AI Summary: A paywall should describe a real access policy, not serve one version to crawlers and another to people. Google documents paywalled-content markup, crawl requirements, and preview controls; use those mechanisms only when the publisher wants the protected material crawled, and never treat them as a guarantee of AI visibility.
Start with the access decision
A paywall is a product and authorization boundary, not an SEO setting. Decide what is public, what requires registration or subscription, whether a preview is useful, and whether protected text should reach the browser. Tell people what is available and what unlocks the rest; do not make a crawler-only version that materially differs from their experience.
Google documents structured data for subscription and paywalled content so it can distinguish a declared paywall from cloaking. [1] The guidance is for content the publisher wants crawled and indexed. If protected material should not reach the browser at serving time, do not send it. That is different from publishing a crawlable preview.
Mark the protected region precisely
For an indexable paywall, give each protected section a class such as .paywall, then describe the page with isAccessibleForFree: false and a hasPart WebPageElement whose cssSelector points to that class. Google says the selector should use class names and that content sections should not be nested for this markup. [1]
A metered model can offer a defined number of articles before subscription, while a lead-in model exposes the beginning of an article. Google presents these as sampling approaches for publishers to test, not as a universal quota. [2] Keep the visible page, authorization response, markup, and preview controls consistent.
| Check | Evidence to record |
|---|---|
| Access | Public, registered, and subscribed states are documented |
| Markup | isAccessibleForFree and class selectors match the DOM |
| Bot policy | Intended crawlers receive the policy you actually publish |
| Preview | data-nosnippet or max-snippet choices are intentional |
Verify before publishing
Test logged-out, registered, and subscribed states. Compare each response's body, status, canonical link, and structured data. If the article is intended for discovery, verify the permitted crawler path; otherwise use an explicit exclusion policy.
A trustworthy paywall states access, serves authorized content, and exposes its boundary.
References
- Google Search Central: Structured data for subscription and paywalled content
- Google Search Central: Flexible Sampling general guidance