Facebook Cracks Down On ‘Click-Bait’ Posts
Baited!
If, like
many Facebook users, you've gotten sick of misleading or vague headlines like
the one I just used then good news is on the way.
In a recent
statement Facebook officials announced the company’s plans to try and eradicate
such posts from clogging up your news feed. By analysing data such as the
number of clicks that are converted to likes and comments, and how long the
average user spends looking at these sites and articles, Facebook’s new algorithms
will pick out the ‘click-bait’ and assign it lower priority on your feed.
bbc.co.uk
Facebook
defines ‘click-bait’ as:
“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.”
As well as tackling the
issue directly by altering the offending posts priority, Facebook will also pick
out the links in proper link format and raise their priority in order to make
them more visible on your news feed. According to Facebook, links in the
correct format tend to attract twice the number of clicks compared to those
embedded in photo captions, as people like to be provided with extra
information to help them decide if the link is interesting or even relevant to
them. An example of the link format is provided below.
Link Format Photo Caption
bbc.co.uk
The hope is that these
two new systems used in conjunction will help to hide the ‘spammy’ links,
making more space for posts from your friends and updates you are actually
interested in.
Facebook warns that
companies or pages that constantly use ‘click-bait’ articles to lure readers
onto sites that they spend little or no time viewing will see a noticeable
decrease in their distribution in the next few months after the updates land.
So, with a little bit of
luck, nonsense or zero-substance articles flooding your news feed could become
a thing of the past. I won’t be holding my breath however…
Sam is an aspiring novelist with a passion for fantasy and crime thrillers. Currently working part time as a content writer, he hopes to one day drop that 'aspiring' prefix. Follow him @SamAtSMF
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Facebook Cracks Down On ‘Click-Bait’ Posts
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Monday, December 22, 2014
Rating:
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Monday, December 22, 2014
Rating:
Unknown
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