We all know that Digg’s algorithm is very complex and they are changing it frequently, so that spammers cannot get their stories popular. Digg states that all the content is only promoted by users and they have nobody implied in the process, but this doesn’t seem to be true.
I have been an active Digg user for a while and I know a lot of other users, including power users and others. Also I read a lot of blog posts about Digg and other’s thoughts. I will try to share with you what I’ve learned until now and try to make you understand the algorithm, at least a part of it, because only they know it exactly.
Along with the algorithm, I will try to share with you some tips that will get the story dugg and to prevent it from being burried.
- Headline
It’s very important to write a headline that will attract the users to click on the story and visit the link. Try to make it attractive, but offer the users an idea of what the story is about. The headline depends on what category you submit the story in ( e.g If you submit it in comedy, then make it funny ). - Description
Try to write an excerpt of the article in the description, so if the user isn’t convinced from the headline to click the link, to make him do it. - Thumbnail
Digg now offers you the possibility to attach a thumbnail to the story. If you submit your own website, try to edit the photo to fit well in the thumb size. - Category
If you submit the story in a wrong category, it’s doomed, so think well before submitting. - Time
Don’t submit your story at 3AM, because nobody is using Digg at that hour and won’t be using it in the next 12 hours at least. Your story has to be up and fresh when Digg is most used and that’s starting at 5PM. There is an advantage if submitting at an hour Digg is less used, because you have lower competition, but also less votes. Before submitting it, check what part of the world it’s headed too and make sure they are awake and aren’t at work at that time.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of factors that prevent a story to get popular and I’ve figured a part of them. There are some you can deal with, while others don’t depend on you.
- Flamers
There are a lot of users that don’t do anything but burying all stories and posting flaming comments. Unfortunately you can do nothing about it, except submitting something that will seem perfect for them. - Headline, Description, Image, Category
If you write a wrong headline or description, users might not be interested in your story and don’t even check it. Or worse, your story might get buried. Also if you submit in the wrong category, fans of that category won’t find what they were looking for and will probably bury your story. - Time
If your story doesn’t get popular in the first 24 hours after submission, chances to get popular are almost null. - Website
If the website is poorly designed or full of ads, it might disturb some users and leave without voting. If it’s really disturbing, it might even get buried or marked as spam. - Content
The story has to be very well written, with no mistakes or typos and to say clearly what it has to say. Also pictures are very important and attract the users. - Moderators
Even if Digg states that there’s nobody implied in the process, there are stories that have lots of votes and comments, being really interesting, that don’t get popular. What else could keep them from hitting the front page ?
From my experience, a story doesn’t have to be only voted positively and some buries might also help. Many votes, comments, buries and positive/negative votes on comments make a story controversial and this seems to help it a lot get popular.
Still there are stories with a lot of votes and comments that stay in the upcoming page for hours and don’t get popular - some get after many hours, some don’t at all -, in my opinion, that’s where moderators are implied. Let’s take an example: The story in the screenshot below was first in upcoming for many hours and has 332 votes with 97 comments, being submitted 23 hours earlier the sreenshot was made. This example is a lucky one, because the story got popular finally. The strange thing is that while it was just staying there, upcoming, about 20 stories got popular, some with three times less votes than this one and lesser comments.
Maybe you noticed that power users need more votes to get their stories popular. That’s because Digg’s algorithm tries to keep users away from exchanging votes and tries to offer everyone equal chances.
Now it doesn’t only count on the number of votes, but it also depends who’s the voter. If someone is voting your stories frequently and doesn’t vote many others, their vote counts less or doesn’t count at all. So you need to get your story voted by a variety of users.
Power users need more votes from two reasons. Having many fans and many stories submitted, there is a high chance that the same users vote some of their stories and this reduces the votes’ value. Also having more fans it means more chances to get their stories popular and Digg requires them more votes for this, while users with less popular stories, fans and friends need less votes.
One more thing that might keep power users from getting their stories popular with less votes is because fans’ votes might also count less.
Though this is no brainier and I didn’t offer you any secret way to suck Digg’s traffic, I hope it will help you better understand Digg and avoid making mistakes.
