Every so often, one of our employees will roll into the office and announce, "I'm going to get on Digg today." Said employee will sit down, write something and then nervously monitor the server as predicted Digg occurs. I can only remember one instance in which this tactic has failed. The post does not always come from SEOmoz; in fact, it's often posted elsewhere. Sometimes, some Diggers will catch on to the fact that the submission came from someone affiliated with SEO and the comments will get nasty, but still the diggs keep going up.
As pathetic as "dead-things-at-bottom-of-lake" jokes are, they reflect the sentiment of many Diggers who think SEO is atrocious. I have this mental picture of the most obnoxious Diggers sitting around, scratching their chests through their off-white vests and thinking (in their own, Diggy dialect), "I'll never digg anything posted by an SEO. I only digg organic content."
And yet. The Diggs keep going up. Below is the number of Diggs for the post that generated the above comment thread. Four-hundred and eighty one is hardly a great number, but it (obviously) hit the homepage and wasn't buried.
And yet. The Diggs keep going up. Below is the number of Diggs for the post that generated the above comment thread. Four-hundred and eighty one is hardly a great number, but it (obviously) hit the homepage and wasn't buried.
My point is that Digg's hatred of SEO can't compete with their liking of good, interesting or controversial content. They remind me of people who profess to hate all things French and yet can't refuse champagne. People who say they can't stand the USA but who can't get enough of American T.V. Dogs that are scared of vacuum cleaners but that can't stay away from them when you're cleaning.
I don't like the juvenile, snotty culture that Digg seems to foster. However, it makes me smile that every day I see linkbait on the homepage. Do Diggers not realise that they fall for cleverly crafted viral marketing campaigns all the time? Is my Digg account about to get banned?
Great post Jane. Discussions around Digg sure seems to be on the top of the blog list this month =) Hey how about this for a challenge, write an artible about the diggerati, I bet you they would digg something about themselves....
On a more serious note, I am starting to get more and more annoyed that we should "need" these people for SEO purposes. The diggers are in such small geographic space and seriously don't represent a true democratic represenation of the users of the web. Why should they make or break SEO efforts. Arghhh...I really don't think they represent a relevant audience for any of my clients.
I completely agree.
Digg is no longer relevant, it's been too easily bent by marketers and seo to their whim for one. This and internal changes to the site have undone community interest in the site.
Digg is far from organic now.
Unless your employer says "do something - anything - to increase the traffic" in which case...
*winks*
I get the feeling SEOs spend all day on digg following eachothers links these days.
me an' my 10 digg IDs...
whoops... what a giveaway *winks*
Seriously who knows - it could be the case. Me, I just do what I'm told being all client-side and all...
Maybe SEOs can launch the anti-digg campaign.
I can see the T-shirts already...
and of course the classic...
you are so out of touch it makes me cringe when you comment
i'm with you on that one. he posts on every damn blog.
toofast,
my apologies if my posts or even the frequency of posts have in any way offended, irritated, or caused anything else negative to you. Clearly, never my intention.
SEOmoz has, at least for me, become more than just merely a blog. It is has become a community and an opportuntity to interact with, if I may be so bold, colleagues. It has become a place to share the occasional light-hearted humor, a little water-cooler conversation, and more importantly, to share and explore thoughts and ideas regarding the main topic as well as springboard ideas from there.
Maybe I've projected more into SEOmoz than it is.
Either way, if I have impeded your or anyone else's experience here, you have my most sincerest of apologies.
Sorry to make you cringe.
Twas meant more in jest than anything else.
Digg can be an important and valuable resource, but that said, I may not be able to look at it with the same respect that you or others might, which has nothing to do with SEO.
I take issue with any site that is positioning itself in a democratic fashion that then takes aim at burying any posts without merit to the actual quality or value of those posts, but based solely on some characteristic of the poster. I'd feel the same way if they had a habit of burying posts by people who wear glasses, women, people from the UK, or any other nonsensical reason.
This seems to run completely counter to what Digg was founded on, but perhaps I am mistaken.
This is your brain
This is your brain on DUGGs
**Im not sure if those comments are directed at me or at ID, but if it is the former, sorry, I'm not a huge expert and mostly trying to participate in the community to the extent I can. If it is the latter, HUH?
Identity has some of the best comments on the blog and has also written some of the YOUmoz articles I have found the most helpful.
again, HUH?
I get the impression that it's aimed at identity.
