Headlines used to include the most important information, and the text for a link for the article would be the headline or something similarly descriptive. Nowadays links to articles often explicitly exclude information forcing you to the article to even see what it's about.

If the title is written in a way that withholds key information when it could just as well be included, I'm willing to call that clickbait. A headline alone shouldn't make me want to read the article. From my perspective, the headline's job is to let me know whether the contents are valuable enough to me that I want to read the article.

> "Clickbait" used to mean "Ten Reasons Clickbait isn't what it used to be... Number 8 will surprise you"!

I think the definition has expanded at the same time that the clickthrough/SEO/likes/dopamine optimization has become embraced by editors, who write the headlines. To me, clickbait is more about substance than style. It's an attentional lure into an article with disappointing substance, to varying extents. Various editors will stylize the headline for the sweet tooth of their demographic.

>writers do not even have access to read metrics

do the writers get to write the headlines though? i thought that was the editor's job, who surely does have access to the metrics.

Clickbait and linkbait were new SEO tools in the late aughts.

Before the advent of this, most headlines tried to be relevant though with occasional good puns and pizazz.

But mostly The Enquirer and the Daily News were outliers and made fun of for their routine exaggerations.