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![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/6e8c9_facebook-low-quality-websites.png?w=640&ssl=1\")
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Facebook will bury links to low-quality websites and refuse to carry ads pointing to them in a News Feed algorithm change announced today<\/a>. Facebook defines a \u201clow-quality site\u201d as one \u201ccontaining little substantive content, and that is covered in disruptive, shocking or malicious ads.\u201d This includes hosting pop-up and interstitial ads, adult ads or eye-catching but disgusting ads for products that fight fat or foot fungus.<\/p>\n The change could help Facebook fight fake news, as fakers are often financially motivated and blanket their false information articles in ads.<\/p>\n High-quality sites may see a slight boost in referral traffic, while crummy sites will see a decline as the update rolls out gradually over the coming months. Facebook tells me that the change will see it refuse an immaterial number of ad impressions that earned it negligible amounts of money, so it shouldn\u2019t have a significant impact on Facebook\u2019s revenue.<\/p>\n Facebook product manager for News Feed Greg Marra tells me Facebook made the decision based on surveys of users about what disturbed their News Feed experience. One pain point they commonly cited was links that push them to \u201cmisleading, sensational, spammy, or otherwise low-quality experiences . . .[including] sexual content, shocking content, and other things that are going to be really disruptive.\u201d<\/p>\n Today\u2019s change is important because if users don\u2019t trust the content on the other side of the links and ads they see in News Feed, they\u2019ll click them less. That could reduce Facebook\u2019s advertising revenue and the power it derives from controlling referral traffic. Getting sent to a low-quality, shocking site from News Feed could also frustrate users and cause them to end their Facebook browsing session, depriving the social network of further ad views, engagement and content sharing.<\/p>\n Image: Bryce Durbin\/TechCrunch<\/p>\n Facebook previously tried to reduce the prevalence of links to low-quality sites with a 2014 News Feed update<\/a> that suppressed sites that people came back to News Feed immediately after viewing.<\/p>\n To implement the update, Marra tells me Facebook \u201creviewed hundreds of thousands of webpages,\u00a0<\/span>identifying which ones have low-quality content.\u201d It used this data to train an AI system to constantly scan new links shared in News Feed, looking for ones that match the low-quality site training data set. It then demotes these sites and blocks them from buying Facebook ads.<\/p>\n The parameters Facebook used to classify sites as low-quality include:<\/p>\n A disproportionate volume of ads relative to content.\u00a0<\/strong>This includes advertisements, and not legal obligations such as cookie policies or logins to private content, such as paywalls.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n Featuring sexually suggestive or shocking content.\u00a0<\/strong>See relevant policies for\u00a0Sensational Content<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Adult Content<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/ee1ce_fb-fake-news.jpg?resize=640%2C360&ssl=1\")
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