An eye-catching story is a sure-fire way to attract interest and links. Money.co.uk published a news piece with the headline, '13 Year Old Steals Dad's Credit Card to Buy Hookers'.
With such a powerful headline, it was hardly surprising that this story generated a real buzz and has already bagged Money.co.uk over two thousand links to that one page alone.
Unfortunately, as the story turned out to be a hoax, Google didn't look on this favourably and punished the site for not stating that the story was actually made up. In fact the manner in which the story was marketed turned out to be more controversial than the story itself (read this Mashable article for more information).
So the moral of this story is, publishing interesting or surprising stories with great headlines is an excellent way to attract links. But if you make up the story and don't make it clear that it's a hoax, be prepared to feel the wrath of Google.
Money.co.uk's Interesting Story
