9 ms·
Book subtitles are getting longer because of SEO
- gdcohen 7y agoSo true. And interesting that the title of the actual article is also very long, "Book subtitles are getting ridiculously long. What is going on?".
- tracker1 7y agoNew book idea... SEO: Search Engine Optimization to expand markets both online and offline in the face of competition and substance
- tracker1 7y agoSong Title: Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand
- TheSoftwareGuy 7y agoI've noticed this for a lot of web pages too. It seems a lot of search engines put a disproportionate amount of weight on keywords that are found in titles/headings as opposed to text bodies
- AznHisoka 7y agoYoutube video titles as well. Especially kids video where they stuff a bunch of kid-related words in it like 'Play Doh Elsa Johnny Johnny Yes Papa Masha Bear ABC'
- aeharding 7y agoSEO is making all titles/descriptions be less creative and use more targeted keywords. For example, Skydiving dropzones. Some in Wisconsin: 1. Skyknights -> Skydive Milwaukee 2. AtmosphAIR -> Wisconsin Skydiving Center 3. Green Bay Skydivers -> Skydive Freefall Adventure
- jetrink 7y agoBack when people used phone books instead of search engines, businesses would choose names that would be listed first alphabetically[1]. Even now, there are three unrelated AAA Plumbing businesses within 10 miles of me. 1. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-11-08-9204110246-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-11-08-920411...
- Jarred 7y agoMy dad's small business construction company was called "AA1 Construction" because he wanted it to be the first in the phone book.
- itronitron 7y agoI know a shop that picked a 'Z' name so that they would be the last place that a prospective client called, their reasoning being that they would only get interesting jobs (the ones that everyone else said NO to) as a result.
- marvy 7y agodid it work?
- itronitron 7y agoyes, it was a 2+ person prop shop and most of their projects involved some trial and error
- SerLava 7y agoThat last one seems to be going the other way.
- aeharding 7y agoIt could be, but keep in mind Skydive Freefall Adventure is trying to capture a lot of northeastern Wisconsin, not just Green Bay.
- 781 7y agoSEO is one reason, but the reduced attention span of today's people surely is another. People just won't bother figuring out what a "mystery title" book is about.
- SerLava 7y agoI don't like the idea of attention span in the context of media consumption. It presupposes that the producer has some kind of right to everyone else's attention just because they made something. If you're not going to help filter yourself out from people who won't be interested in you, it will be and should be an automatic no.
- inetknght 7y ago> I don't like the idea of attention span in the context of media consumption. You not liking it doesn't make it any less of a fact...
- SerLava 7y agoIt's not really a fact though- it's a framework for understanding engagement, and it's a trash framework. It's used my the laziest shills to place blame for their shit content on some notion of public stupidity.
- marvy 7y agoso you're saying you approve of the longer titles?
- icebraining 7y agoSeems like a return to book titles of the past, which often were a short summary of the whole book: https://evareadsbooks.wordpress.com/tag/really-long-old-book-titles-a-series/ https://evareadsbooks.wordpress.com/tag/really-long-old-book...
- WorldMaker 7y agoI do find it amusing for its retro sensibility from the times when it was easier to typeset additional words on a thing than images or illustrations.
- Freak_NL 7y agoI love them: > Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships Or another all time classic: > The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of ROBINSON CRUSOE, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Iſland on the Coaſt of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been caſt on Shore by Shipwreck, where-in all the Men periſhed but himſelf. With An Account how he was at laſt as ſtrangely deliver'd by Pirates.
- Freak_NL 7y agoI'm forry about the long-f there, but the title doefn't look right without it.
- WalterBright 7y agoMy f key ftopped working af well.
- jfk13 7y agoI confeſs I was ſorry to ſee you failed to uſe the proper ‘ſ’ while apologiſing, and ſubſtituted the quite different letter ‘f’.
- coding123 7y agoSoon author pen names will look like this: Stevenking Shining
- ryandrake 7y agoSame with mobile app titles. Back when I wrote iOS apps, our marketer/growth hacker advocated changing the app name to a ridiculously long string of keywords. I thought it was the stupidest idea ever but we did it and it had an immediate and sustained positive effect on our app’s AppStore ranking. Turns out I was the stupid one.
