I run a subscription-based website and I also sell a plugin for Wordpress that provides subscription services, so I've wrestled with this subject a lot.
Any subscription-based website admin/author will tell you that they are continually trying to find the happy medium of giving enough teaser (public) material to show what the site is about, its quality and depth, etc, but not giving it all away. After all, your aim is to have people pay to read the rest of it.
This balance can and is already achieved by admins selecting some info for public viewing and restricting the rest.
I'm a big fan of Google and the technology it has introduced over the years, but I don't think this suggestion in its current form will be embraced because Google is asking to circumvent this crucial and delicate balance.
I might be more interested in this if Google's search engine would not display the FCF content in its search results (won't this show up in the cached area?), yet still have the search engine match any terms that the bot may have found in the FCF page. Also, I don't think the user's should be given any FCF privileges - only the Google Bot and only if it doesn't reveal exactly what it saw. If the user is interested in the content then let the website decide whether to let them in or not - maybe with a free trial if they signup, or a discount on a new subscription, or whatever the admin thinks is best.
Many thanks to Google though for at least sharing with us what goes on inside its incubator and giving us an opportunity to comment. How many other titans out there are so open and engaging. Thank you Google, I appreciate that.
- BC.
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