Joe Wilcox:
Clickbait and linkbait also corrupt longstanding, and sensible practices regarding headline writing that negatively affect audience attitudes about what is valuable content. Good headlines should be aggressive or provocative, such that they pull people to read the story. Emphasis: Read. Deliver value. Clickbait and linkbait headlines and stories aren’t written for people but for Google—to capture search ranking and pageviews.
This is worth a read.
The irony is Joe Wilcox has been as guilty of using click bait headlines as anyone else in the past.
I was just going to say. I assumed this had to be some other Joe Wilcox.
The type of linkbait that bugs me are headlines on mainstream media news sites that don’t include a key piece of information that a headline should. “Fate of company X decided” instead of “Company X closing down”, or “Housefire in eastern suburbs” rather than “Housefire in Ringwood”. It shouldn’t be necessary to click-through to the article to find out what the article is about.