Outbrain's Revised Guidelines Call On Industry to Put Reader Trust First

-- Leading content discovery platform releases its latest series of guidelines to further enhance user experience and combat content spam, urging rivals to follow 

SINGAPORE, July 1, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Outbrain, the world's largest content discovery platform*, has today released a new set of content guidelines designed to update the parameters of what content it will accept across its growing network. Revised annually, the updated guidelines are the latest move by the category leader to ensure readers and publishers come into contact with the most interesting, authentic and, above all, trusted content.

"Maintaining reader trust has and always will be our number one priority," said Yaron Galai, co-founder and CEO of Outbrain. "As the industry recognizes the promise of content discovery, we believe that, in order to create a long-term and sustainable future, the industry must abide by one simple premise - content recommendations should point to genuine content that is valuable to the reader."

Outbrain's content guidelines, which are publicly available at http://www.outbrain.com/amplify/guidelines/ and must be adhered to by all customers placing recommended links, make clear that only content which is informational and/or has intrinsic entertainment value to the reader, should appear on Outbrain network sites. Links that drive to commercials, infomercials, advertising copy, or self-promotional content will not be permitted into the system.

"We believe that these are guiding principles which the entire industry, including publishers and our counterparts, should adopt," Galai added. "Placing audience satisfaction and trust first and foremost will future-proof our whole industry for growth."

In addition, the content discovery leader has put in place a number of other initiatives that underpin its 'always-on' focus on user trust:

• A tool that gives publishers the power to make decisions about content links on their sites and allows them to exclude links as they see fit, ensuring they control the authenticity of their readers' experience
• Bolstering its team with the addition of a full-time content strategist to ensure its content guidelines are constantly advanced and iterated upon, in line with the evolving landscape
• Headline restrictions that clamp down further on misleading, sensational or too-good-to-be-true claims, aggressive marketing and sales language.

Established in 2006, Outbrain was the first to market with its content discovery platform and has led the market ever since, raising $99 million to date and more than doubling revenue year-over-year for the past four years. Outbrain's global footprint extends to 17 national offices, and the company now serves over 150 billion personalized content recommendations every month.

As it rolls out these new guidelines, Outbrain continues to build on its strong growth trajectory. In April, Outbrain had 190,083,000 million unique visitors in the U.S., according to ComScore, and is outpacing Facebook in reach in leading indicator markets like Germany.

About Outbrain:

Outbrain (http://www.outbrain.com/) is the world's largest content discovery platform, bringing personalized, relevant online, mobile and video content to audiences and helping publishers understand their audiences through data.

Outbrain works with over 100,000 sites and generates over 14 billion page views per month for top-tier publications like: CNN, Fox News, Times Inc., ESPN, The Guardian, ABS-CBN, Channel NewsAsia, and Times of India. Founded in 2006, the company is headquartered in New York with 17 offices globally, including the U.S., U.K., Israel, Singapore, Japan and Australia.

* According to ComScore media metrix (April 2014) Outbrain now reaches more than half a billion unique visitors each month worldwide, and more than 71% of Singapore digital audience.