Why do websites have a "Click here to continue reading" button?

The entire text has apparently already loaded. Is this just to prove that I’m a human?

Maybe also to confirm how much time you’re spending there, and how far down you scroll (to verify whether the ads further down the page are being seen)?

Because for revenue-generating purposes a click is a click.

^This.

To be able to ask you to pay for a subscription once they have drawn you in.

Pay-per-click.

I read that as “Because for revenge-generating purposes a click is a click.”

That would explain a lot… :slight_smile:

It’s so they can tell whether you read past the first paragraph or just clicked a link, glanced at the page for 2 seconds and then left. It helps sites (and advertisers) better understand user behavior. Source: I work for a newspaper site that uses this.

Only if the click is on an ad, which the “continue reading” button is not.

There seem to be several mechanisms for implementing this. Some sites do load the entire text but only show the rest of when you click that. I usually run my browser with JavaScript disabled, and that usually disables that button too.

Some browsers have a separate setting to disable page formatting (basically, it disables CSS) and for some sites, doing that will display the entire text. (Yahoo News works like this.)

Some other sites seem to NOT load the rest of the text until you click the button.