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Google CEO Appeases Publishers With Subscriptions

  • Search engine drops controversial ‘first-click free’ program
  • Company won’t demote paywalled news sites in search results
Pedestrians walk past the Google Inc. offices in New York on Aug. 22.

Pedestrians walk past the Google Inc. offices in New York on Aug. 22.

Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
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A few years ago, Google regularly traded barbs with major news publishers in public. Today, Google is rewiring its search engine to appease them. 

The Alphabet Inc. unit is scrapping a contentious search result rule for subscription news sites and giving them new tools to attract more paying customers. It’s Google’s most significant step yet to to curry favor with news organizations that provide information for its search engine but have lost ad revenue from the rise of the internet. Facebook Inc., the primary driver of online news traffic, is taking similar steps.