Google is taking down its ‘first-click free’ program

There is good news for digital content creators particularly in the fields of blogging and other forms of content writing by Google. For almost a decade, the search engine adopted a policy of First Click Free which hampered the publishers’ opportunity to post meaningful and insightful content.

If content writers wanted their blogs and articles to be easily found by the readers, these publishers had to accept the mandate of First Click Free. Now, the end of this policy by the search engine means that from now on journalists and content writers will have a higher return on their content in monetary terms.

The First Click Free bounded writers to offer some free stories to the search engine if they had to list their work in the top results of search engine. By the end of this era, it will be the publishers’ choice to allow as many free articles as they wish to and there are no more hidden terms and conditions that may increase the quantity of content on Google but result in a declining quality.

Google has just announced the closure of the previous system but there is yet no discussion regarding the revenue model that would aid the publishers. This move is seen as a measure that would benefit Google in the long run because the business model of the company lays great emphasis on the revenue generated from Google News and other pertinent content sources. The searchable information and the paid advertisements that Google publishes are two significant revenue sources for the company. According to the Media Statistics of 2017, the United State’s digital ad revenue in 2017 had a major stake of around 47% held by Google.

Many news and journalism firms have seen this new initiative as beneficial and lucrative for the freelancers and independent writers who often faced financial issues due to Google’s past policies regarding content creation and its marketing.

These recent developments are interesting to see. Google seems to be concerned about the neck to neck competition in different markets from Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and other brands. The company has a diversified set of interests with investments in Chromebook industry, smartphone market, search engine, and other fields. Google recently hired 2000 R&D experts from HTC and has been developing its upcoming Pixel phone with a lot of market insight and innovation to compete with the much awaited iPhone X, RED’s Hydrogen, Huawei’s Mate 10, and several other competitors.