Is Google killing the smart-ass headline?

Yes, according to the New York Times:

[N]ews organizations large and small have begun experimenting with tweaking their Web sites for better search engine results. But software bots are not your ordinary readers: They are blazingly fast yet numbingly literal-minded. There are no algorithms for wit, irony, humor or stylish writing. The software is a logical, sequential, left-brain reader, while humans are often right brain.
In newspapers and magazines, for example, section titles and headlines are distilled nuggets of human brainwork, tapping context and culture. “Part of the craft of journalism for more than a century has been to think up clever titles and headlines, and Google comes along and says, ‘The heck with that,’ ” observed Ed Canale, vice president for strategy and new media at The Sacramento Bee.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing, daddy?” Lizzie and George’s daughter repeatedly asks in Kurt Andersen’s Turn of the Century. Her inquiries often focus on some technological innovation and its side-effects, and I imagine she’d be asking it about this one, too.

The world can do with more headlines that convey a clear, pithy message. But can’t we have a little levity with our brevity?

Maybe we can… and maybe we don’t have to wait for artificial intelligence to develop a sense of humour. Back when a friend of mine was writing for the University of Ottawa’s student newspaper, The Fulcrum, he never missed a chance for a punned headline. His high-water mark came when the paper covered (if I remember the story correctly) student apathy over pornographic magazines sold at Pivik, the university’s student-run store.

The headline: “Pivik pack porn, and I don’t care”.

Which I suspect Google would have dealt with quite handily.

Meanwhile, what goes for online newspapers goes double for blogs. While papers can often rely on a large and mostly loyal online readership, blogs often have to compete for readers’ attention. And a prominent place in search engine results is one of the most likely ways you’ll get it.
My most popular pages, especially among folks coming from search engines all have something in common: headlines that clearly and unambiguously state the topic of the post. Wit, in those cases, comes a distant second.

What’s your experience? And what’s your favourite witty-yet-informative headline?

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2 Comments

Declan on 10 Apr 2006 at 08:01

Yes, I know this dilemma.

Often in titling a post, I have to decide between something which will act like a series of tags for the post vs. something (I think is) clever. I generally go with clever, but then I don’t get a lot of traffic!

As for witty yet informative headline, nothing comes to mind right off. If something occurs to me, I’ll get back to you.

James on 10 Apr 2006 at 11:12

The question here is really a shift in audience. We used to write only for people. Now we have to write for people and machines. So your example above, ‘Pivik pack porn, and I donâ€™t care’ would have worked, but it probably wouldn’t have worked as well to generate traffic as something more machine friendly like, ‘Porn Sold at University of Ottawa’s Pivik’.

Both audiences ‘read’ the text of the headline and have to make meaning of it, though they have a large disparity in ability to create meaning. Writing to search engines is like reverse engineering a topic to target specific keyword phrases that searchers have agreed upon in aggregate as the appropriate text for that topic. Often when you hit the sweet spot (high search volume, low number of competing pages for that keyword phrase) a large volume of unexpected traffic ends up at your site.

To do article optimization properly, there’s a whole scientific approach that goes into concepts like keywork popularity and keyword equity. People sweat the small stuff a lot and do all kinds of research to create the most-optimized headlines and pages. In many ways, it’s a zero-sum game because only one article can show up at the top of the search results for each search.

So are we better off? (By we, let’s assume I mean the breathers out here in meatspace.) Probably not. Reading and taking delight in the layers of meaning of writing will probably become a luxury for some headline writers. The headlines aren’t just for us readers anymore, how could that improve them?

Declan on 10 Apr 2006 at 08:01
Yes, I know this dilemma.
Often in titling a post, I have to decide between something which will act like a series of tags for the post vs. something (I think is) clever. I generally go with clever, but then I don’t get a lot of traffic!
As for witty yet informative headline, nothing comes to mind right off. If something occurs to me, I’ll get back to you.
James on 10 Apr 2006 at 11:12
The question here is really a shift in audience. We used to write only for people. Now we have to write for people and machines. So your example above, ‘Pivik pack porn, and I donâ€™t care’ would have worked, but it probably wouldn’t have worked as well to generate traffic as something more machine friendly like, ‘Porn Sold at University of Ottawa’s Pivik’.
Both audiences ‘read’ the text of the headline and have to make meaning of it, though they have a large disparity in ability to create meaning. Writing to search engines is like reverse engineering a topic to target specific keyword phrases that searchers have agreed upon in aggregate as the appropriate text for that topic. Often when you hit the sweet spot (high search volume, low number of competing pages for that keyword phrase) a large volume of unexpected traffic ends up at your site.
To do article optimization properly, there’s a whole scientific approach that goes into concepts like keywork popularity and keyword equity. People sweat the small stuff a lot and do all kinds of research to create the most-optimized headlines and pages. In many ways, it’s a zero-sum game because only one article can show up at the top of the search results for each search.
So are we better off? (By we, let’s assume I mean the breathers out here in meatspace.) Probably not. Reading and taking delight in the layers of meaning of writing will probably become a luxury for some headline writers. The headlines aren’t just for us readers anymore, how could that improve them?