Clickbait headlines intentionally omit crucial information or exaggerate the details of a story to make it seem like a bigger deal than it really is. This gets attention and lures visitors into clicking on a link, but they then quickly return to News Feed. We’ve heard from people that they prefer to see clearly written headlines that help them decide how they want to spend their time.
Using a system that detects clickbait headlines after a link is shared to Facebook, we identify the individual stories, as well as the Pages and web domains that consistently post or share links with clickbait headlines and reduce the distribution of their posts in News Feed. This helps people see more of the stories they are interested in.
We recommend that publishers consider these tips to avoid relying on clickbait headlines to capture your audience’s attention.