X (Twitter) doesn't want to give you website traffic

 X has taken several steps this week that tell us more about its approach to links on the site: how they appear and how they’re prioritised.

First. they removed all headlines and descriptions from links, only leaving the image that’s automatically taken from the website and the website’s short url (as below).  Elon Musk said this was a design decision to make the newsfeed cleaner and easier to view.  He also says he’s planning on removing engagement numbers from the main news feed.

Second, in response to stories about news media’s traffic from X dramatically reducing, Elon confirmed that the Twitter algorithm shows content with links on to fewer people.  They don’t want X users leaving the website and are encouraging accounts to post more copy and video content to keep people on the site.

THE KEY INFO

X strips back links and confirms the platform deprioritises link content

·         Links now only show an image and url, automatically taken from your website

·         Without headlines and descriptions, links are less clear and lose a strong call to action

·         Posts with links are shown to fewer people too, they want users to stay on X

·         They are encouraging posts with more copy and longer videos

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Without headlines and descriptions on links, there’s less context and information to drive a visit as a call to action.  It’s also less clear that there’s a link to the website at all and users could confuse them as a simple image.

We expect to see the traffic driven from X to decrease as a result and brands will have to find creative ways to capture the interest of their audience and create a clear call to action.  Not just in how they post but how they format the data on their websites to support the content.

We already see websites changing the format of the images that are automatically pulled through – to embed headlines and text asking people to ‘click’, ‘visit’, ‘read’ and ‘learn more’.