Structured data for subscription and paywalled content (CreativeWork)

This page describes how to use schema.org JSON-LD to indicate paywalled content on your site
with
CreativeWork
properties. This structured data helps Google differentiate paywalled content from the
practice of cloaking, which
violates spam policies.
Learn more about
subscription and paywalled content.

Example

Here’s an example of
NewsArticle
structured data with paywalled content.

Guidelines

You must follow the
general structured data guidelines and
technical guidelines for
your page to be eligible to appear in search results. In addition, the following guidelines
apply to paywalled content:

• JSON-LD and microdata formats are accepted methods for specifying structured data for
  paywalled content.
• Don’t nest content sections.
• Only use .class selectors for the cssSelector property.
• If you don’t want the content to be accessible to the browser at the time of serving, choose a
  paywall implementation that doesn’t supply the paywalled content to the browser. If you use a
  client-side JavaScript solution, check our guidance on using JavaScript to implement paywalled content.

Add markup to paywalled content

If you offer any
subscription-based access to
your website content, or if users must register for access to any content you want to be
indexed, follow these steps. The following example applies to
NewsArticle structured data. Make sure to follow these steps for
all versions of your page (including AMP and non-AMP).

1. Add a class name around each paywalled section of your page. For example:
2. Add NewsArticle
   structured data.
3. Add the highlighted JSON-LD structured data to your
   NewsArticle structured data.
4. Validate your code using the Rich Results Test
   and fix any critical errors.

Multiple paywalled sections

If you have multiple paywalled sections on a page, add the class names as an array.

Here’s an example of the paywalled sections on a page:

Here’s an example of NewsArticle
structured data with multiple paywalled sections.

Supported types

This markup is supported for the
CreativeWork
type or one of the following more specific types of CreativeWork:

• Artículo
• NewsArticle
• Blog
• Comment
• Course
• HowTo
• Mensaje
• Review
• WebPage

Multiple schema.org types can be used, such as the following:

"@type": ["Article", "LearningResource"]

You must include the required properties for Google to understand that your article has paywalled
content. You can add the recommended properties for more granularity about which sections of a page
are behind a paywall (or require a subscription or registration).

AMP considerations

Here’s a list of considerations to keep in mind if you use AMP pages:

• If you have an AMP page with paywalled content, use
  amp-subscriptions
  where appropriate.
• Make sure that your authorization endpoint grants access to content to the appropriate bots
  from Google and others. This is different per publisher.
• Ensure that your bot access policy is the same for AMP and non-AMP pages, otherwise this can
  result in content mismatch errors that appear in Search Console.

Generative AI in Search considerations

AI Overviews and AI Mode offer a preview of a topic or query based on a variety of sources, including web sources.
As such, they are subject to Search’s
preview controls.

Make sure Google can crawl and index your pages

If you want Google to crawl and index your content, including the paywalled sections, make
sure Googlebot, and
Googlebot-News if
applicable, can access your page.

Use the URL Inspection tool
to test how Google crawls and renders a URL on your site.

Control what information is shown in search results

To exclude certain sections of your content from appearing in search result snippets, use the
data-nosnippet HTML attribute.
You can also limit how many characters a search result snippet may have by using the
max-snippet robots meta tag.

Troubleshooting

If you’re having trouble implementing or debugging structured data, here are some resources that
may help you.

• If you’re using a content management system (CMS) or someone else is taking care of your site,
  ask them to help you. Make sure to forward any Search Console message that details the issue to them.
• Google does not guarantee that features that consume structured data will show up in search results.
  For a list of common reasons why Google may not show your content in a rich result, see the
  General Structured Data Guidelines.
• You might have an error in your structured data. Check the
  list of structured data errors
  and the Unparsable structured data report.
• If you received a structured data manual action against your page, the structured data on
  the page will be ignored (although the page can still appear in Google Search results). To fix
  structured data issues, use the Manual Actions report.
• Review the guidelines again to identify if your content isn’t compliant
  with the guidelines. The problem can be caused by either spammy content or spammy markup usage.
  However, the issue may not be a syntax issue, and so the Rich Results Test won’t be able to
  identify these issues.
• Troubleshoot missing rich results / drop in total rich results.
• Allow time for re-crawling and re-indexing. Remember that it may take several days after
  publishing a page for Google to find and crawl it. For general questions about crawling and indexing, check the
  Google Search crawling and indexing FAQ.
• Post a question in the Google Search Central forum.