Clickbait
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) tells us that clickbait is “Internet content whose main purpose is to encourage users to follow a link to a web page, esp. where that web page is considered to be of low quality or value.” However, that leads us to believe almost anything on the Internet could be clickbait—too vague OED, try again!
Clickbait (also known as link bait or linkbait) is a text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow ("click") that link and view, read, stream or listen to the linked piece of online content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading. A "teaser" aims to exploit the "curiosity gap", providing just enough information to make readers of news websites curious, but not enough to satisfy their curiosity without clicking through to the linked content. Clickbait headlines often add an element of dishonesty, using enticements that do not accurately reflect the content being delivered. The -bait suffix makes an analogy with fishing, where a hook is disguised by an enticement (bait), presenting the impression to the fish that it is a desirable thing to swallow.
Before the Internet, a marketing practice known as bait-and-switch used similar dishonest methods to hook customers. In extreme degree, like bait-and-switch, clickbait is a form of fraud. (Click fraud, however, is a separate form of online misrepresentation which uses a more extreme disconnect between what is being presented in the frontside of the link versus what is on the click-through side of the link, also encompassing malicious code.) The term clickbait does not encompass all cases where the user arrives at a destination that is not anticipated from the link that is clicked.