Search engines vs the sub-ed

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Very interesting article from the New York Times about how newspaper websites are having to tone down their article titles to pander to the needs of search engines, which deliver up to 30% of their traffic, and which are somewhat more literal-minded than their human readers.

Does this mark the demise of the sub-editor’s craft? Apparently not – the trick is to use duplicate article titles for the same article, usually at the top of different sections. So the search engine spiders see the boring, searchable article title, and human readers see the more imaginative one.

Thanks to Prostoalex via Slashdot for this one.