Slashdot Mirror
How Huffington Post's Clever Traffic-Generation Machine Works
Hugh Pickens writes "Frédéric Filloux writes that traditional newspapers that move online are losing the war against pure players and aggregators because original stories are getting very little traffic due to the poor marketing tactics of old-fashion publishers. Meanwhile, aggregators like the Huffington Post use clever traffic-generation techniques, so the same journalistic item will generate much more traffic. Here's an example: On July 5th, The Wall Street Journal runs an editorial piece about Mitt Romney's position on Obamacare and the rather dull and generic 'Romney's Tax Confusion' title for this 1000-word article attracted a remarkable 938 comments. But look at what the Huffington Post did: a 500-word treatment, including a 300 words article plus a 200-word excerpt of the WSJ opinion and a link back (completely useless) but, unlike the Journal, the HuffPo ran a much sexier headline: 'Mitt Romney is 'Squandering' Candidacy With Health Care Snafu.' The choice of words for the headline takes in account all Search Engine Optimization prerequisites, using high yield words such as 'Squandering' and 'Snafu,' in conjunction with much sought-after topics such as 'Romney' and 'Health Care.' Altogether, this guarantees a nice blip on Google's radar — and a considerable audience : 7000+ comments."
"Huffington Post has invested a lot in SEO tools and will even A/B test headlines to random groups. 'I was told that every headline is matched in realtime against Google most searched items right before being posted. If the editor's choice scores low in SEO, the system suggests better terms,' writes Filloux, adding that original stories are getting very little traffic due to the poor marketing tactics of old-fashion publishers. 'Who can look to the better future in the digital world? Is it the virtuous author carving language-smart headlines or the aggregator generating eye-gobbling phrases thanks to high tech tools? Your guess. Maybe it's time to wake-up.'"
but not a single frosty piss.
I agree that The Huffington Post is doing much better search engine optimization. That part is true because when I google for a news item they somehow will beat out even the AFP in my search results. And I do think that gets them more traffic. But I don't think counting the number of comments means anything at all. Even as a liberal, some of their titles disgust me so there's no question they are poking and prodding readers into commenting more.
Lastly, ever since The Wall Street Journal put up that arcane paywall, I don't think I can even read the comments let alone click a link to go there and see anything. Even if it's an Op-Ed they are practically gutting themselves while aggregators feed off their remains.
using high yield words such as 'Squandering' and 'Snafu,'
How exactly are those "high yield words"? They just seem more memorable and inflammatory to me which (surprise surprise) nets them 7 kilocomments.
My work here is dung.
Their use of SEO not-withstanding, judging articles by the number of comments generated is kind of like judging the performance of a car engine based on how load the stereo gets.
Controversial topics will get many more comments than topics about boring stuff. Hell, comments with horrible grammer andd skeling mystakes will get more comments than the actual story.
And yes, I realize the irony of posting this in the comments section of Slashdot. ;-)
We don't live in Shouldland.
I was listening to NPR last night and heard this debate program (originally from April 2012):
When It Comes To Politics, The Internet Is Closing Our Minds
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
But which one had better quality?
I'll gladly go to a site with 50 comments making a quality discussion and just read without commenting rather than going to a site with 5000 comments, most of which are people that never read the article or are completely offtopic.
That said, I don't know why the hell I'm on Slashdot.
Could have learned a lot from the Huffington Post.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
It's internet trolling, nothing more. Huff uses inflammatory words to work people up so they post, it's not constructive or useful it just further creates an Us vs Them mentality. Not really what reporting needs.
It's nice to see yellow journalism making a comeback. I guess it was too much to hope for for the center left to hold itself to a higher standard...
Just look at those ads on the right of your 'gmail' account. Stuff like, "Other women hate her." and "Language professors hate him." Really? That's marketing prowess? Like I'm gonnuh click on any of that shit. I don't read from the Huff, by the way.
I think TFS has his panties in a twist, looking for injustice because of personal bias.
Unless I'm all wrong, I doubt "squandering" and "snafu" are words that people commonly Google, so how "high yield" they are is rather irrelevant, and I doubt they'll lead to any higher traffic. I'm pretty sure that "quasixenophobia" is even higher yield (tomorrow, this post may be on the first page result for Google searches for it) , but I sincerely doubt that entering it in a headline will lead to more visitors.
There's no doubt that the Huff gets more visitors, but that could just be because it's more popular in the first place, and that Google pushes it up because of its popularity. I know, amazing concept...
Although HuffPo is not as inflammatory as Drudge...
Just today, you can glance at Drudge and there's a story about people dying from heat in Chicago, along with a photo of a smug Rahm Emanuel. The implication is that Rahm is somehow involved, guilty in some way, or derelict in his duty as Mayor. And since Rahm is associated with Obama, then he must be guilty in some way as well. It's all very subtle, but the narrative on Drudge is always that everything bad can somehow be tied back to Obama.
Oh my, I never realised that the average readership of the average media outlet is drawn in by the headlines. That really *is* news. Wow.
