There’s a new audience development tool in town for publishers, particularly daily news sites — paid discovery.Paid discovery is basically paid links at the bottom of an article or the side of page — typically low-value real estate for ads, but great real estate for links since people who reach the bottom of the page are looking for what to do next. Services link Outbrain (for written content) and Taboola (for video content) let publishers promote their links on other news sites. Most of these links are under the heading “From Around the Web” (see screenshot from CNN at the bottom of this article) or “You May Also Like” (see screenshot from The New York Times video player below).

Major news sites are using the services, including USA Today, The Atlantic and subscription sites The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Each site can determine which links to show according to an algorithm. A typical algorithm lets publishers promote the content on their own site in half the links and content from other sites in the other half. Either way, publishers win — either they get more page views for their own site or they collect revenues for driving traffic to other news sites.The downside may be user backlash. Some publishers are carrying paid links under “paid distribution” tags, while others use a small question mark icon that users can click on to find out more. But since Outbrain and Taboola have some strict guidelines on what they consider content (here and here), readers probably won’t mind getting editorial recommendations so long as they’re not being sent to marketing fodder, advertorial or just garbage websites.Here’s the screenshot from CNN I mentioned above. Note the blue box highlighting recommendations from around the Web (placed next to a separate box promoting CNN-only content).