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Machine hed
April 10, 2006
Jeff Jarvis sees nothing wrong with journalists kowtowing to search engines and their idiot-savant algorithms. Writing in response to Steve Lohr's article on how reporters and editors are beginning to craft headlines with an eye to scoring highly in search results, Jarvis defends "search-engine optimization," or SEO, as a journalistic goal:
The fear about SEO is that it dumbs-down or blunts-up the presentation of content to [sic] a search engine can understand what a story is about and lead readers interested in that topic to it. But I’m not so sure that simplicity, directness, and bluntness are so bad. How often have you read headlines and the first halves of overwritten newspaper and magazine stories wondering what the hell they are about? A simple summary of a story with clear labeling of its topics are [sic] good for humans, too. I’d love it if every story [sic] — online and in print — told me what the story is about so I can decide whether I want to spend my time reading it. After all, that used to be the real value of headlines before they became another stage for showing off.
After slogging through that paragraph, one begins to understand Jarvis's fondness for machine readers. He writes prose that only a search engine could love.
(Yes, yes, I know: Elitism is infinitely worse than philistinism. Copy-editing is for dinosaurs. Confused syntax is a sign of authenticity. Believe me: I'm trying to reeducate myself.)
It's true that most headlines are fairly utilitarian things, meant to telegraph the thrust of an article and fit more or less elegantly the allotted space. And you wouldn't want to know the amount of money that's been spent researching how headlines grab, or lose, the attention of readers. (Bottom line: "Seven hot sex tips" is pretty hard to beat.) All things considered, SEO-ing headlines may not seem like that big a deal.
But it is. "In newspapers and magazines," writes Lohr, "section titles and headlines are distilled nuggets of human brainwork, tapping context and culture." That may sound pretentious, but it also happens to be true. If Jarvis actually believes that "clear labeling" is the be-all and end-all of headlines, then I feel bad for him. He's missing out on all the wit and wisdom that, at their best, headline writers can compress into just four or five words. Writing for a machine is worse than a guarantee of blandness. For a writer, it's a moral fault.
Where does it end? Certainly not with headlines. Search engines don't stop there, so why should journalists? Why not stuff the first couple of paragraphs with search-engine-friendly terms? Hell, why not just gin up your own algorithm for giving stories an SEO tweak before they run? That wouldn't just get you higher rankings. It would also, no doubt, give your stories greater "simplicity, directness, and bluntness." And once you've got that down, why not cobble together another algorithm to decide what stories you should write in the first place? Why devote scarce resources to a piece that will end up being invisible to search engines? That's the thing about optimization: Once you start, it's hard to stop.
"Journalism is literature in a hurry," said Matthew Arnold. Which is where I'll stop.
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Comments
Many people who read newspapers in the UK (and I'm sure elsewhere too) do so for the headlines. Humour and search engine optimisation don't work well together.
Take today's Sun newspaper
"Don't be Stupid Fokkers"
"ENGLAND boss Sven Goran Eriksson has asked Three Lions fans not to sing the controversial Ten German Bombers song on the World Cup terraces.
Sven said the chant — like ‘Ten Green Bottles’ but about the RAF gunning down Luftwaffe Fokker planes — is “one we really do not want to hear”. He said: “Let’s not go beyond decent behaviour.”"
The article would be all the poorer for search engine optimised headlines. Holiganism is a serious matter, but I guess far fewer people would have read it if it had said, "England's world cup football (soccer) manager Sven warns about songs that are rude to Germans."
Under UK law I believe copyright applies to headlines. (creative works- this one certainly was)
Perhaps journalists should worry about writing the stuff. If it is good someone will find it, tag it and release it...
Posted by: Thomas Otter at April 11, 2006 08:15 AM
Sure, but which tag? Technorati, Digg, delicious, furl, or yahoo myweb? Or is there a meta-tagger option out there yet, like a super-ping?
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at April 11, 2006 05:33 PM
It must be disappointing for you that, while defending your craft, you have to fill what you write with caveats about not wanting to sound elitist or pretentious. I think I would give up reading if everything was written for search engines.
Also, can you clarify what you see as wrong with the third sic (every story)? That sentence parses okay for me, so I'm intrigued. :)
Posted by: George at April 11, 2006 06:43 PM
George, I assume he meant to write "headline" instead of "story." As it stands, the sentence reads "I’d love it if every story told me what the story is about," which doesn't make much sense to me. Nick
Posted by: Nick at April 11, 2006 07:36 PM
Nick, I agree with George. Don't apologize (even with tongue firmly planted in cheek). There are so few corners of the blogosphere that haven't (blindly) embraced anti-elitism (and its cousin, anti-intellectualism). And there are so few reading pleasures left -- but your parsing of Jeff Jarvis' syntax and argument is indeed one of them.
Posted by: Scott Karp at April 11, 2006 11:11 PM
Ah, okay, that makes sense. I was just reading it as an attack on fancy introductions or something, I guess and as a kind of "get to the point" request.
Posted by: George at April 12, 2006 03:17 AM
Headlines and leads seem to have changed a bit in recent years.
But what about book titles? It seems like most nonfiction books now have a main title and a subtitle that is cast to appeal to search engines and to amazon in particular.
I wonder whether publishers are revising backlist titles to include descriptive subtitles.
Posted by: Nihil Obstat at April 12, 2006 09:11 AM
I'mm soo sorrry forr mmy typpos. But having said that... Nothing is to say that you can't have two headlines: the clever, witty, poetry in four words you so crave and the simple, direct, clear, customer service that Google and I crave. We can live in peace and harmony on this, Nickk.
Posted by: Jeff Jarvis at April 13, 2006 09:20 PM
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