links to pages in its search results, which may contain paywalled content.
Non-paying users will be able to access paywalled content by tapping into structured data if they have the technical expertise, but granting Google access to paywalled content via this method is typically considered more “secure” than simply including paywalled content in underlying page HTML.
Indicating paywalled content to avoid cloaking
In any instance where a publisher intends for Google to access and/or evaluate content that is not freely available to users, they must ensure that it’s clearly indicated — using structured data — to enable the search engine to differentiate between paywalled content and “cloaking”.
Cloaking refers to the practice of serving different content to Google’s crawlers than is visible to users, and is used by some publishers in an attempt to manipulate how Google understands and represents their pages. Cloaking is a violation of Google’s policies, and publisher sites can be penalized in search results if their paywalled content isn’t indicated correctly.
Google provides guidance on how to indicate paywalled content using structured data, but in instances where publishers include paywalled content in the underlying HTML of their pages, they must also ensure to clearly delineate in their markup between content that’s visible to all users and that which is made only to paying subscribers.
Google’s structured data testing tool can be used to ensure that a structured data implementation is correct.
Checklist and next steps
Paywalls create a challenge for publishers when it comes to striking a balance between discoverability and monetization. However, publishers that weigh their priorities carefully — and select an SEO strategy that best suits their business needs — can find an optimal middle ground.
