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You would be surprised by the number of people that skip the article and start commenting based solely on the headline.

• Robotbeat 4y ago
  Even more surprised by editors who will knowingly mislead with the headline in order to force people to click through and get those sweet, sweet ad (or subscriber) dollars just to find out the “man bites dog” headline was a lie.
  • hellotomyrars 4y ago
    I have seen multiple instances where the url was a significantly less sensationalist title that was presumably the authors original headline but an editor decided they needed to get the clicks and modified the actual article headline. Very funny how laid bare it was.
    • ortusdux 4y ago
      I've noticed some sites start with a clickbait headline and then change it after a few hours to something less sensational. I originally thought that they were responding to criticism, but I've seen it enough now that it seems to be a pre-planned way to game SEO/Socials. You can use the wayback machine to check, and I've seen some big headlines get revised down 4+ times.