Stop Gaming Digg

Posted on July 12, 2007
Filed Under Thoughts & Ideas |

When I started blogging it didn’t take me long to become familiar with digg and the rest of all the social content websites. I realized these pages were a good way of getting traffic to my blog, even though I did not get on the front page. Ever since I started using these pages, I have thought about getting to the front page, and how to do so. Of course, the only thing I need to do, is post something which people really want to read. However, this is far more difficult than you might think.

One thought I had, was if the people who give their votes over at digg, tend to adapt to some sort of online flocking pattern. If I get the first twenty diggs, will I automatically get more, even though the thing I am posting might not deserve it? I never got an answer to this since I never really got more that 8 diggs at the most. But still with just 8 diggs, my visitor stats would increase from maybe around 10 visitors on a day to over 100. This was a great feeling, and I guess it makes it rather obvious why a lot of people are looking for ways to game the social content websites.

Although Digg is one of the very best places for finding interesting news, I still decided to give it a shot. I want to mention that, throughout the entire process, the only reason behind this, has been to prove my hypothesis wrong or right, and then write an article about it.

First of all, doing this can result in a ban from digg. So I do not suggest for anyone else to go and do this. Secondly, this is morally wrong. I must admit I felt a bit weird in doing this, since this is destroying the entire purpose of digg, and definitely taking away the value. I feel a bit better when I think of this as an experiment and telling people about my results. I know this does not justify it. Just makes me feel a bit better. Still I can see a problem in this, since everyone can come up with an excuse afterwards, telling that “it was just an experiment”.

Okay, so how did I start this. Well first of all, I wrote an article which I thought of as a rather normal post. It definitely had the potential to bring in some traffic, but most likely not front page digg stuff. So I posted it, I digged it, and I went to digital point which is a popular forum for people who want to exchange diggs, stumbles etc. Basically I started a thread where I asked people to come in and digg my post, in return of the same. People are more than willing to come and help you out, since they are in the same position as you. They want diggs as well. I started out with one digg, which was done by me.
And about 10 hours later I had 26 diggs

Digital point was one of many ways to go. As mentioned above, the demand for diggs is huge, so there are several different places to get it, which I do not want to mention here.

Okay, so I was up to 28 diggs (26 of these coming from digital point). I thought I would keep it to this, and to see if it would keep increasing naturally. So I stoped posting in my thread over at digital point..
Now lets take a quick look at the details from Google Analytics.
When I started the morning I had had 6 visitors before I posted my story and put it up on digg.

Analytics

In the evening after my 28 diggs I had had 120 visitors.

Analytics2

Now this is really some numbers which makes you think again, before doing this. Keep in mind that 28 of these people have been around my page to give it a digg, all of them from digital point. Besides, I did no only post the article on digg, but also on reddit, shoutwire, etc. 120 is definitely not anything special, and in my mind definitely not something which is worth a potential ban from digg!

As of the next day, there had been no further diggs and visitors stats were back to normal. As you probably know, people from digg are one time visitors, and they have no increasing effect on your AdSense earnings.

So I can easily say I prove my hypotheses to be wrong. Diggers do not digg, without knowing what they are digging. And this is why it makes it absolutely ironic to give your own posts fake diggs. Is a few extra visitors on your page really worth a potential ban from Digg, plus the contribution of destroying the entire value of the page? Absolute not. Stop trying to game digg, and write something people actually want to read.


Digg!

Comments

5 Responses to “Stop Gaming Digg”

  1. Mouseclone on July 12th, 2007 2:18 pm

    Great points. I have gotten tones of traffic from Digg. I also stop digg-ing my stories from tie to time to see how the traffic is holding up. I have seen over time that I have gone from 5 or 6 visits a day to about 30. I’m hoping that it will continue to grow. I like seeing the stats but I enjoy seeing the none digg traffic more.

  2. Jakob Dupont Knudsen on July 12th, 2007 2:26 pm

    Exactly! Somehow it feels so much more rewarding.

  3. Daniel Vukadinovic on July 15th, 2007 7:10 pm

    I get around 60% of all traffic from social bookmarking websites like D*gg but it doesn’t feel good to be dependent on that.

  4. Jakob Dupont Knudsen on July 15th, 2007 8:39 pm

    Daniel,
    I know that feeling. Now I am starting to see more visitors from all around the web, but I still get a good bunch from Digg, and all the other social bookmarking websites. It is always fun to see how good you are at these pages.

  5. Daniel Vukadinovic on July 15th, 2007 11:14 pm

    Yes, but it’s not hard to get D*gg visitors it’s hard to keep them :).

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