What Is Clickbait?

Dictionaries define the word broadly. The Cambridge Dictionary describes clickbait as an internet story, title or image that is intended to attract attention and encourage people to click on a link. The German Duden speaks of a headline, image or teaser meant to lure people into clicking and reading or watching on. The word itself combines click and bait. On that definition, almost any well-crafted headline would count. In marketing and in platform guidelines the sense is narrower: the click is won with something the page then fails to deliver.

Facebook put it this way on 25 August 2014, when it announced it would show fewer such posts: click-baiting is when a publisher posts a link with a headline that encourages people to click to see more, without telling them much about what they will see. In an initial survey, according to Facebook, people preferred headlines that helped them decide whether to read the full article before clicking 80% of the time.

Google uses the word in its recommendations for Google Discover. It asks publishers to avoid clickbait and similar tactics that artificially inflate engagement, and names two of them: misleading or exaggerated details in preview content (the title, snippets or images), and withholding crucial information needed to understand what the content is about. In the same list it asks publishers to avoid sensationalism that plays on morbid curiosity, titillation or outrage.

A curiosity gap is not the same as deception. In 1994 the researcher George Loewenstein described curiosity as a form of deprivation that arises when someone perceives a gap in their knowledge or understanding. A good headline may open that gap. The difference lies in what happens after the click. If the page closes the gap with what the title promised, the reader got what they came for. If it does not, or closes it with something smaller, it is clickbait. Loewenstein also noted curiosity's tendency to disappoint once it is satisfied, which makes an inflated promise all the more noticeable.

The mechanism has two stages. First, the title or image sets up an expectation: a surprising result, a secret, an extreme number. That lifts the link's click-through rate, the CTR. Then the page has to deliver. When it does not, the reader is disappointed, and that disappointment is what platforms try to measure.

In 2014 Facebook announced two signals for it. One was how long people spent reading away from Facebook after clicking: someone who comes straight back probably did not find what they wanted. The other was the ratio between people who click and people who then comment on or share the content.

An invented pair of titles shows the difference. With clickbait: "This one change to your titles doubled our traffic in a week". The page then reports a smaller increase on a single page. Without clickbait: "We changed 40 titles: what happened to clicks over eight weeks". The second title also opens a question, but it says what was done, on how many pages and over what period, and the page can live up to it.

In search results, Google also checks the title against the page. Its documentation on title links says Google Search tries to determine whether the title tag accurately shows what the page is about, and may modify the title link if it does not. An exaggerated title can therefore end up replaced by one Google takes from the page itself.

The underlying mistake is to think that more clicks mean more success. The click is only the start. A title that overpromises can raise the CTR while bringing in visits that leave without reading, converting or coming back. If the goal is a sale, a sign-up or an article read to the end, those visits do not count.

That is why a title should be judged by what happens after the click, not by click-through rate alone. The useful metrics are those that show whether the page delivered: conversions, scroll depth to the end, returning visits. Facebook reached the same conclusion in 2014: clicks alone rewarded posts that people then did not read.

For Discover, Google is direct. To increase the likelihood of content appearing there, it recommends page titles and headlines that capture the essence of the content, and advises against clickbait.

Fear of clickbait should not lead to dull titles either. A title can be specific, spark curiosity and promise something strong, as long as the page keeps the promise. Good copywriting works within that margin.

• Write the title once you know what the page delivers, not before.
• Put numbers and promises in the title only if the page contains them.
• Answer the question the title raises in the first paragraph.
• Choose a preview image that shows what the page is really about.
• Judge a title by what happens after the click, not by CTR alone.

• Exaggerating the result or the novelty to drive clicks.
• Hiding what the page is about in the title to force the click.
• Using an eye-catching image that has nothing to do with the content.
• Treating a title as good because it has a higher CTR, without looking at conversions or reading.
• Avoiding all curiosity for fear of clickbait and writing titles that say nothing.