About Those Recommended Story Links at News Sites
February 11, 2014
Ever wonder about the origin of the often incongruous titles listed at the bottom of real news stories online? The Washington Post declares, “You’ll Never Believe How Recommended Stories Are Generated on Otherwise Serious News Sites.” Not surprisingly, these “recommended” stories are outright click bait. The ones that appear are based on a combination of the user’s online activity and standards the news sites chose to place (or not) on the content. This means serious stories are often followed by silly and salacious links, which are made to look like real articles from whatever site you’re visiting at the time. I appreciate our head Goose for refusing to attach such distractions to the work of me and my fellow Beyond Search writers.
These pieces of writing which show up all over the Web are, for the most part, the work of two outfits, Taboola and Outbrain. Both companies launched in Israel and are now headquartered in New York. Reportedly, Taboola expects to reap $100 million in revenue this year from these tactics. They aren’t the only ones to profit, either. The news sites get a cut, of course, and those “articles” are often links to marketer-crafted promotional content. Yet another brick removed from the wall between advertising and useful information. The practice’s longevity may be limited, though. The (real!) article reports:
“The algorithms are still a long way from knowing that you really don’t want to read the story ‘No Way These Celebrities Are 60-Plus!,’ a Taboola recommendation on HuffingtonPost.com on Thursday. In fact, digital media analyst Ken Doctor, author of the Newsonomics blog, said news-recommendation engines are ‘degenerating’ in efficiency as they serve up more links from more publishers seeking readers and traffic. ‘Early on, the click-through rates [by readers] were as high as 6 to 8 percent, because the [recommended] stories were relevant to the stories on the [host] site,’ he said. ‘But there’s been a junking up that does a disservice to the reader. There’s too much “click bait” that has no relation to the actual readers of the site.'”
Apparently, Outbrain’s Lisa LaCour would disagree that her industry has seen its best days. She says her company is working to offer recommendations that users really, truly want to read, “but we’re not there yet.” Will they get there, or has this racket just about run its course? We’ll see, but in the meantime these companies, and the news sites, are raking in the bucks pennies at a time. That’s one weird trick!
Cynthia Murrell, February 11, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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