Digg - cheat or forget about it?

The formula for success on digg.com, also known as getting your story to the homepage, has changed. It is no longer about writing an article that is truly appealing to the readers of digg.com. Now it is about being a digg power user of sorts or being able to pay one to get your story up there.

It used to be an excellent way to jumpstart a web site, but now it's pretty much ruled by an elite of power users who gamed the system by befriending a whole slew of users they don't even know and then sending shouts to them whenever they submit a story. Ordinary users thus cannot compete. And we we get results like this.

Take it from a recently banned power user himself, where he explains exactly how he gamed digg. His pointing out how what he did wasn't even breaking the TOS shows the magnitude of the problem. If he can do it, digg is no longer what it used to be. But most other power users don't even try as much to follow the TOS.

This has caused a recent uprising of digg users and a subsequent comment response by Digg founder Kevin Rose.

But whatever he says doesn't change the fact that right now you don't have much hopes of counting on the value of your content alone to get you on the front page. You have to pay a power user (cheat) or just forget about digg... In the latter case I guess the question is how did people get traffic surges on their sites before sites like digg existed...

As for Kevin and his staff solving the problem I honestly don't see it happening unless they ditch the friends and shouts system altogether.

Thoughts?

 

I read TheDataWhore's explanation and I found it a very big investment of time one should put in, in order to achive those results. fact is clear - dude got banned because of the script, but it's sad that no explanation was given.

In my opinion - digg is certainly not that important to chase. Of course, if you need it, IT IS worth the time (the technique), but you will have to contantly and constantly work on it. eehh..im no professor anyway

And to answer the topics question - it's no cheating. It's putting shit load of work in it and being stared at strangely But that's normal I guess


Gluck gold-diggers


P.S. libervisco, and what do you think about actually saving your time and PAYING the power users to upload your content ?

 

With cheating he meant buying diggs, I think. (TheDataWhore's said that people were interested in buying diggs' for $0.50)

 

FriendlyBear, the problem is that this technique results in de-valuing what digg is because it beats the original purpose of the web site. It was meant to allow users to vote the stories they really like so that stories which are liked by most people get to the front page, NOT stories by people with most friends whom aren't even friends. So I don't quite like the technique you're mentioning. I'm telling you, it is going to be easier for everyone to get the piece of digg action if nobody employed this technique and nobody would even be talking about paying for diggs.

As usual, the whole thing comes down to people who can't bother to write good content, one which is actually in demand or valuable to digg readers, so they resort to gaming the system and other such tactics.

Yes, I've considered buying diggs for the last entry I submit, but then I decided against it. I don't want to contribute to the problem and it doesn't seem right.

Xabber, honestly I think both buying diggs and gaming digg via friends/shouts system is cheating, with respect to the original purpose of digg.com.

Btw, anyone knows of an alternative to digg which doesn't have this flaw, isn't so manipulated and actually works? Reddit maybe? Shoutwire? Yahoo Buzz? What did you try?

 

Yahoo buzz isn't probably what you're looking for, I use it to very briefly analyze the current market. I do believe Reddit is going the right way, but well, that's for u 2 choose.

Regarding the 'cheating' issue, I am not against blackhat, but I'm against illegal, because I do think I, you and everybody is smart enough to make money legally. Using some spice sometimes is neseccary, cause damn man ! look at the market - competition everywhere !

 

That's right... The reason an honest buck is so hard to make is because the margins are too low. The reason is, as you just said, everyone's doing it.

 

So your points are that I should just face the facts and join the blackhat bandwagon if I want chances for success that I expect if nobody cheated?

Talk about the devil stealing the show..

Somehow I don't think that's really the case...

 

LOL Don't feel guilty about "cheating" on Digg. If there's little risk of getting banned from Digg (Providing you do it right), then go for it.

 

Digg Is A Free Backlink! Gotta take advantage!

 

Exactly. I use Digg for all kinds of stuff... The only issue I ever had with them was at first my posts got burried. But these days, I post alot more often to ensure my posts are still visable for a lengthy amount of time. I don't have any problems exploiting them. Awesome service.

 

I have nothing against submitting a story. That's indeed a free back link and completely legal (no TOS breakage) and harmless (no gaming the system). The problem is when you pay for diggs or instruct hordes of friends to digg (via shouts). At that point it's no longer about whose story is best, but about who has most "friends" or most money or both.

I'm not even saying this because I'm a poor bastard who isn't willing to invest a little into his traffic. I could pay for diggs, but then I also have to be prepared for the continuing deterioration of the site.

 

Well honestly, it'd be nice if it simply returned to where it was around 2006 and 2007 where your story's value actually meant something.

But I realize it's probably expecting much, although if I were Kevin Rose I'd be having that exact desire or expectation. It's the fairest thing.

But I suppose the way things are, I don't really have much more to say. The problem has been pointed out.. now to each his/her own..

 

That's one way, but not the only way. Some types of posts get more diggs than others. Websites with "fan followings" are guaranteed to be dugg a lot. While you can get decent traffic without cheating, only really standout and/or useful articles can get on frontpage without any form of "assistance" or fan following. But then again things aren't easy to predict, looking at the inane stuff that regularly makes frontpage.

Anyway, digg isn't the whole internet, thankfully.

 

Digg is a great service and as I said earlier, you best to have some people you know Digg your articles the moment you submit them, or they'll get burried. The key to using Digg is to avoid getting your articles burried and this is the critical step.

Take it from someone who posts to thier articles every day.

Experience is wisdom... Knowledge is power...