The idea has been gaining traction for months as some early adapting publishers have touted audience engagement as a powerful tool for selling ads. Recent developments — including advertisers’ growing disdain for banner ads that are never seen or clicked on — suggest the idea may be catching on at an accelerating pace.

Last month, Google issued a report that said 56% of ads it serves aren’t “viewable,” a term that suggests ads are too far down on the site or that readers aren’t scrolling down far enough. The result reinforced the notion that display ads are deeply flawed, says Jonah Goodhart, CEO of ad tech firm Moat. (USA TODAY is a client of Moat.)

“Advertisers want the time and attention of the right audience to get the right message across,” says Tony Haile, CEO of web traction research firm Chartbeat, who’s been one of the loudest proponents of the quality-over-quantity approach. “To date, they’ve been given proxies like page views and click-through rates. We should value and deliver exactly what they want: (readers’) time and attention.”

SEEKING SUPER JOURNALISTS

This month, Gawker– known for aggregating and respinning highly viral stories with its own sharp voice – told readers its front page will be updated less often to give selected stories longer shelf life on its most prominent piece of real estate.

Borrowing a retro play from newspapers, Gawker said its main page will be used more like a front page, displaying what its editors consider to be the best reported or simply most engaging stories — the ones often lost in the shuffle because of a constant flow of new posts.

In the new arrangement, the highlighted front-page stories will be accompanied by larger images and headlines. Other stories will be placed on “sub-blogs” that pertain to the story topic – a tech story on Valleywag.com, for example.

“Traffic will take a hit,” Gawker editor in chief Max Read says. “Page views is one measure, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.”

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