American newspapers deleted from Newspaper Index because of their registration systems
More American newspapers are using registration systems. It is not a good idea. Newspaper Index explains why registration sites are bad links.
A couple of days ago I got an email from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, one of the largest American newspapers. They asked me to include their online edition on Newspaper Index. After my review I found that all articles require registration and therefore I had to I had to refuse their kind request.
It seems to me that those newspapers that have chosen to build registration systems are getting more and more frustrated and in need of traffic.
They get no traffic anymore from search engines because crawlers can´t access and index their articles.
User are moving to other sites where they can get hassle free content.
Webmasters like me won’t link to their sites because registration sites simply are considered low quality links.
Mr. Eric Bates from The Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote me back:
Washington Post and NY Times (and many others) require registration. It’s free. Why should the AJC be singled out for exclusion?
NY Times and Washington Post have content that can be accessed without registration and some only for registrants. This is the reason that they still are listed on Newspaper Index.
I have deep respect for the few newspapers that can sell their content online. Registration policies are considered by all online newspapers and the downward newspaper market are forcing media organizations to try something new.
The problem is that most users find the registration experience annoying and the days are over when the regular Internet user just visited like 5-10 sites daily. Consumers of online news to day are seeking news from many more sources and that makes passwords and registration a no-go.
See the best american newspapers here
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I’d hate to see you let facts get in the way of what clearly is a religious argument here, but maybe we should explain a few of your statements above:
1. Can you cite statistics that show these registration sites get “no traffic anymore from search engines because crawlers can´t access and index their articles.” Have you been to Google News lately? They don’t seem to have a hard time indexing the content that’s behind these registration walls.
2. What content, specifically, are you referring to on the New York Times site that doesn’t require registration? I haven’t found much worthwhile content that falls into that category. Is it possible your list comes up short when it’s missing NYTimes and Washington Post but you believe you can sacrifice a paper like AJC? If so, might be better to just admit that up front.
3. Users do find registration “annoying.” They also find advertising annoying. Guess what? We’re not going to stop running ads. And if registration furthers our business objectives, we’re going to do that, too.
(Full discloser: I work for a company where most of our papers require registration. We believe it is a solid business model, and we’re not seeing an exodus of users or traffic as a result.)
Comment by Benz — April 13, 2005 @ 9:51 pm
Hi Benz
1. I do not have statistics to back up my idea. Can you show me a log that shows how a bot fills out a registration scheme?
2. All frontpage articles can be accessed without registration on NY Times. Works from Europe at least. The same goes for Washington Post. I have recently deleted Dallas Morning Post for the same reason that I would not list AJC. (they can buy a sponsored link if they need traffic)
3. Ads might help you to reach your business objectives - registration wont. -Unless you are going to save money by the decrease in traffic…
-Ok this is where I get religious :-)
My point is that the whole registration thing is a desperate experiment that does not benefit readers or newspapers. I am not an expert on this, I am a journalist and power-user of online newspapers and it is clear to me that registration is larger sites first step towards paid content. -And paid content is fine, I just don´t want to be a part of newspapers testing phase and I think my users are of the same opinion. If only listing non-registration links on Newspaper Index is good for my business objectives, thats what I am going to do.
Please see my other writings about this topic:
American newspapers that charge their readers
Information wants to be free
Comment by Hans Henrik Lichtenberg — April 13, 2005 @ 11:29 pm
Hey Hans:
1. Bots can be permitted to enter without registering. We allow them through, as do other sites that require registration. It’s not that tough to do.
2. I think we’re splitting hairs on this one. The NYTimes or Post allowing users to see a small fraction of their content without registering doesn’t seem all that different to me from what AJC and Dallas are doing. But your site, your rules.
3. There is money here. We are making money with registration that we wouldn’t be making otherwise. It’s a small fraction of what we’re doing in general advertising, but it’s growing quickly and I’m convinced it will outstrip general advertising over the next few years.
As for your doing what’s best for your business objectives, more power to you. I think we just have to respectfully disagree on that one. I guess I’m of a different denomination (or maybe I’m bowing before an entirely differnt god … ;-)
Comment by Benz — April 14, 2005 @ 3:48 am
Hi again
- and thanks for your reply. You are right about the crawlers - I did not know that it is possible.
I think you know a lot about the registrations systems from a publishers perspective. Please enlighten me:
How are newspapers making money with registration for free content?
What business models are newspapers working with regarding this?
Best
Comment by Hans Henrik Lichtenberg — April 14, 2005 @ 11:48 am
Two models, primarily. I apologize in advance for rambling a bit here …
1. During registration, we are gathering demographic data and asking users if they’re willing to receive e-mail messages from our sponsors. Surprisingly, up to 30 percent of them do want these e-mails. As we’re doing initial e-mail campaigns with the lists we’ve created, we’re seeing much higher CPMs and click-through rates on e-mail campaigns than we ever saw on run of site banner ad inventory. You can do this without registration, but registration allowed us to roll it forward in a consistent, organized manner.
2. We’re starting to target our advertising based on the demographic data and behavior activities of our registered users. For instance, if we know someone is interested in cars because they checked that box during registration, and we see that they’re using our automotive section, we can start serving auto banners to them as they move through the site — whether they’re in the auto section or not. To avoid potential privacy concerns, we’re not singling out individuals. We create segments of audience with similar demographic or behavioral traits and serve to those segments. We divorce any personal info (excluding general demographics) from info attached to these segments. Initially, we expected to see higher CPMs on these campaigns. That hasn’t fully materialized for us yet, but we are seeing more effective campaigns. Which means advertisers are getting better results, whch means advertisers are more likely to continue advertising with us.
I want to stress that we aren’t claiming to have this all figured out. We’re in very early stages. But I think it’s promising.
One other point: We are finding that a lot of that traffic we’re not getting now is traffic that’s of limited value to us. In other words, these are drive-by users: People who stop in only once to see one story and don’t return. They’re often out of market, and our advertisers aren’t terribly interested in reaching them (our sites tend to be very local). So before registration, this type of traffic was getting a lot of very low CPM ads. Barely enough to cover the cost of the pages we were serving. When this traffic goes away, we really don’t lose much. And our overall traffic patterns are increasing, though not at the rate they were before registration.
One tweak we are considering is allowing a few “free” views before you are required to register. This is mostly to stop people from filling out bogus info to get that one story they’re looking for when they have no intention of ever coming back. But even despite this, we’re finding that our registration database is surprisingly clean — up to 95% of our registered users give us accurate information.
Comment by Benz — April 14, 2005 @ 12:23 pm
A compromise
I really appreciate this discussion and your well informed postings.
Your latest one is pointing right at the problem: Only some users are of value to you and those users are not the same as mine. Mine are mostly from abroad and they are probably the ones that surf away when they reach the registration page. Or they fill in false information.
The free view idea is very good. In that way you can protect your income model and still have an open window to the world. If AJC and Dallas Morning Post implement this I will include them in the index.
Please keep me updated about this if you work for any of these newspapers.
Comment by Hans Henrik Lichtenberg — April 14, 2005 @ 2:00 pm
For what it’s worth, the AJC’s registration form is completely unfriendly to anyone without a US-formatted postal address. I sent them an e-mail about this, and their response was to make up a phone number and postal code and choose “Georgia” as your state.
Here’s my blog entry on the subject, with the AJC’s e-mail response quoted:
http://www.zone38.net/blog/2004/11/18/671/
Comment by codeman38 — May 9, 2005 @ 4:20 pm