oucho
Well-Known Member
I have been thinking about this approach lately and concluded that it's a fool's game. How many more clicks will such site get in future when people realise that the content behind the sensationalist click-bait stories are usually very underwhelming? Yes it'll generate short term clicks but longer term it's just a great way to drive traffic away from your site. This is happening to me already; I just ignore anything that looks like frivolous clickbait (including most of the Telegraph stories). Instead, readers will increasingly seek out more quality articles where they can actually learn stuff rather than be told what brands of pants Aguerro is wearing this week.
Another thing to think about is that whilst the person who reads an article for 5 minutes is one person whereas the hundred people who click onto a page for 5 seconds are 100 people, the fact is that the amount of time that the various ads are seen will be greater in the one person / 5 minutes scenario, and thus potentially more effective. Room for more ads with a longer article, too.