The move comes as media titans bash Google for profiting from online news pages indexed by the California-based Internet giant and served at no cost to people searching for stories, photos or other material online.<\/p>\n
Google said publishers can join a First Click Free program that lets the Internet firm index website content but prevents Web surfers from having unrestricted access once they reach the online locales.<\/p>\n
An Internet user’s first click leads to the desired Web page, but attempts to delve deeper into a website are routed to payment or registration pages, according to Google.<\/p>\n
“Previously, each click from a user would be treated as free,” Google senior business product manager Josh Cohen said in a blog post.<\/p>\n
“Now, we’ve updated the program so that publishers can limit users to no more than five pages per day without registering or subscribing.”<\/p>\n
The change announced Tuesday means Google users may start seeing registration pages pop up when they click for a sixth time on any given day at websites of publishers using First Click Free, according to Cohen.<\/p>\n