But WSJ doesn't get revenue from comments or traffic flow, they get revenue from subscribers. As a publication about the business environment it's important that they keep articles and especially headlines professional sounding lest they damage the brand. HuffPo is a volume site where driving traffic is the main goal. WSJ has a lot fewer hits but makes a LOT more off of each customer. In fact, WSJ is gaining subscribers in a rapidly dying business so their lack of sensationalism may not drives huge traffic to them but is driving the RIGHT traffic to them.
Headlines like that, and whole articles too, on Huffington Post and other sites have a kind of breathless, plastic insincerity that I find grating. They are like products designed by committee guided entirely by focus groups. I hope it only works at driving traffic to them now because the web is still new enough to enough of the public that the culture hasn't evolved defenses against this kind of manipulation. I'm imagining some earlier days of advertising where "9 out of 10 doctors agree ... " could make people think "Well, I'd better change toothpaste right now!" and I hope the Huffington Post style of writing will soon sound just as lame.
Language is the fucking language, having to "treat it" and to "dress it" for your audience may atract eyeballs, but it brings the writer down to the level of the iliterate reader. In this world of sales is everything, it has become impossible to write freely. I don't care who is doing the censorship, if it is the Latin-American dictator of the '70s, the Chinese dictator of today, the Soviet political officer of the '50s, or some accountant looking at generated traffic. Censorship is censorship, and to do it because it makes one more money is no different than to do it because it gives one more power.
HuffPo just has more readers willing to post comments than WSJ.
Yes. Sexier title gets eyes on a page. They have several "wardrobe malfuntion" title in the sidebars at all times as well.
Can anyone even partially read those 200/500/1500 or whatever comments (4000) on Huffingtonpost?
... not much on content, shallow, often frustrating to read those.
Isn't that a deterrent, to stay away from those "posts" - totally useless!
Furthermore, Huffingtonpost lures with catchy headlines and provides
It may be clever and create traffic - for what - ads? Aren't ads automatically avoided by viewers, those popups glaring at you before you even can look at the page?
Don't you love all that crap!
When you don't notice that Jean-Louis Gassée is a co-author
I remember years ago people used to write letters to the newspaper and the TV station some of which were printed or read on air. very few people cared about them.
these days the same kinds of people leave a comment on the story online. 99% are junk, a tiny few interesting to read. either way at 7000 comments no one is going to read them all. what's the point?
people pay to read the WSJ, HuffPo is free and ad supported. For all we know the people who read the WSJ don't care about leaving a comment no one will read.
it's like G+. there are a few internet celebrities on there like Mike Elgan. as a time killer/break i'll read the posts and leave a comment and sometimes argue with people. its completely useless and just like /. half the time i won't read the story. but Mike is all giddy about how his stories are getting so many comments.
Huffington Post is one of those sites I avoid because they mainly cut/paste the entire article and don't reference the original site. A few times I've followed the link I've had to play google detective for a few minutes to find the original article. Just seems shady and with the news of how little to not they pay the people who write for them I stay away from them.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
TFS seems to be taking the position that a 300-word article that generates a lot of traffic is better than a 1000-word article that generates less traffic. Arguably true for the publisher, but less so for the reader.
One thing I've noticed about blogs and Web news in general is the tendency toward short articles that can be written in an hour or less. Such articles are usually unsatisfying and fairly uninformative.
Making online news sources be more like that won't advance the legitimate role of the media, which is to inform the public.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
"HuffPo Rapes WSJ using Microsoft Apple RIAA MPAA Warrantless Wiretap Body Scanners" would surely get more responses.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
This is simple sensationalism. Traffic generation means using bots to read your articles.
Or they could just have every sidebar link accompanied by a picture of a mostly naked celebrity.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
(insert picture of Romney)
"Is in my campain, squandering my snafu"
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Yes, they're good at writing sensational headlines to appeal to their liberal/Democratic readership base. Among their many other talents, HuffPo is skilled at getting unflattering photos of their 'enemies'.
As for the comment boards, I found them to be awash in trolls, full of sniping and insults, largely devoid of serious and insightful discussion and generally difficult to read. Attempting to participate was even more frustrating. It's like a vast echo chamber where any contrary opinion or argument, no matter how logical, is met with a deluge of insults, accusations and talking points. You can tell by looking at the number of "one liner" comments. Even worse, the comments containing the most clever insults tend to get modded up. I gave up trying to communicate with those people after a few months and ~100 comments.
The /. discussion boards at least tend to generate comments with some substance. Don't waste your time trying to communicate with the nitwits at HuffPo.
His sight is the king of the sensationalist headlines to generate traffic crowd. With him, the headlines are so skewed that they often have only a passing relation to the gist of the article he links to. Then there are the Murdoch tabloid newspapers with their sensationalist headlines, also using the headlines to sell dead trees.
I could say the same thing, from MY point of view, about MSNBC/ABC/CBS/NBC/PBS.
In YOUR opinion, FOX is "biased". In MY opinion, the alphabet networks are biased.
I have ABSOLUTELY no problem with the mainstream news networks, they can say anything
they want, report it anyway they wish. My right, as a citizen is to either watch it or not watch it.
