Click Bait on Cycling Websites

[dbnm]

I am rather shocked by the amount of click bait on websites like Cycling Weekly.
Click on this link and keep scrolling down. And keep scrolling down. And keep scrolling down.

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/tour-de-france/spoke-person-took-picture-geraint-thomas-tour-de-france-crash-431075

I'm sure there will be a response about them needing subscribers and needing money, but WOW. That's a lot of nonsense

[unterhausen]

funny, one of my privacy/ad blockers is keeping me from seeing any at all

[GOTHBROOKS]

i bought a disc brake road bike (you wont believe what happens next)

[unterhausen]

never lube your chain again with this one weird trick!

on edit: it's a weird trick, not a cool trick

[Clancy]

I’ve quit going to cyclingnews because every time I do, spam pops up and takes over.

I sent an email informing them of the constant problem, no response

[Hawker]

Wow...the amount of click bait is crazy. And...that's the most attractive billionaire I've ever seen.

[makoti]

i bought a disc brake road bike (you wont believe what happens next)

Did you try that ONE trick?

[tbike4]

I enjoy seeing photos never released to the public, until now.

[Willy]

I’ve quit going to cyclingnews because every time I do, spam pops up and takes over.

I sent an email informing them of the constant problem, no response

Glad to see others having the same problem and that it’s not my machine.

[peanutgallery]

Daniel Benson doesn't care as its all about monetization, plus he's got his hands full with their forum. Now that is the definition of a 3 ring circus...in several languages worth of dysfunction

For the record, Velonews has turned into Bicycling magazine more or less

[Red Tornado]

I’ve quit going to cyclingnews because every time I do, spam pops up and takes over.

I sent an email informing them of the constant problem, no response

Yeah, and you have to scroll down for what seems like forever to get past the clickbait and to the comments on their stories/reports. Seemed like it's gotten worse in the last few weeks.

[HenryA]

I have often wondered if the proprietors of sites that have become little clickbait hells consider their presentation to the world. It amazes me that it could be a good idea to sell your soul a penny at a time and end up with a site that has all the attractiveness of strip club in a bad part of town.

If they weren't so lazy they could have ads that were related to the subject matter of the site, such as bike ads on a bike site. Duh, who would ever think? But the lure of something for nothing overcomes decades or centuries of advertising experience. Just let some other machine put anything they want on your site and they automatically send you a few pennies.

Then there’s the pop up that asks you to turn off your ad blocker. Ha! The internet has gone to hell. Get off my lawn.

You’ll never guess how these former pro racers make millions working from home.

[charliedid]

I just learned how to flush my bowels and now know the 25 worst movies ever made.

The more you know.

[spinarelli]

Same here. I find it amazing when I hear people don’t use Adblock or something similar. You can white list ads, like the ones here so you can see the sponsors.

funny, one of my privacy/ad blockers is keeping me from seeing any at all

[dgauthier]

Wow...the amount of click bait is crazy. And...that's the most attractive billionaire I've ever seen.

+1!

Click bait ain't all bad...

[smontanaro]

I switched from Chrome to Firefox a few weeks ago. Given that FF is supposed to be more privacy-enhanced, I left Privacy Badger (https://www.eff.org/privacybadger) behind to see what it could do on its own. This thread demonstrated "not much," at least in the realm of these click bait ads. Installed the extension, visited the topic page again, presto! no more annoying ads. On top of that, their badger is kinda cute. What's not to like? :)

[weiwentg]

I don't believe it's just cycling websites. I frequent Vox.com, which prides itself on helping readers understand the news. They do pretty in-depth analysis ... kind of diametrically opposite to all the click baity stuff appearing in their sponsored ad panels. Which is not very dissimilar to the stuff I see on Cyclingweekly, or many other sites. I honestly don't know how much control individual sites have over this stuff, unless they want to completely go without both the click bait and the corresponding ad revenue.