What if someone tries to get around the paywall?

The more you lock down your content the less Google and social traffic will occur. Most publishers are willing to accept that a small percentage of visitors work actively at getting around paywalls.

The success of a metered paywalls is typically tied to the ability to offer 1 or more free articles so that your content is fully indexed by Google and can be shared in social media. 

Generally publishers are enjoying paid digital subscriptions by metering the content and understanding that a minority will download/share (good thing)/and get around the paywall any way they can. These readers will typically not pay to subscribe.

Things that are practical to help block getting around the paywall

1. Use our IP Blocker which halts the ability for a visitor to switch or use incognito browsers. An IP that is blocked will be reset based on the time frame of the "Limited Article Cookie Expiration" setting in Leaky Paywall. It resets individually for every single IP address based on when it was first logged. It does not reset all the IP addresses at once.
2. Locking down (0 article access) 'subscriber only' content: You can lock down content only for paid subscribers using categories, tags, or individual article pages. This will keep out search and AI crawlers. You can also set a 0:1 registration wall to collect emails. Ex: for a category of subscriber only content you can set the access to 0 articles but allow free registered readers to see 1 piece of content.
3. removepaywall.com and other bypass methods: If you hard lock an article from the start these methods will not let readers at your content. If the article has ever been available for free or metered at any point, it's been saved in the web archive like system and hard locking will not work.
4. You can hard lock content and then let referring sources in for 1 article in order to index your content. Ex: Google, Linkedin, email etc.
5. Password sharing can be restricted but creates some admin effort. This plugin Loggedin – Limit Active Logins will let you restrict concurrent user logins. The downside is your support emails may go up if subscribers become frustrated with the limitations.
6. One final thought: If you offered apps to your readers it would increase the value of your publication (as well as increase in-app subscription purchases) and make it much more difficult to get around the paywall. Our UniPress app platform offers iOS and Android apps for your publication and integrates with WordPress, Leaky Paywall, and IssueM.

Where are you in your subscription journey? If you are still in the list and audience building phase then go more generous with metering and sharing. If you have a large audience already and an established brand then it may be time to lock down content.