I agree it may be enough for some types of site in the short term (before they go bust, or realise their mistake ;) ), but the aim of FCF is to make premium content freely available, and if it becomes widespread (which I can't see happening in this form - for anything other than non-profit sites - or sites that don't really need signups anyway), awareness and tools will develop to automate this for users. I'd have to place little value on signups/payments on the content to use a system like this.
I'm suggesting that the entire model of allowing access based on referer is flawed, and suggesting a model by which IMO a better result could be achieved.
FCF is based on the idea that users want to be able to access stuff fully when they click on it (From Google, and by extension from any search engine or directory - why stop there?). I fundamentally don't think that this model is sustainable or securable.
I'm suggesting that it would be a better outcome for everyone if searchers were simply able to distinguish between these results, and choose to filter based on whether they would tolerate signup or pay-for links.
Someone has to pay for the web, and not all content is freely available. I think people will be much more understanding about this (and hence links will convert better to customers) if it's clear to them that the information will cost or require signup before they click on the link.
الخميس، 23 أكتوبر 2008
> Subscription/paid sites need signups to be susta...
> Subscription/paid sites need signups to be sustainable, and
> for a key aspect of their business cannot rely on such
> weak "security".
It could be enough for many sites to just show the registration box to say 80% of the people, not caring about all the different ways power users would see the content, as it's not really about "securing" the site to users (after all Google searchers can see it anyway; though the case may be different if you want to "secure" your site from non-Googlebot crawling). It's more about deceiving, uhm, I mean convincing enough people to send around the link they found in Google believing that the content will show to their friend, and then the friend will see the payment request instead of what was intended to be sent.
> for a key aspect of their business cannot rely on such
> weak "security".
It could be enough for many sites to just show the registration box to say 80% of the people, not caring about all the different ways power users would see the content, as it's not really about "securing" the site to users (after all Google searchers can see it anyway; though the case may be different if you want to "secure" your site from non-Googlebot crawling). It's more about deceiving, uhm, I mean convincing enough people to send around the link they found in Google believing that the content will show to their friend, and then the friend will see the payment request instead of what was intended to be sent.
Beth Ann,1) You don't need to spoof a referer to "...
Beth Ann,
1) You don't need to spoof a referer to "beat" this, all you need to do is do a Google search for
"site: www.premium-content-here.com" and then open all the links in a new tab. You then get the referer in a perfecly legimate way, and get access to all the FCF content. Not difficult.
2) How long do you think it would be before browser versions / plugins / mods appear with a "Via Google" button that reloads the page with a Google referer header? Various plugins and browsers already exist to alter these headers (mainly for debugging purposes), and don't require any specialist knowledge.
Subscription/paid sites need signups to be sustainable, and for a key aspect of their business cannot rely on such weak "security".
IMO, a better approach to this would be for search engines to support meta data about content (via the sitemap), which specifies whether or not it's free / signup, which appear in the search results, and allow the searcher to specify preferences about whether they require free/pay/subscribe sites in their results. Robust authentication of googlebot could allow webmasters to permit indexing of a full article whilst retaining it as premium content for customers.
Cloaking content in this way would be far less damaging, as users would be aware that they were about to view a pay / subscription link, and would have the option to filter their search results to restrict these sites if they wished.
If extra processing & development costs are an issue, Google could potentially charge businesses a small amount per clickthrough on links cloaked like this - in the manner of Adwords. The customer would be well aware that the link was pay / register beforehand, so the conversion rates would be high. Google searchers would of course want to be confident that search rankings were not otherwise affected by this, and would be able to filter those results if desired.
Deep / hidden web indexed, customers happy that they are in control of their search results. Businesses happy that their content can be found and conversion rates are high. Google making more money.
Everyone is happy, the world becomes a better place. Free cake for everyone. Steve hailed as saviour of teh interwebs.
Now I'm off to solve the Middle East. What's all the fuss about?
1) You don't need to spoof a referer to "beat" this, all you need to do is do a Google search for
"site: www.premium-content-here.com" and then open all the links in a new tab. You then get the referer in a perfecly legimate way, and get access to all the FCF content. Not difficult.
2) How long do you think it would be before browser versions / plugins / mods appear with a "Via Google" button that reloads the page with a Google referer header? Various plugins and browsers already exist to alter these headers (mainly for debugging purposes), and don't require any specialist knowledge.
Subscription/paid sites need signups to be sustainable, and for a key aspect of their business cannot rely on such weak "security".
IMO, a better approach to this would be for search engines to support meta data about content (via the sitemap), which specifies whether or not it's free / signup, which appear in the search results, and allow the searcher to specify preferences about whether they require free/pay/subscribe sites in their results. Robust authentication of googlebot could allow webmasters to permit indexing of a full article whilst retaining it as premium content for customers.
Cloaking content in this way would be far less damaging, as users would be aware that they were about to view a pay / subscription link, and would have the option to filter their search results to restrict these sites if they wished.
If extra processing & development costs are an issue, Google could potentially charge businesses a small amount per clickthrough on links cloaked like this - in the manner of Adwords. The customer would be well aware that the link was pay / register beforehand, so the conversion rates would be high. Google searchers would of course want to be confident that search rankings were not otherwise affected by this, and would be able to filter those results if desired.
Deep / hidden web indexed, customers happy that they are in control of their search results. Businesses happy that their content can be found and conversion rates are high. Google making more money.
Everyone is happy, the world becomes a better place. Free cake for everyone. Steve hailed as saviour of teh interwebs.
Now I'm off to solve the Middle East. What's all the fuss about?
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