WSJ Ends Google Users' Free Ride, Then Fades in Search Results

Re:WSJ Ends Google Users' Free Ride, Then Fades in Search Re... by gregable on Monday June 05, 2017 @05:46PM (#14492453)

It would be very interesting if Search could differentiate between the three users:

- WSJ subscriber, where WSJ results should be present and maybe even get a ranking boost.

- User happy with paywall results, these results could be surfaced, with UI treatment indicating paywall.

- User uninterested in paywall results, where these results would be essentially removed.

The ranking between the latter 2 of these users could be a bit of a sliding scale too, rather than two distinct groups.

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Re:WSJ Ends Google Users' Free Ride, Then Fades in Search Re... by kevin_thibedeau on Monday June 05, 2017 @06:13PM (#14492717)

Why is it Google's responsibility to administer all this? They have a published algorithm that is intended to maximize fair play on the web. If you don't like that algorithm find a way to buy off the other search engines for paid placement.

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Re:WSJ Ends Google Users' Free Ride, Then Fades in Search Re... by untangle on Monday June 05, 2017 @10:37PM (#14494281)

>> Why is it Google's responsibility to administer all this?

Setting "don't be evil" aside, Google's only responsibility is to Google.

But here's the rub. Google's product is its users' attention. If they bias their search results enough, (maybe) they lose product inventory.

How much is "enough"? Probably much more than filtering WSJ.

But IMO bias in a search engine – a presumed oracle of truth – is evil. So there's that.

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Re:WSJ Ends Google Users' Free Ride, Then Fades in Search Re... by sgift on Tuesday June 06, 2017 @02:18AM (#14495161)

If you think that bias is a bad idea than Googles current approach seems okay. They don't bias against WSJ, but they don't bias for WSJ either - The Google bot has less material to work with, so their is less content compared to other sources, so it has a worse ranking. No bias.

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Re:WSJ Ends Google Users' Free Ride, Then Fades in Search Re... by ukyrgf on Tuesday June 06, 2017 @12:32AM (#14494761)

There are no more unique WSJ results if they're all a paywall.

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Re:WSJ Ends Google Users' Free Ride, Then Fades in Search Re... by ryandrake on Monday June 05, 2017 @06:11PM (#14492697)

They could apply a subtle background (like they do for sponsored results) to results that are behind a paywall, behind a registration-wall, or otherwise inaccessible.

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Re:WSJ Ends Google Users' Free Ride, Then Fades in Search Re... by dragonwriter on Tuesday June 06, 2017 @02:22AM (#14495175)

Or they could just demote them, since inaccessible by any of those means less likely to be useful to a searcher.

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Re:WSJ Ends Google Users' Free Ride, Then Fades in Search Re... by pfooti on Monday June 05, 2017 @10:10PM (#14494155)

Alternatively, wsj could sponsor those results, and jump to the top with their paywalled content.

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