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Facebook has announced another update to the way in which it ranks stories that appear in its users’ News Feeds. This time, the target is “clickbait” headlines, which the company says will now rank lower in the News Feed than stories with more traditional headlines.
According to the announcement, Facebook defines a clickbait headline in two ways:
1. The headline withholds information from the reader that is required to understand what the content of the article is
2. The headline exaggerates the article to create a misleading expectation on the part of the reader
Examples of clickbait headlines Facebook gives include “You’ll Never Believe Who Tripped and Fell on the Red Carpet…” (withholding information) or “Apples Are Actually Bad For You?!” (misleading — only too many apples are bad for you).
For travel agents, the update could be important to keep in mind if they maintain a travel blog as part of their online marketing presence. Blog posts with straightforward, accurate titles should now rank higher when posted on Facebook, while those with clickbait titles will fare less well.
The move follows another major News Feed update earlier this summer that saw Facebook devalue posts made by brand pages in an effort to make stories posted by users’ friends rank even higher.
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