Please share your thoughts and opinions !
June 17th, 2008 at 4:25 am
This is one of the better articles that I have read about Digg. Thanks very useful.
June 17th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I have never been successful with Digg, but I hope I can apply some of the things you outlined in this guide (especially the part about what time to submit) in order to finally gain some success.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:10 am
I’m not a big fan of Digg, to tell you honestly. First of, the layout’s a mess. And although they haven’t done it lately, I’m totally against the kind of censorship they did before. Online media should be censorship-free, even if the article posted did come from an online version of a traditional medium, like a newspaper. By censoring some posts, Digg took it upon themselves to give the public what they (Digg) wanted the public to see. Society is supposed to move forward, not backward!
June 22nd, 2008 at 11:30 pm
thanks for this post
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:22 pm
I love Digg but cannot stand the fact they have power users and most of the popular stories come from them. I wish it were more open and that more stories would get pulled from different stories. It seems that if you want a story to become popular you have to be a power user. I think that is lame plus the other things you mentioned in the article. It is still a cool site to visit and I enjoy it most of the time so I cannot complain to much.
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Good analysis of digg, I will try to digg it later (-:
June 26th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Very good analysis!
June 26th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
I love digg but it is so hard to figure out what will become a good topic vs a bad topic there has been times where i submited an article that i thought would get 100 digg’s easy and only got 10 diggs other times i thought i would get no diggs and found my post on the front page of digg, you give great tips and yest the time of day you post does matter.
June 26th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Digg seems rather challenging to perform well on. What I wonder, is could a blog entry perform well even if it had no digg button on the blog page itself? Could it get enough votes from people on Digg at the time to go anywhere?
June 27th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Great article about Digg. I didn’t realize how complex of an algorithm they use. Those tips are extremely helpful and I will be using some of those when I next time I put an article on Digg.
June 27th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Yes, it can get enough votes even without a button. What you need is many fans, a good article with a great headline and, of course, to submit it in the right category.
June 27th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
I just started a Digg account the other day but I haven’t submitted anything yet (thankfully). I’ll definitely keep these things in mind when I do.
June 29th, 2008 at 7:54 am
I have never been successful with Digg too, Thanks very useful.
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:11 am
It is very hard to make it to the homepage of there!
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Wonderful article.. I learned a lot of helpful things that I was unaware of! Thanks!
July 7th, 2008 at 5:17 am
I have never had much luck with digg either though I have read a few articles of where you buy the diggs from a thrid party who has mutiple users in mutiple locations and can digg for you to get you up there. Of course digg has tere methods around this but I am sure there are people out there who can manipulate the results, whether it is worth it or not is another issue.
July 9th, 2008 at 3:43 am
Very informative. Thanks for such a nice post
July 10th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I love Digg but cannot stand the fact they have power users and most of the popular stories come from them. I wish it were more open and that more stories would get pulled from different stories. It seems that if you want a story to become popular you have to be a power user. I think that is lame plus the other things you mentioned in the article. It is still a cool site to visit and I enjoy it most of the time so I cannot complain to much.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Nice Post
Thanx for sharing
Stumbled your Url Cheers!
July 11th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Yea I suppose this is pretty true. I still use digg but I’m not happy with quality of stories that get front page.
http://mostuseful.co.uk
July 11th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Good Informative post
Stumebled you cheers!
Will Keep in touch with you
July 14th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I had read a lot of article about digg but this one is awesome. Very helpful article. Thank you for publishing this.
July 17th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Digg has always been a mystery to me and although I still have some questions this post helped a lot with addressing some of the reasons for things.
July 24th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I have read a few articles of where you buy the diggs from a thrid party who has mutiple users in mutiple locations and can digg for you to get you up there. Of course digg has tere methods around this but I am sure there are people out there who can manipulate the results, whether it is worth it or not.
July 26th, 2008 at 3:35 am
Digg is a useful tool for killing time and reading random news articles. I have yet to really find the service useful for specific issues. You can find them, but a traditional google search does the same.
August 13th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I haven’t had much luck with Digg in the past. Hopefully some of these tips will help out. Thanks : D