I think that they're either jealous or just great fans of digg who can't take a joke
nope, not a fan of digg. just tired of seeing the same commenter on every single blog.
thumb me down for having an opinion. sorry.
An opinion's one thing, but let's try to keep things on topic (or at least amusing) - this just sounds a bit bitter (to me at least)
Point the finger back at yourself smart ass. You do realize that you're being just like me and busting on me right?
besides, in all reality, i'm just having fun. i could care less if identity posts a million times a day. if he wants to be a bigger nerd then me, then god bless him :)
Ok - timeout. I wasn't busting on anyone. I just felt that your comment wasn't particularly constructive.
The last thing that I (or I think anyone who uses this site) would want is a situation where no-one can say anything negative, because of anyone else's supposed status. But as the saying goes, if you don't have anything nice to say, then at least have something to say.
If you don't like identity's comments, tell us why. Too long, not to the point enough, bad puns, whatever - but say something.
As you yourself said:
So let's be open, but try to share too eh?
And anyway, everyone knows that Rand would win the biggest nerd comp right off the bat.....
PS - I'm a smart arse....
;)
good come back. i thumbed u up.
I thank you.
*takes bow*
*take a bow* and blow me. I was trying to be cool, but you had to make a smart ass comment to end it.
I told you why
You made an assumption...
which
What happened - I thought this was fixed
The takes a bow comment was meant to draw any remaining sting out of the situation (again, sorry if it didn't come over that way). If I could delete it now, I would.
Seriously man - chill out.
I have not had a client who monetized a Digger. Perhaps they are free loaders with too much time on their hands. Adsense sites monetize Diggers. What others can you think of?
Adsense sites monetize diggers indirectly. Diggers don't click on ads and bounce off your site after they're finished reading the article. The links provided from a digging, however, can provide the means to attract traffic from the search engines who in turn click on adsense.
It is pretty funny that diggers get all up in arms when they see a post from an SEO website hit the homepage, but they don't bat an eye at "Top 10 [whatever] you can't live without" on some random wordpress blog who covers the page in ads. They must assume that all marketing efforts come with a 'THIS IS MARKETING' label, everything else is natural.
Diggtards my friend. Diggtards.
Diggtards is now going to be my word of the week :)
Weeee! Coinage!
"No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."- H.L. Mencken. Still holds true!
what? Diggers are SEOs???
can anyone else hear "Luke I am your father"????
It's true though...
like when you were a little kid and your parents used reverse psychology to coax you into listening to them. Later you'd be thinking "D'oh! I knew they would trick me like that!"
Our next contestant on Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader: Diggers!
I am reminded of the digg article "8 diseases that will give you superpowers" (forgive the spelling - I can't make the coffee machine spit out what the words say it should today *nyargh*).
Sure the digg resulted in lots of incoming links but do we not also espouse the importance of links in from relevant sites and not diluting the value of the links and the perceived relevancy of the site in G?
So are we saying linkbait to get untargeted traffic is a good thing again?
exactly Judith =) I just don't see the point in getting untargetted traffic to get up in the big G rankings. I suppose it all depends whether you are a SEO that aims to get to number #1 in Google or whether your main aim is to get relevant targetted traffic that will give you conversions!?
I recently heard a well known SEO bragging about getting a #1 ranking on Google for a very competitive keyword (although TOTALLY irrelevant to the site he was working for). When I quiet naively asked "Why would you want to do that when it's no way in hell it's going to get you any conversions"? (seriously it was not even remotely related to the subject matter of the site) He said "#1 positions will give you conversions", at which point I thought "are you on crack??"
Actually, he's not completely wrong. Traffic, of any kind, can be good. It's like radio adverts - you don't target one person, you target everyone. Let them sort themselves into groups of people who are and aren't interested. Who cares, when you're not paying for it, who you reach?
Sometimes it's good to pick and choose your targets. Sometimes it's good to let them choose themselves.
I see what you mean Pete, but I still disagree. Targetting a totally irrelevant keyword just for the keyword is nothing like radio advertising. At least with radio advertising it's a chance that you will "hit" someone with your message. But I think if you are targetting a keyword like "porn" or "viagra" for a B2B site it's rather unlikely that they will go: "Oh hey it's not a viagra website but heck I can buy business data lists"
Working in a B2B environment I can say for sure you need targeted traffic otherwise it really isan't valuable...
unless you are selling on site advertising based on a CPM model *smiles*
Then unqualified traffic is fine *winks*
I'd disagree with that Judith - you may be selling your ads on a CPM basis, but when your sales teams are going out there they'll likely be asked what the CTR is - and that's when (again) you need that targeted traffic....