- falcolas 7y agoThey have a ways to go, if they want to compete with some of the Japanese Light Novel titles. I Came to Another World as a Jack of All Trades and a Master of None to Journey while Relying on Quickness or There was a Cute Girl in the Hero's Party so I tried Confessing or the rather tame Didn't I Say To Make My Abilities Average In The Next Life? It's kind of interesting to see what is done to make titles stand out in an age where anyone can write a novel on the web (or publish a book on Amazon).
- hnaccy 7y agoI like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reborn_as_a_Vending_Machine,_I_Now_Wander_the_Dungeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reborn_as_a_Vending_Machine,_I...
- pixelbath 7y agoThese isekai novel titles have long since gone past the point of ridicule, and that stands even if you limit the selection to translated versions. I do wonder if this is a byproduct of SEO, or simply differentiation between products.
- plorkyeran 7y agoThey started as a ridiculous way to stand out, transitioned on to basically self-parody, then once the novelty wore off everyone just went "huh, why not use a sentence as a title?" Once it stopped being weird it turned out that shoving a short description of your story into the title is a good way to grab readers.
- TheAceOfHearts 7y agoI was about to say the same thing. Some light novel titles are literally a long description. These are two of the longer titles: * (I've Already Saved This World and Taken Its Wealth and Power and I Live Happily in a Castle with a Female Knight and Demon Queen, So To All Other Heroes) Stay Out of This Fantasy World. * Sew It Up! Take It Off? Change!! My Girlfriend Failed Her High School Debut and Became a Hikikomori, So I Decided to Coordinate Her Youth (Fashion) You also see the same trend with some manga titles: * I'm a Middle-Aged Man Who Got My Adventurer License Revoked, But I'm Enjoying a Carefree Lifestyle Because I Have an Adorable Daughter Now * A Story About Treating a Female Knight, Who Has Never Been Treated as a Woman, as a Woman Indie publishing has also made high quality cover art much more important. I don't know about other people, but I regularly judge books based on their cover. There was a book in my recommendations list which I skipped for years just because I thought one of the guys on the cover looked like an asshole. Ended up enjoying it and regretting that I waited so long to pick it up. This isn't always the case, but more often than not, low quality cover art means poor writing as well.
- nacs 7y agoArticle without ad/paywall: https://outline.com/XS9Yqt https://outline.com/XS9Yqt
- whatrocks 7y agoMy favorite college professor was onto this way back in 1988 with the subtitle to his great book `Another Sort of Learning` `Selected Contrary Essays on How Finally to Acquire an Education While Still in College Or Anywhere Else: Containing Some Belated Advice about How to Employ Your Leisure Time When Ultimate Questions Remain Perplexing in Spite of Your Highest Earned Academic Degree, Together with Sundry Book Lists Nowhere Else in Captivity to Be Found` https://www.amazon.com/Another-Sort-Learning-James-Schall/dp/089870183X https://www.amazon.com/Another-Sort-Learning-James-Schall/dp...
- ilamont 7y agoAnother trend: Titles are getting shorter. Publishers use larger title text, clearer images, and more colorful/contrasted covers so they stand out at thumbnail scale.
- JoeSmithson 7y agoThis is seems to be true of apps names as well. For example, to pick a few random examples; - Spotify's actual name on Google Play is "Spotify: Discover music, podcasts, and playlists" (so catchy!) - SoundHound's actual name is "SoundHound - Music Discovery & Hands-Free Player" Rather than fixing whatever search behaviour incentivised this, Google seem to have just joined in; - Google Maps is actually called "Maps - Navigate & Explore" - Google Keep is actually called "Google Keep - Notes and Lists" When I got a new phone recently I actually found it really confusing and had to check I wasn't installing phishing apps by mistake. Thankfully Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are currently named with their actual names!
- leppr 7y agoThe app store UIs could just differentiate between the canonical name and a short tag line. Right now tweaking the title is the only way to add a description to the search result list.
