Facebook is tweaking its News Feed to fight off “click-baiting,” a type of misleading headline. Facebook found that users did not find this type of content valuable, which resulted in less engagement and sharing.
An example of a click-bait headline.
Many websites use click-bait headlines to get their content to the top of users’ News Feed since Facebook only looked at the number of clicks an article received. Facebook is now tracking how many shares, and how long a user is on a page before jumping back to Facebook. If a user jumps back immediately to Facebook, it’s likely that link was click-bait.
To increase visibility for your content, Facebook recommends pasting the link into the status composition box and deleting the URL. By doing this, Facebook pulls the featured image and a short excerpt from the page. This offers a seamless look and makes it easier to click on content without hunting for a link.
An example of properly linking to a site, according to Facebook.
Update: The post has been updated to clarify linking within status updates.
Source: Facebook
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