That is the precise inverse of what LinkedIn is doing.
Never used LinkedIn before, no account - see exactly what Google SERP shows.
Never used EE before, no account - you get a page asking you to "sign up" instead of the Google SERP page.
Re:The Absurdity of LinkedIn
by Netminder_EE on Saturday May 03, 2014 @07:48PM
(#7692757)
With respect, that's not true: http://www.ee-stuff.com/images/LoggedOutView.png
You DO get a message asking you to join just above the question, but nothing else.
They still exist?
Re:The Absurdity of LinkedIn
by Netminder_EE on Saturday May 03, 2014 @07:50PM
(#7692763)
Why wouldn't EE exist? Despite the best efforts of some well-known bloggers whose site wouldn't exist if it had to depend solely on actual income, EE exists because it has a business model that DOES work.
That's just one of the things EE was busted for. For logged in members, they would see the pages from a Google SERP one would expect to see; for non-members (or those who weren't logged in), they would see a page that said "sign up". It's not unprecedented -- the New York Times does the same thing -- but the way EE did it (over strong objections from the user community) was singularly creepy. That EE's competitors had Matt Cutts on speed dial just hastened the imposition of the Panda et seq. penalties.
The good news -- at least, for those of us who aren't natural born haters -- is that a change in management has resulted in the paywall coming down, and the penalties imposed are slowly but surely being overcome.