In the world of Facebook, everybody is trying to earn “likes.” There’s something gratifying about having your consumers or customers like the content you’re sharing on the social media platform. For businesses and marketers, likes can be a great way to gauge your audience’s interest in your content, and when the likes start to add up, you’ll be feeling pretty proud of your work.

Up until now, users with Facebook Pages were able to hide content behind a Like Gate, which required others users to like the page in order to view the content. Many Facebook-based contests for brands also required consumers to like their Facebook Pages in order to enter their contests. To many, this seemed like a fair trade: one like for access to a contest or other exclusive content. However, Facebook officially changed that on Nov. 5.

On this day, Facebook removed Like Gates, making all content on pages available to any user, regardless of whether they have liked a page or not. Facebook also enacted the policy that page owners should not incentivize Facebook users to like a page, including by offering rewards or gating apps or app-based content.

 Although these new policies might make it a little bit harder for pages to increase their likes, at least now all likes actually will be earned. Now, a user won’t like your page just because he or she wants to win free stuff; instead the like will mean that they actually are interested in your content and want to receive your updates in their newsfeeds. This, in turn, also will provide a better measure of your interested user base and inspire you to work even harder to post content that resonates with this group.