ClickBaits No Longer Acceptable on Facebook
"Sensational" headlines with overly exaggerated shocking implications have been in trend for several years now. But when news offer a bombastic title and zero content, it gets really annoying. This is why Facebook decided to reduce these so-called clickbait headlines that are overrunning the network and change the way shared links are shown to the user.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, clickbaits are titles or links that encourage the user to click the link wanting to read an article solely for its extravagant title. They are usually either paid for by the advertiser or generate income for the publisher. In theory, a sensational title or link wouldn't be a problem if the content itself would follow the same pattern. However, in most cases, once you follow the link, the content will either take a detour and become completely unrelated to the original subject or simply won't exist at all.
After numerous user complaints about clickbaiting news feeds, Facebook has made a decision to start filtering their content in order to create a friendlier environment for its users. In order to do so, the social network will first verify how much time the average user spends on a certain page (if the user comes right back to Facebook, it would mean that he didn't find the content he was looking for), and how many likes and shares that particular link has. Furthermore, the popular website will start prioritizing links in the URL format instead of the ones embedded into images.
Although from Facebook's perspective these changes will only affect a small number of publishers who constantly use clickbaits posts, this is an important step in an effort to clean up the social network's news feed.
