This Headline Left Intentionally Boring

from the does-it-work? dept

Mon, Apr 10th 2006 2:03am — Mike Masnick

The New York Times got quite a bit of buzz this weekend for an article about how journalists and editors are changing how they write, to accommodate search engines. Specifically, the claim is that some sites have changed their headline or section naming styles to be more "boring" since search engines don't understand humor. Apparently, the BBC even goes so far as to write two separate headlines on many stories, trying to trick search engines into believing the boring ones are the legit headlines, while showing the catchier ones to humans. The article also notes some other "tricks" that journalists may need to start pulling to attract more search engine traffic. All of this is interesting, especially considering how some newspapers seem to actively try to stop search engines from sending them traffic. Clearly, that's not true in all cases.

Of course, a few other interesting thoughts come out of this. One is the basic worry that things have gone horribly wrong when we're writing headlines for computers, not humans. The computers should be adapting to what the humans want, not the other way around. The other idea, though, comes from Clive Thompson, who relates a story from Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow crediting much of that site's traffic to their boring, but straightforward headlines. Of course, it would be helpful if there were more of a control to compare it to. In our case, over the years, we've found that the catchier headlines definitely tend to receive more traffic (though not necessarily more comments) than straightforward headlines. Of course, much of that depends on how catchy the headline is. Sometimes, in trying to be too clever, you end up in some obscure world where almost no one gets what you were referring too (though, those who do get it seem to appreciate it even more). Catchy headlines also have a second benefit: it's easier to spot when someone else copies your headlines as well.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

8 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Headline Nazy, 10 Apr 2006 @ 3:19am

I'll surprise you
Both humans and search engines prefer the "boring" ones. People are suck of retarded jokes and puns that pften mislead of the article's contents.

Except we don't prefer titles for them being particularly boring, but being descriptive and on topic and pun-free.

So "This Headline Left Intentionally Boring" actually is totally not working here.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2006 @ 3:31am

"People are suck of retarded jokes and puns"

Please dont speak for all people - because obviously all people do not agree with you... and your attempt at a "definitive reply to end all further discussion" answer.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Shohat, 10 Apr 2006 @ 3:38am

People do like humor
Stop claiming we dont .

Search engines used to go out of their way to index content . Now content goes out of it's way to get indexed .(c)
Boris Shohat(tm) 10/04/2006.

And this is wrong .
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2006 @ 4:59am

Re: I'll surprise you
I'm sure after posting a comment like that you'll find plenty of people that think you're wrong to speak for everyone. sometimes humans need to actually use the brains we have to decipher headlines and get a joke, and some of us enjoy it that much more when we do. I understood "This Headline Left Intentionally Boring" before the page even finished loading in a back tab on my browser. I guessed right away that it was about headlines that were being left intentionally boring. "headlines being left intentionally boring" I think would be far too boring for me to have read the article. if you want proof that such a headline as this article has draws some people to read it through to its end, you did, and left a comment. you're obviously not too "suck" of it for that.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jah Womble, 10 Apr 2006 @ 5:50am

It Worked For Me
The headline on this story made it the first one I clicked on in my RSS feed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
hmm, 10 Apr 2006 @ 9:11am

Re: I'll surprise you
Anyone who mispells "nazi" and "sick" can speak for me any day!!!

:/
[ link to this | view in thread ]
buh, 10 Apr 2006 @ 10:23am

Re: I'll surprise you
I think his name was meant to be "lazy"...then again, I'm suck of trying tp read this
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Diane Ensey, 10 Apr 2006 @ 1:44pm

Research
Anecdotally I agree with those who like unusual or funny titles. How would research on "boring" vs. unusual titles be done? Any ideas?
[ link to this | view in thread ]