That is how it works. The problem I have with some liberals (and conservatives for that matter)
is some on BOTH sides of the political isle is they want to RESTRICT what is on tv/radio/print/internet.
I hate to use a well worn phrase, but, the minute you start restricting "speech", you start down that
slippery slope. It has to be an all or nothing thing. I don't care for porn, rap music, or about 80% of
the garbage out there, but, I have the CHOICE to NOT listen/watch it. I would rather have that choice,
than what the alternative would be.
...did they get because Google sent them that way, and how many were regular HuffPo readers who saw it on the main page?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Of course all 6,000 extra comments HuffPro got for their more creatively-titled version were along the lines of "this article's title is misleading..."
Traditional newspapers are heading in the Huffpost direction as well.
This is an industry where we are watching a race to the top, as well as a race to the bottom - with the middle squeezed from both sides.
Part2 of this week's This American Life profiles one company trying to bring the Huffpost model to traditional newspapers.
witold.org
What you call "clever traffic generation techniques" are properly called "yellow journalism". These ideas are not new, they've been around for 150 years. Ranting headlines are not a new idea for ancient media like the WSJ or NY Times: they've seen it all before, and have survived for 150 years by rejecting these unethical tactics.
I'm a liberal democrat, and I agree with some of what the Huffington Post is pushing. But what they do is not journalism.
-"Huff Po"
I heard you like aggregators, so I got Slashdot to clip a story that clips a story about aggregators.
Its not just HuffPo, but other sites as well (see: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ranker_sucks)
For the WSJ to get nearly 1k in comments within their on-line site is enormous. The HuffingtonPost probably generates 60 Million visits, per day. That 7k is peanuts for visits and comments.
WSJ is a legitimate news outlet with mostly mature readers who want honest reporting.
Huff Post is a left wing blog that attracts screaming idiots (from both sides of the political spectrum) who want a place to spout off.
Of course there will be more comments on Huff Post.
Everyone ignores the dangers to HuffPo's workers...
http://www.theonion.com/articles/huffington-post-employee-sucked-into-aggregation-t,27244/
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Other than the fact that both organizations host "news content," they aren't comparable. Whether or not you approve of it, the WSJ is a traditional newspaper with "journalism" sections and "opinion" sections with different editors and standards.
HuffPo may contain journalism but it isn't the point. It's a combination rabble-rouser + echo chamber. You would never see a headline like theirs on a WSJ news article because it's repackaging it as commentary rather than news -- and even if that's a difficult line to keep track of for every news organization, HuffPo doesn't pretend to try. And why should they? Their audience doesn't seem to want them to.
Samsung Blames Galaxy SIII Burn On "External Energy Source"
Where the actual story is "Samsung not to be blame for every idiot thing someone could do with/to their products" rather than "Samsung devices potentially dangerous, Samsung attempt to pass the buck".
There is nothing "clever" about Huffington Post's spam. All they do is fill their page with a bunch of pointless linkbait and zero content. Things like "here's a video clip from The Daily Show, last night". Big fucking deal. Huffington Post is on my google block list, so at least they don't pollute my results. Fuck those cunts and their shitty site.
Years ago, I wrote newspaper heds for a living. It was fun, challenging work to see what you can cram into a very limited space. And to try to convey the article's meaning. Even more "fun" when you have minutes or just a minute to meet a deadline. The WSJ hed is right out of the paper and no doubt fits a two column layout. Huffo wasn't bound by the old physical layout.
It all has to do with side boobs. Everyone likes a good side boob story.
Run any article with GOP, Romney, Israel, Jews, Wall St in it it will attract thousands of screeching retards. Because that's what HuffPo is.
love the post, and the irony. Huffpo and /. are very similar sites in that they rarely generate their own articles, rather referring to what others have written.
What /. has that makes it a little better than huffpo, is moderation and karma. Yes, /. tends towards the 'ms is evil, linux is great, stealing music is a right' mindset, sure. But, more or less, when I do go to /., the moderation "works" such that I only look at modded up comments. Also, *most* of those modded up are effectively peer reviewed. The crowd either confirms, or trashes the original story and subsequent comments.
Huffpo could add value to their site by adding the same auto-moderation technologies that /. has had for years.
Although HuffPo is not as inflammatory as Drudge...
yeah it is..both are fine examples of political trolling at its worst.
I started reading HP years ago when it was a strictly politics site. What I loved was the aggregation plus the functional organization of headlines. Now, what I HATE is what HP has become over the past 3-4 years. The stupid, misleading headlines or baiting ("You won't believe what Mitt said") crap. I can't stand it, yet at the same time I find the aggregation of the site to be much better that other news providers. Nevermind that HP turned into a cheerleader site. I've had so many posts scrubbed for not "adhering" to some San Fran network admin's idea of what's appropriate for a comment.
The only real comparison is the polar opposite approach by Drudge to just dump headlines on a single page without a lot of cluttered advertising. What I think editors of other sites are missing is the overall layout. Maybe it's just me, but I'm just trying to find quick news not get "lost" in it.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The Huffington Post, like many newspapers, uses misleading headlines to sensationalize the article. The body often has little in connection with the headline.