CTR? They don't need no stinkin' CTR!
(said with a bad Mexican accent)
*grins*
That is absolutely true - and there are ways to manufacture higher CTR *winks* Not that I would _ever_ advocate that *winks* *smiles evilly*
Did I mention I was evil?
I always thought Digg just a bunch of SEO's voting for the best linkbait.
I think I will create a movie about all of this. There are plenty of characters: Diggerati or Diggtards (depending on which side I portray as good), SEOs, Diggers, Duggers and bloggers. Then there will be some sort of battle between the Diggerati and the SEOs. Since you have to have some sort of love story, maybe an SEO will fall in love with a Diggerati (Jane, interested in the roll of the SEO Heroine?). It will be great. Although in the end, I'd probably spend hours of writing the script, pre-production, shooting, editing and posting and it would get buried in like an hour and a half.
What kind of roll will it be? Wheat, potato, Italian, cinnamon? :P
Spring
Aw. Actually, I married an engineer. Nerd meets Geek.
I always thought geeks were a subset of nerds. Can you define your terms?
To me, "geek" always implies computers, whereas the term "nerd" elicits math, specifically math that involves more symbols than our standard 0 - 9 digits. However, I do believe that both could be considered subsets of each other.
Perhaps we could formulate an equation and thus belong to both categories :P
Matt, get to drawing! A family tree of geeks, nerds, dweebs, etc? Sounds like another winner
About to? Come on, Jane, your account's been banned how many times now?
It's unfortunate as I don't think SEOs really dislike diggers, after, in many cases were diggers ourselves, which would be self-hatred, which would be bad. While we joke about it, the sad truth is that it is becoming an example of prejudice and hatred... content, good, bad, and otherwise should be judged on its own merits, not on who created it.
Unfortunately that isn't the case. Instead, it all comes down to perception.
I don't remember the exact details, but you probably heard about the tests where they would blindfold a subject and have them bite into a piece of food but have them smell something else entirely and with a strong enough smell, they claimed that they were eating what they smelled, not what they actually bit into.
So the moral is, you can feed anything to Digg as long as it doesn't smell like SEO.
SEO: Hey Digg, I'm submitting.
Digger: Rectangles! $^@^&#!! I absolutely hate rectangles.
SEO: Rectangle? No, no, that's a square.
Digger: Oh, okay, well I love squares!!
{FYI: all squares are rectangles, some rectangles also happen to be squares}
There is one problem with this post. The article is buried.
Search the title at Digg. Select Title only, All Stories, From All Time, Sort Best Match First.
You'll see that this story does not exist. Now check the include buried stories...
Diggers do in fact hate SEO's.
Despite what you may be thinking, this was not diggbait.
It was a Friday evening rant, and nothing more. If I wanted to get Dugg, I'd write about the worst city slogans in America and abroad. Heh heh heh.
It wasn't written in hopes of getting dugg--someone outside of our company must have submitted it.
Oh oh... perhaps you mean Matt's article that is mentioned in the post and given screen-shots? I didn't realise they'd buried it; it got a lot of Diggs before being buried. If that's what you meant, sorry for the misunderstanding.
Yes Jane,
The article that this post was about (Dear Digg.com: I'm going to save you a million dollars...) was buried. Hence, my prior comment that begins with "there is one problem with this post..." was in response to your comment: "Four-hundred and eighty one is hardly a great number, but it (obviously) hit the homepage and wasn't buried."
There's no need to take a snarky tone. I apologised for misunderstanding what you'd written. We all thought you meant my post was submitted to Digg and then buried.
This whole post seems to have brought out a good dose of the snarks in a lot of people.
See, this is what happens - talk about digg, and it ends up being like digg.....
What have I started! Frankenstein! Get back in Pandora's Box!
Jane wrote: "We all thought you meant my post was submitted to Digg and then buried."
From the earlier lesson I learned today where you "all" thought I was referencing the wrong article, I wanted to be extra clear - and not misunderstood - in my last comment.
Please excuse the poor writing skills in the first comment. I thought it was pefectly clear when I said: "There is one problem with this post. The article is buried." I concede that it is quite likely that I am wrong. (According to my wife, I often am.)
