Protected content in Ghost is exactly that. It is fully protected. This is one of the benefits of using Ghost for memberships, compared to tools which use JavaScript to protect content and can easily be bypassed. Many membership sites and news outlets lose revenue because people know how to bypass their paywalls, and this problem is only going to get worse as memberships become more prevalent.
If SEO is important to you, it’s recommended to publish public content. Either in the form of full articles, or by using the member preview divider on a member-only post, to give the search engines more content to crawl on each page.
We might be misunderstanding each other, but what I mean is this;
Text here
Protected content here
Text here
Can the preview divider be used for that? It seem to only be applicable to members and by that I mean; it does not distinguish between a member and a paying member. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
The divider is intended to be used exactly like this - you can have as much content above or below the divider as you wish.
Content below the divider will be only visible to logged in members if the post access level is set to members only and to paid members when the post access level is set to paid-members only.
We’ll publish an official announcement and docs about this feature very soon
I understand that now. It would however be very useful if the divider had toggles for “up / down” so that we could control different parts of the content.
If I’m understanding correctly, this is exactly what I’ve been asking and hoping for! We post bonus episodes of our podcast for paid members. The audio player is at the top of the post, and all the content below (show notes and description) I would love to be able to be visible to not only web crawlers, but to visitors, so they can see the nitty gritty of what’s in the episode and entice more conversions. Quick question- is the preview content ‘text only’, like the excerpt? Or does it accept images and widgets like the regular editor. Is this out in the latest version or coming soon? Thanks!!
@Kym It would however be very useful if the divider had toggles for “up / down” so that we could control different parts of the content, as it is very limited (either top or bottom) - which is not very user friendly or useful.
@beliefhole.podcast It works with all content/cards :) Anything above the divider is public, anything below is protected. You can use any amount or type of content in either section. Read more here.
@thebear.dev It is not limited at all, I already confirmed this. You can put the divider between any paragraph or card at any point in your page and it can be dragged and dropped. This is exactly the same as how other cards work in the editor.
@Kym No, we can’t. It’s like you said, it’s either top or bottom. We cannot insert free, paid, free, paid and keep going like that. If we can, then please explain how since no matter what I’ve tried - that setup does not work on a post set to paid.
I’ve found the easiest way to solve this problem is to have valuable free and pay content. My site I’m developing is set up to be free for student content in a specific industry, then the content behind the paywall is geared toward professionals either in their career or just beginning their career. On your site, if there’s some portion of your niche that can make a good intro for your premium content, that could probably solve the challenge you’re having.
Exactly. Which is what we are trying to say; it would be nice with toggles on it so that we better could control the content. The best combo would be being able to insert more than one and to be able to use them in all posts no matter the post status (public, members or paid).
I am just trying to understand why the team behind this chose to make it limited like this. All we can hope is that an update is coming that overall improves this.
@thebear.dev you have repeatedly asked the same question and been given a clear answer.
The feature is a divider for a singular public preview. It has been explained several times how it works, and that it’s intended to work that way, and at this point you are just confusing everyone with your arbitrary demands for it to work differently.
It is not going to work differently. There are no plans, at all, to change how it works. You are very welcome to use the feature if you want to, or not use the feature if you don’t want to.
Thanks for the clarification, Kym! Super stoked you guys added this feature. Massive help for SEO. Ghost gets more awesomer (not a word, but appropriate) by the minute! Thanks again!!
I feel that I was trying to understand it’s functionality while giving feedback on how it could and would be even more useful to those who use it.
I was not and am not giving out demands. If it came across that way, I am sorry.
I now understand that in order for it to work, it can only be used in posts that are set to be for paying members only and it can only be used once per post / page. Hence my feedback.
What you guys do with that feedback (I was not and am not the only one giving the same feedback) is obviously up to you.
That said, I think that a lot of users here feel that a lot of feedback is ignored, as do I from time to time.
I also feel that the overall system is kind of made for developers / tech savvy users. While that does not bother me, there are those who have expressed it and they were kind of shut down.
Well, that is the first time when I actually hear or read such a thing. I do not really understand why should the members post actually affect the search engine optimization. There is no sense in that. I mean, those posts are not even indexed by the googlebot, as he is not interested in them. Moreover, I am sorry guys but are you actually taking duplicate content for serious?! Duuuude, just like thebear.dev said above, duplicate content is never a good idea.
Yes, Google bots can’t crawl content behind a login, so members-only posts won’t be indexed unless you take the right steps.
Use teaser content – Show a preview or intro that Google can index. Paywall schema – Helps Google understand gated content. Internal linking – Link to members-only posts from public pages to boost authority.
[edited: no self promotion outside of marketplace, please]
Use teaser content – Show a preview or intro that Google can index.