# Changes in First Click Free

> [!IMPORTANT]
> It's been a while since we published this blog post. Some of the information may be outdated (for example, some images may be missing, and some links may not work anymore).

Tuesday, December 01, 2009


We love helping publishers make their content available to large groups of readers, and working
on ways to make the world's information useful and accessible through our search results. At the
same time, we're also aware of the fact that creating high-quality content is not easy and, in
many cases, expensive. This is one of the reasons why we initially launched First Click Free for
[Google News](https://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?answer=40543)
and
[Google Web Search](https://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=74536)
---to allow publishers to sell access to their content in general while still allowing users
to find it through our search results.


While we're happy to see that a number of publishers are already using First Click Free, we've
found that some who might try it are worried about people abusing the spirit of First Click Free
to access almost all of their content. As most users are generally happy to be able to access just
a few pages from these premium content providers, we've decided to allow publishers to limit the
number of accesses under the First Click Free policy to
**five free accesses per user each day**. This change applies to both Google News publishers
as well as websites indexed in Google's Web Search. We hope that this encourages even more
publishers to open up more content to users around the world!

## Questions and answers about First Click Free


**Do the rest of the old guidelines still apply?**   

Yes, please check the
[guidelines for Google News](https://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?answer=40543)
as well as the
[guidelines for Web Search](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials)
and the
[associated blog post](https://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/first-click-free.html class=)
for more information.


**Can I apply First Click Free to only a section of my site / only for Google News (or only for
Web Search)?**   

Sure! Just make sure that both Googlebot and users from the appropriate search results can view
the content as required. Keep in mind that showing Googlebot the full content of a page while
showing users a registration page would be considered
[cloaking](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies#cloaking).


**Do I have to sign up to use First Click Free?**   

Please
[let us know](https://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/request.py?contact_type=report_update)
about your decision to use First Click Free if you are using it for Google News. There's no need
to inform us of the First Click Free status for Google Web Search.


**What is the preferred way to count a user's accesses?**   

Since there are many different site architectures, we believe it's best to leave this up to the
publisher to decide.


Please see our
[related blog post for more information on First Click Free for Google News](https://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/update-to-first-click-free.html).


Posted by
[John Mueller](https://johnmu.com/),
Webmaster Trends Analyst, Google Zürich