I didn't intend to be snarky, but since you brought it up...
Your uncanny ability to sense a person's tone is impressive - are you also able to sense voice inflection and facial expressions?
Now that's snark. (voice inflection on "that's")
Aren't the most famous diggers from SEO Companies???
Do you know the identity of all the famous diggers?!
Seoimage said: "Aren't the most famous diggers from SEO Companies???"
I'm not sure about most, but certainly many.
Wasn't the most infamous YouTube post a con?
(again) :D
The first result for Dig in the Dictionary is crack, cut, cutting remark, innuendo, jeer, quip, slur, sneer, taunt, wisecrack.
The Antonyms are: compliment, congratulations, flattery, praise
Begs the question - what did Digg intend when they created the name? Was it double edged? Dig as in hole or Dig and in jeer?, certainly not the Antonym.
Perhaps without intention it is the former, when looking at the demographic of this wisecrack groupie. They are not my target traffic. The overwhelming majority (supposedly where the wisdom emanates) has a fraction of innuendo in their short, fact less comments, typed with one finger. Not to mention no money to monetize.
Digg = Desperatly Into Groupie Geering
Edit: Um, isn't crack a drug? Are Diggers aDiggted? (I linked it to show those creative thinkers that you can't get the .com domain name haha)
It's dig as in "hey man, dig that" - or at least that's what I always assumed...
I can dig it.
Wasn't there some movie in which the snobs referred to others as "diggers"? I know it wasn't Breaking Away -- that was "cutters".
Maybe I'm just thinking of that commercial for Digger the Dog.
Digger the dog
Digger he goes with you when you explore
Just pull his leash and go for a walk
He's your dog for sure
Digg is the new Doug.
Beware of Doug
Actually meant this doug but yours is good too:)
It seems that with Digg, you're pretty dependent on having a network of friends who are ready to vote for what you've submitted. Otherwise, even great content with an interesting title seems likely to languish -- at least that's been my experience.
Which seems contrary to the point of Digg in the first place, doesn't it?
Yeah, it's that famous democratic nature of the web: anyone can be popular, as long as you're already popular and know popular people.
Great post. I have thought this many a time.
Most of the time they're not as clever as your example by a longshot, but I think, "Who the hell do you think is submitting this latest factoid about some up and coming product you might be 'fascinated' about?!"
I'll tell you what though, I'm more likely to find something actually of interest when I have a free internet moment(tm) on Reddit, because it isn't as much of a commodity. If it is, I'm sure I'll find something else.
At the risk of joining a staff conversation
If it wasn't a necessary evil in working in SEO, I don't think I would even look at Digg, when it was only technology related I checked it at least daily and quite often found at least something slightly interesting. But over the last year or so I have come to see it as something I should keep an eye on instead of something I enjoy reading. Diggerati and Diggtards, now are those synonyms Jane?
I enjoy reading reddit way more than digg
You assholes :)
I've only been banned twice.
jane, i've gotta say - love the way you do business, love where your head's at - but also, why, why, why would you put the cross-hairs on yourself, this entire domain, and all your related projects by shoving your success in linkbaiting in the face of an audience that admittedly has a predisposition towards not liking you?
duck, and cover.
Rarely does our linkbait that matters come from SEOmoz. In fact, the linkbait that comes from SEOmoz is usually just for fun.
I'm of the mindset that the reason our linkbait succeeds has less to do with what domain it comes from and more to do with the fact that we create good stuff, not the "Wow, here's sixteen pictures of cute kitties."
Although I do like kitties.
I think diggers already know about SEOmoz and this one post isn't going to be the one that calls attention to the site. If I'm remembering right some of the comments on the post Jane mentions made it clear they knew which mozzer dugg which post and seemed to know who was friends with who and where everyone worked.
Only twice? Not to worry. There's plenty of time...
Yes, getting banned on Digg isn't something I lose sleep over.
diggers hate seoers... and seoers need diggers... it's like cat and mouse, isn't it?
I'm not sure SEOs need Digg. Most of us would like to get dugg, but you can still drive a lot of traffic to a site without ever making an appearance on Digg.
Indeed, making comments in top Diggs, on the Digger's site, is a great option. Just remember to inlcude your URL in the comment form field.
Also, you don't need to Digg your own pages. Spending time finding other people's Diggable pages is also worthwhile. As the community notices you Digging good Diggs they will investigate your profile and find your URL.
