Comment by bayindirh
5 hours ago
> I don’t know about you guys, but I feel like 50% of Ars headlines are completely misleading.
I believe they are doing A/B testing on these.
Ah yes, I remember correctly for once: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/why-do-front-page-arti...
TL;DR: They are doing mandatory A/B testing since 2015.
A/B headline testing is just scientific clickbait.
I didn't argue that it isn't?
I was agreeing; anyone who admits to using A/B headline testing is just admitting to be a clickbait factory.
1 reply →
I disagree. You could A/B test two good, accurate, well-written headlines and stay clear of clickbait altogether. Sure, you're still optimising for the most popular, but "clickbait" doesn't just mean "well performing", there's also an implication of duplicity.
I have a modicum of experience here. I write for another online media company and, although we produce our own headlines, we are 'strongly encouraged' to write clickbait headlines, to the extent where we are asked to remove instances of specific product names (etc.) in order to be mysterious and not give the game away too early. (Yes, in case it wasn't clear, I hate this!)