PEmerald?ossible to Limit number of articles view without subscription

Guest unregistered visitor can read 3 articles per month

There is no technical solution to solve task like this. I mean not in our extensions in the world itself. You cannot limit if you do not know who is it. You can use cookie but user may easely reset cookies or use another browser or computer. You may use session but this will work only diring the session. IP also is not relayble.

So you cannot limit unregisrtered users at all. You wil not fine neither Joomla extension or Standalon application that will do that.

As for registered users, you can limit. There is usage limit parameter in the plan. You can create for example free plan with limit to 10 articles. And you can configure that every new user automaticaly gets this plan.

I know they are no perfect way to handle this put some newspapers like Lesechos.fr in France use such a method. I think they use cookies.

Another related question is the impact of restriction on Search Engine Optimization. I see on google news that if you access via google news you have no restriction to see the article. If you try a direct access it is impossible to see the same article without registration, i assume it is a way to ensure SEO is not impacted.

What is your point of view about it? It is important for us because google is our main source of traffic.

Regards

Pierre

As for registered users, you can limit. There is usage limit parameter in the plan. You can create for example free plan with limit to 10 articles. And you can configure that every new user automaticaly gets this plan.

In the documentation i read

Usage limit =How many times this subscription may be used. For example you restrict file download and you want that file mai be downloaded only 3 times.

It is the number of times you can open a new session (for instance with 10, i can connect 10 days to the website with unlimited access or i can access only to 10 restricted item ?

Can you please explain how this settings works?

Thank you in advance

Guest It is the number of times you can open a new session (for instance with 10, i can connect 10 days to the website with unlimited access or i can access only to 10 restricted item ?

It is a number of times you access within period of time. The period of time may be 1 month or 2 days. But within this time you can only

1. Read 10 articles
2. Read articles 10 times

Depending on usage count mode.

But to be clear it only works with registered users.

Guest Another related question is the impact of restriction on Search Engine Optimization. I see on google news that if you access via google news you have no restriction to see the article. If you try a direct access it is impossible to see the same article without registration, i assume it is a way to ensure SEO is not impacted.

This is complicated question. What you are trying to do can be classified as clocking - showing one page to search engine and another to your visitors. So better take care!

Although we do have parameter in restriction plugin to skip restrictionfor googlebot.

But again

1. It might be considered as clocking
2. User will have access to content of indexed page anyway. For example through Google cache.

What I can suggest is to create smal preview. Part of article should be wisible and only rest is requiring registration.