WebProNews

Two years after dropping its columnists behind a subscription wall, the New York Times tore down the barrier to a valuable source of traffic: search engines. It isn't as dramatic as the fall of the Berlin Wall years ago, but readers of the Times should be thrilled with the decision to put an end to Times Select. The subscription program allowed people to access the Times' archives, and to read pieces by its op-ed columnists.

The Times learned the lesson that AOL discovered: openness and ad revenue beat walled gardens and subscription fees. Richard Pérez-Peña wrote of the change of focus at the Times. They discovered the joys of search traffic:

What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.

“What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others,” (Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of NYTimes.com) said.

While most of the Times' archives will now be free to access, Pérez-Peña said certain content from the period 1923 to 1986 will carry a charge.

The move by the Times could be a harbinger of another possible switch from subscription fees to an audience supported model. The Wall Street Journal has charged for access to its web content from shortly after their site's inception to the present day.

Rupert Murdoch, the new owner of the Journal, has suggested this could happen. Perhaps the move by the Times will give him motivation to make this happen.