I hate clickbait...and so does Facebook. Stop using it.

We all know those articles on Facebook that lure you into clicking by leaving out vital information like, you know, what the article is actually about. And then once you've clicked you're led to a poorly designed site, so saturated with ads that you can't even click through the crappy article anyway. Yes, I'm talking about click-baiting.

According to Facebook:

“Click-baiting” is when a publisher posts a link with a headline that encourages people to click to see more, without telling them much information about what they will see. Posts like these tend to get a lot of clicks, which means that these posts get shown to more people, and get shown higher up in News Feed.”

Once click-baiting caught on there were posts like this one all over my newsfeed:

"You won't BELIEVE who this hot star is dating now!"

Who's the hot star?? Who is he dating? I MUST CLICK! *Clicks* The celebrity is an obscure commercial actor from the 80's and he was spotted on a coffee date with his agent. Bummer.

Now you see how ridiculous and disappointing clickbait can be. Facebook saw it too, and tweaked their algorithm a few months ago to "punish" those who post click-baity links. Here's how they are doing it:

Determining the value of an article based on the time spent on the page.
Makes sense. If you spend a lot of time reading something, it must have been of value meaning it was not clickbait.

Determining the value of the article based on likes or shares.
Ehh I don't think this is a good indicator of clickbait. I've seen people like or share articles based on the headline without even clicking through to read it.

Preference of links shared directly, as opposed to buried in a photo caption. 
Here is the example given by Facebook.

This is the preferred method of link sharing

Now that you know that click-baiting won't do you any good on Facebook, stop doing it!!!!! Seriously. And share links directly on Facebook rather than in a photo caption*.

*I'll admit I do both when it comes to this blog...since this is my own personal project and not for a job, I'm placing aesthetics over clicks for now.

Miss clickbait headlines on your timeline? Or just want something fun and silly to do on your breaks? Take a look at Headlines Against Humanity. It's a hilarious game of "guess which headline is real", and you'll be shocked by the ones that actually are!