Showing posts with label post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label post. Show all posts

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Clickbait and Adbait

Public Service Announcement: The following words and phrases may actually make me LESS likely to click on your link:

  • This will blow your mind
  • What happened next? 
  • I gasped.
  • I'm SPEECHLESS
  • actually, almost anything in ALL CAPS
  • Lots of exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Shocking
  • Spread this absolutely everywhere! 
  • vague comments like "he said THIS" or "THIS happened"
  • using pronouns rather than specifying the person 
  • Like if...
  • Share if...
  • Retweet/Re-post/Reblog if...
  • One like/share = one prayer
  • Like = ________, Comment =_______, Share = ________
  • Like to show respect
  • anything that tries to guilt me into clicking, liking or sharing
  • Jesus says that if you deny me before men, I will deny you before God
  • anything implying I am heartless if I don't click, like, comment or share
  • Share this in 30 seconds or something terrible will happen
  • Sadly, only 12% will share this. It should be 100%.
  • anything that definitively predicts the public's reaction to this post, stating specific percentages
  • This weird trick
  • #25 made me react strongly (fall over laughing, pee my pants, throw something out the window, etc.)
  • Excessive foul language
  • Bad grammar or spelling
  • anything that counts the number of words someone used to make their point
  • Watch this person SHUT DOWN their political opponent
  • This person sent their political opponent packing, or did anything else to defeat them (the article or video in question is often about someone making a comment that expressed disagreement, but in no way sent anyone packing, and is sometimes not even true)
  • Is there room for me on your wall? (accompanied by a picture of Jesus)


If I do click on your link, the following might cause me to leave the page quickly:

  • Constantly having to click "next"
  • Excessive ads, especially if I can't scroll without accidentally clicking on one
  • Deceptive ads that have arrows that look like a "next" button
  • Ads that completely cover the screen, blocking what I'm trying to read
  • Ads with videos that auto play
  • Music on your web page that auto plays (even if there are no ads)
  • Pages that force me to watch a video (usually an ad) before allowing me to progress to what is on the page

Note: I have nothing against ads, per se (after all, I have ads on this blog), but I do have a problem with people abusing them.