- kalleboo 7y agoThe iOS App Store tries to do this since a version or two ago. Apps still stick a bunch of junk in their names though. Partially because there are app name squatters, and one way to get around an app name being taken is to add stuff to it. Partially due to SEO myths.
- Stickycover 7y agoAs mentioned, the app stores' UI could definitely help in getting rid of the dirty phishing app feeling. I do believe though that the enlongated names in this scenario is probably to help newbies to find a new app that they didn't know of. Slightly different from the enlogated book substitles scenario as the books are competing on Google's entire database of books, linkes, articles, etc. versus the apps are mostly only competing with other apps on their app stores.
- PopeDotNinja 7y agoTangentially related... the most memorable answer/blurb I've heard to the question "what do you sell?" came from a Coca-Cola executive in an interview with Charlie Rose (I forget which one, so citation needed). The exec said "we sell ready-to-drink, non-alcoholic beverages". I've never heard a marketing pitch that told me more about what a company does than that blurb, and I use that as my benchmark for whether a blurb I am crafting describes what I am trying to pitch.
- gcb0 7y ago"...and lack of reviews". If they had reviews (reason we had affiliate code) organic search would work just fine. Instead we give google the affiliate cut, in exchange of the privilege of tweaking our content to their search.
- d-d 7y agoIf you're fascinated by the unintended consequences of technology it might be worth picking up a copy of "Understanding Media" by Marshall McLuhan. This hacking of book subtitles is a great example of what I like to call the "McLuhan Effect", but honestly I just can't remember the proper term for it.
- tartinipaolo 7y agoThis "trend" seems just so sad to me, but the truth is, the title sells. Unfortunately that means changing the original name to something totally different in translation just as the publisher wants to sell the book. I don't think this is right but as long as it is the will of the writer it will make just him look ridiculous because of the ways he used to sell.
- jjp 7y agoIs it SEO or search result presentation optimization? I've noticed a load of book/film titles on Amazon search results and had assumed that it was less about SEO than a bit more of a descriptive title so that I was more likely to click through and find out more about the book/film.
- stunt 7y agoEverything is getting longer because of SEO. Books, Articles, News, blog posts, and Youtube videos. Even conference talks are getting longer because length is often more important than the quality for most of the users.
- mrhappyunhappy 7y agoI wonder how much collective human time search engines and google in particular has siphoned from us. Instead of getting straight to the point, now you have to read a bunch of “long form” content. Think about all that wasted time and multiply by billions.
- gipp 7y agoYou've gotta squint really hard to convince yourself that the internet has decreased the brevity of communication.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hirundo 7y agoI can confirm it's also true for web articles: mysql> desc articles; +--------------+---------------+ | Field | Type | +--------------+---------------+ | id | int(11) | | kicker | varchar(255) | | body | longtext | | headline | varchar(255) | | sub_headline | text | | teaser | text | We used to have varchar(255) for sub_headline as with headline. A few years ago I caught a ticket to turn it into a text type (65 KiB). SEO was the motive. If we ever get a request to make it longtext (4 GiB) I may cry.
- benatkin 7y agoIt isn't 191 characters?!?! https://github.com/rails/rails/issues/9855#issuecomment-28874587 https://github.com/rails/rails/issues/9855#issuecomment-2887... https://github.com/rails/rails/issues/30305 https://github.com/rails/rails/issues/30305 Kidding. I have used 191 as a length because of that though. :)
- 0xcde4c3db 7y agoThis reminds me of the following creature from the Magic: The Gathering "Unhinged" joke expansion [1]: Our Market Research Shows That Players Like Really Long Card Names So We Made this Card to Have the Absolute Longest Card Name Ever Elemental [1] https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=74237 https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multive...
- borne0 7y agoAs an aside, Jon Ronson's podcast 'The Butterfly Effect' presents the same issue with porn videos; before streaming sites and SEO producers were free to name their videos as they wished but now they need to name them so they appeal to multiple sub-genres and fetishes and that's why we get 'Step Daughter Cheerleader Orgy Volume 4' rather than some play on Edward Scissor Hands.