HuffPost Headline Test

This is practically sacrilege in these days of SEO-driven editorial decisions but I wonder if this Huffington Post test of headlines over which one draws more readers really means one headline is better than the other?

Kudos to HP for trying to improve. It's an interesting technique. But I have been complaining about that site's headlines for a long time, not because they're boring but because they sometimes wildly overstate the facts,or misuse words ("hone" for "home" in very large type last week, for example.) Too often the site relies on splashing large type, no matter the value of the story. They reflect, too often, tabloid values rather than good and reliable information. Perhaps this is a good step toward at least thinking about the content some more. We'll see.