Facebook has Updated Their Algorithm to Reduce Clickbaits in News Feed

Facebook is dedicated to providing relevant stories in the news feed since the number of clickbait posts is increasing on Facebook day by day Facebook has decided to reduce the visibility of clickbait post and articles which encourage users to click on the links and users find a very low quality of information the website.

Back on 4th August, Facebook announced that they will optimize their news feed algorithm to reduce clickbait headlines and link title in coming weeks.

click-bait

A large number of users have reported this issue over the time, So Facebook is finally changing the news feed algorithm to reduce clickbaits.

How Facebook is Reducing Clickbait Headings?

Previously Facebook has made an update in news feed algorithm to reduce the distribution of posts that leads users to click on the post and quickly come back to the news feed.

This update helped a bit to reduce clickbait headlines from the pages but still many pages rely on the clickbait headlines which encourage users to click and read some lame article.

Users have reported that they want to spend their time on facebook and not waste time when they click. Looking at these low-quality clickbait posts Facebook is decided to lower the news feed distribution of such posts.

The Facebook system can detect commonly used phrases in clickbait headlines.  Facebook has categorised tens of thousand of headlines as clickbait.

There are 2 main factors to decide clickbait headlines.

  1. If the headline does not provide enough information about the content of the article.
  2. If the headline is overstated and misleading the users.

Below are the examples of such headlines.

  • You’ll Never Believe Who Tripped and Fell on the Red Carpet.
  • When She Opened The Door Of Her Garage Shocking Thing Happened.
  • This Boy Escaped From His Kidnapper, But What he Says About It Is Totally Unexpected.
  • Shocking Things Happened Today in Downtown Newyork.

And the articles which have very little value to the users will suffer this update, like “Apples are bad for you” and when you click the link and find “Apples are bad only if you eat too many every day”

Now, Facebook will identify posts that are clickbait and which web domains and Pages these posts are coming from. And such links and posts will appear lower in News Feed.

Let’s examine a Clickbait post on the Facebook.

Sites like ViralNova and BuzzFeed often post click baits on their Facebook pages and contains such phrases which encourage users to click.

This is one of the recent posts on Viralnova Facebook Page.

facebook clickbait

Now, when you click on this link it will take you to their site which has a different headline.

facebook reducing clickbaits

See, the article says woman had a worm in her eye, and the post contais a video with not more than 150 words.

What if they would have mentioned exact headline in their facebook post? Most of the users would not have clicked on the link.

And users who opened the link may have found it irritating.

Who will be affected by the latest update of news feed algorithm?

According to Facebook, most of the pages won’t see significant changes to their news feed distribution, but the websites and pages who rely on clickbait-style headline should expect a decrease in the news feed distribution.

Pages who constantly post clickbaits will suffer the most and their post will have a limited reach doesn’t matter how large audience they have.

If you are managing a Facebook page make sure you follow the Facebook publishing guide and do not write click bait headlines on your Facebook post as well as links. Headlines should be clear, relevant and must provide value to your followers.

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