Not to mention bulding friends networks who can help you Digg your Diggs.
I think the idea of actually participating in a site like Digg gets overlooked. Digging other people's pages and commenting on those diggs as well as building a network of friends can help in getting traffic from the site as well as leading to the possibility of others digging your pages.
My Dogg account did get banned so I simply post to another domain (of mine) and immediately thereafter write a 301 to send the Dogg to where I want it to go.
Anyway, users of Dogg are not really the desired traffic unless the target site is tech, news, gaming, or celebrity related.
I only use Dogg for SERPs!
Hmm.. and are you calling it "Dogg" out of spite?
Unashamedly yes lol for I have nothing of interest to Dogg and have no time to find other Doggs to dig.
Seriously - No. Digg is a great site. I wish I could have thought it up myself. Pity they don't like SEOs. Who said life was fair?
SEOs are as important to the Net as hackers are to the FBI. Without us, search engines would never have figured out that link networks are a better rating mechanism for SERPs than keywords. Now it's Diggs (etc) turn to figure out how to eliminate SEO plugs for the benefit of whom? Really I can't tell yet. Only thing I can think is that 99% of Diggers have no website of their own. I think they Digg because it makes them feel smart and in charge of traffic, for the commenting is mostly lame.
Black hat, white hat, green hat, blue
I'm Digging my link bait regardless of you
Google chose the wisdom of the crowd
To get me on top its got to be wowed
Democracy tends to mediocrity when all is agreed
30% vote while the rest of us read
Men of integrity are not swayed by controversy
We all need traffic for our embellished Blog odyssey
Recommendations, comments, reviews and qwertay
Whatever they say you can get it on Amazon and eBay
I find it interesting that some of the diggers who will bury any seo related post are possibly also willing to sell their votes to the SEO that pays them the most. There's certainly a lot of hypocrisy going on.
In all fairness many diggers are just looking for quality content. I've seen plenty of comments in defense of seo and while some are coming from within the industry some are simply coming from more open minded people.
I think the immature diggers tend to stand out more, but I don't think all diggers are immature even if it seems that way sometimes. There's a mob mentality though and at the moment it's cool to hate SEOs on Digg. If a few of the more popular diggers changed their minds and decided SEO was the greatest thing since sliced bread the masses could easily follow
Ideally Digg will become more transparent about who is burying stories.
You have my vote Van!
What are we voting on? Do I need to prepare an acceptance speech?
Sites like Digg seem to me a distraction before the next real search engine tech breaks onto the shore. Socially powered news and article voting will be replaced by machine calculated relevancy again, though this time the equations will be semantically derived and offer another real challenge for SEOs to work with.
*sigh*
Not exactly what you're looking for, but close:
https://duggtrends.com/buried.aspx
Hrm, well now that it says "sigh* my comment looks a bit weird.
hehe.. sorry Matt.. changed my mind one minute before you replied..
Oh Ho, look what you wrote:
"My favourite Digg irony is the hatred the (a-HEM) Diggorati have for SEO, coupled with the fact that they fall for linkbait All. The. Time."
Remember all those discussions in which some of us gently suggested that a term like "linkbait" might not be so great at describing the creation of great content that grabs people's attention -- that it sounded like a trap, like a bait and switch tactic?
We win :p
Firstly apologies to Identity. I was merely trying a little social experiment prompted by Jane's article here.
I made one negative, derogatory comment. The post descended into Digg. We're all just as controllable as anyone on Digg - as we know a lot of the people on Digg these days are SEO related users and get frustrated with their attempts not working (poor linkbaiting tut tut) so the inevitable arguing and bickering occurs.
It's completely human to rise to the bait in short. Don't think yourselves above it.
Anisty,
no apology necessary.
Personally, I'd hope that no one would ever feel that they couldn't say what they wanted here or express their thoughts, ideas or feelings, short of trying to sabotage the image and integrity of SEOmoz.
The openness and free communication is, afterall, at the heart of SEOmoz and what Rand has established.
At the end of the day, the readers are left with our comments, whatever they may be. We however are left to live with how we commented, however that may be or whatever purpose. To each his own.
cheers mate
risetothebait.com would be a great domain name for an unDigg Blog haha
Is Google becoming Digg?
Today, unless the Google search is for a ‘traditional’ single/dual keyword like 'insurance' or 'car insurance' or 'motorcycle', the top Diggs are likely to be in the first few SERPs.