Are there consequences for publishing link bait?

[Jay Greenspan]

As of today I'm done with Slate. Seeing these two featured pieces did me in: http://cl.ly/image/251X1C1r1A2b. I'm sure this sort of fear-mongering link bait creates page views. But the substance is so poor and the motivations so obvious, that I won't wast my time on the site anymore. 

In a way, I'm sympathetic to Slate's editors. I've looked at analytics and seen what titles like "9 Tips for..." do for clickthrough. It was frustrating to see  great content overlooked. But I did my best to adapt and put substantive material in clickable wrappers. 

I wonder if anyone here has conducted an analysis  or seen evidence that the short-term benefits of crappy but clickable content have long term consequences--that people get sick of the garbage,  go away, and don't come back. 

-j 

[michael o'neill]

Hi Jay,

Your lament reminded me of Seth Goden's warning from yesterday's blog post<http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/04/you-dont-have-to-pander.html>:

"The copywriter/editor who trades in meaning for lists, using calculated SEO keyword loading and sensationalism designed to attract the drive-by audience, earns the privilege of doing it again and again, forever."

Seems appropriate... :P

-Michael

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Michael J. O'Neill

I'll admit to evidence of my presence at the following locations:

Twitter
LinkedIn

[James Callan]

The sad thing is Slate has a lot of great stories, and produces great podcasts. And that story had an even clickbaitier title originally — something like "Don't bring snacks to playgrounds," which was not part of the article originally.

That said, I like their good too much to do more than roll my eyes at their ... more provocative headlines. (They may call the series "You're Doing It Wrong," but their recipes by L.V. Anderson are solid.)