Google has launched some goodies for news publishers, including a new Reader Revenue Manager within the Google Publisher Center and a Subscribed content report in Google Search Console. Google announced this on Twitter saying, "We're happy to update that Search Console is launching a new rich results status report, "Subscribed content", to help Reader Revenue Manager publishers measure their traffic from Search queries and fix their structured data."
Let's dig into these changes now that I have had a day or so to play with them:
Reader Revenue Manager
News publishers who have logins to the Google Publisher Center will now find a new section named "Reader Revenue Manager." This section should make it easier for readers to subscribe to your content using their Google account through the Subscribe with Google news feature.
In Reader Revenue Manager publishers can set up pricing and payment methods on how the publisher would like to get paid. You can pick between:
(1) Subscriptions:
- You want to limit access to some or all of your content (for example, basic or premium)
- You want to set a price point for content access for your known readers
(2) Contributions:
- Most of your content is usually accessible free of charge
- You'd like your readers to choose a price point that is comfortable for them
- You'd like to offer the option of one-time or recurring contributions
Here are screenshots of what I see here (click to enlarge):
Once that is set up, and you start to accept payments for your content - which I do not plan to do - then you may see a new report in Google Search Console for "Subscribed content."
Subscribed Content Report
The new Subscribed content report in Google Search Console should be visible for those news publishers that have set up the Reader Revenue Manager payment methods, I believe.
This report lets you:
(1) Measure their traffic from Google search queries from Subscribed content to see how they are performing and
(2) Fix their structured data issues with your article content and Flexible Sampling and paywalled content methodology.
Glenn Gabe shared this screenshot of the report on Twitter, this report is blank but it would show performance and valid vs invalid issues with your articles:
Here is also what Google shared on this on Twitter:
We're happy to update that Search Console is launching a new rich results status report, "Subscribed content", to help Reader Revenue Manager publishers measure their traffic from Search queries and fix their structured data https://t.co/66ZP0DOwrJ
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) April 19, 2023
Forum discussion at Twitter.
