If you've ever had a small website have an incredibly popular outing at Digg, the following story is probably quite familiar. Many months later - seven, in this case - the referrals from Digg, whilst having dwindled to very few, keep rolling in on a somewhat regular basis. You didn't think much of it because you'd become accustomed to seeing that page or those pages get Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and other social media traffic. At some point, however, you wonder if the traffic from Digg will ever really stop... and then you wonder how people get from within Digg's dungeon of never-ending archives to your site. How on earth were people finding my linkbait from a page like this, whose content constantly changes. Do people really click back through 273 slow-loading archives, see my dugg item, and then click through?
I don't think that the majority of this archive-wandering Digg traffic was truthfully coming from Digg itself. I believe that a lot of these people started at search engines. Initially, I blamed Google entirely for this, as I'd always see Digg pages ranking for certain phrases. I don't feel that including Digg results in SERPs is much different to including search results pages from within existing websites. Why on earth would I prefer to see a page's Digg submission rather than the page itself? I can get my fix of derogatory comments, badly-worded puns, and blatant misunderstandings from a variety of sources; however, if I search for a specific phrase and that phrase relates to some sweet linkbait, I'll probably be happiest if a search engine just lists the URL that was dugg.
Google used to be terrible at this. While it doesn't really matter much to me as a searcher (despite my complaints in the previous paragraph), being usurped in favour of Digg is very annoying to a webmaster or author who put some work into a site and received social media love. I'm assuming that Digg gets its archives indexed and ranked more frequently than Reddit simply due to its structure, and I don't often see Reddit results in the SERPs.
Digg pages still show up in Google searches, but I'm of the opinion that the problem has improved. I don't use Yahoo as much as I should (although I'm making a concerted effort to give equal time to the three main engines because I think it makes me a better SEO), but I've noticed that one of my pieces of linkbait won't rank at all at Yahoo, while its Digg page gets significantly better treatment. Why, Yahoo? All you've done is add one extra click for users who want to see pictures of interesting things in rear / side view mirrors.
In contrast, Google just lists the URL of my page, as if it knows that no one needs to see an old Digg entry. Live was impressed with neither Digg nor my site, which I found oddly okay, since I'd almost rather not be included at all than see Digg receiving rankings for my silly photograph. As an aside, I know that I could have actively built far more links to my linkbait; however, I think the amateur "for-fun" aspect of this particular piece of bait is important in terms of this on-going experiment. With no linkbuilding effort, it's impressive to me that Google still recognises my page as being more important than a Digg URL, given Digg's strength and authority. Also note that I've since abandoned the Digg account I used to submit the piece. Very odd Diggers started to address me by name, so it appeared to be time to break out one of the sock-puppets for commercial use.
I don't know if anyone else has noticed this change, but I definitely see fewer Digg results at Google now than I did a couple of months ago. Various web stats seem to confirm this, as the number of referring URLs like https://www.digg.com/all/popular/achives/insanelylongtimeago/popularstories/212/ has gone down significantly. Traffic from Google, surfing in on keywords relating to linkbait, has replaced those referrals... and gone up a bit, since I'm sure many people clicked through to Digg and never to my site.
I believe this highlights a fantastic improvement in the way Google looks at the Internet and its understanding of what we want when we search. It must be far easier just to crawl Digg and bring up its archives when someone enters a longtail query that matches some obscure piece of bait, but "things that are easy" and "things that are worthwhile" aren't usually the same. And, as I mentioned above, "it's just one extra click." However, remaining the premier search engine comes down to providing the best results. If Google (or anyone else) can eliminate those extra clicks, whether they be back through SERPs or within other websites, their uses will recognise the improved searching experience. And my content will continue to rank higher than Digg, which will make me a happy linkbaiter.
By: Jane Copland
Search Results Improve With Social Media Eliminations
Social Media
The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
Isn't it obvious? Matt Cutts got bored of all the Diggers whining about SEO and being rude to his friends like Rand and so he got the engineers to bitch-slap digg.
Or it might be something like Shady said; I dunno..
Damnit, that's a way better theory :P
Ciaran - How about this one "Matt is one of the engineers at Digg (covertly of course)."
I am curious to know how many of "Matt Cutts conspiracy theories" start @ SEOMoz :)
Matt Cutts is my dad.
/me gasps
I think I love you.
Join the queue!
Possibly the most flattering thing that's ever happened to me.
I could not agree more. And yes, I definitely see much fewer digg submissions in Google - and I consider this a good move.
I actually don't care as long as they are relevant. However, if you can show me the source directly, it will reduce a step for me and I like that better.
What will happen if SE start reducing all social netwrok submission websites - digg/reddit/slashdot etc?
I always feel a bit odd commenting on things like this here, as I'm sure the staffers of seomoz can blow me out of the water SEO-wise(Yeah, I've examined your clients page/the links they got)
But anyways, my guess would be 2 things made digg start showing up less.
1)The speed of the site(as you mentioned). During experiments with BH sites I realized that while Google loves fresh content, it does not love content that changes 100%, everytime a Googlebot returns. Why would they send surfers to a page that will no longer contain the keyterms anymore? Digg's SEO became a victim of it's own size.
2)I think that in response to a few issues lately(especially scraper blogs that don't sanitize urls), Google stepped up the part of it's algo that makes it harder to rank above a site you link to, that doesn't link back to you. It essentially assumes that you are the authority. Especially in instances of similar content.
Could I be wrong? Yeah. I'll admit, my ninja skills aren't quite up to the level of using a grappling hook to scale Google's walls to steal this information. But it's the result of my observations. Take it with a grain of salt.
Edit/PS: Awesome post. I hadn't noticed that before, but its definitely true.
I like the idea that this is part of the method Google may use to combat scraper blogs, especially if it helps demote Digg in favour of the sites on Digg. And all those wonderful blogs that scrape SEOmoz.
I have no idea why Google ever humoured listing Digg archives that constantly change... I'll see a referral from a page like this, click through and my link is already gone.
If I was the boss at Google I would have fixed this a long time ago because it is 100% backwards from the original PageRank premise. The PageRank premise gives the source document credit from the citation. This problem with digg is the reverse.
Behind this is the need to determine who the content really belongs to and give them credit for the work not to the citation of the work.
Digg cites content, it is not the source. Therefore, all of the power that ranks the Digg page should be passed to the source document. The entire theory behind PageRank was to give highest credit to the document and do that by passing power from the citation. The citation should NEVER be higher in the SERPs than the source document.
When a document is cited by Digg it should get some credit but when that content promotes to the first page of Digg the amount of credit passed should be huge.
The web is best developed with content creation is rewarded, not pushed down the SERPs.
I agree - seeing less referrals over the past couple of months from old digg pages which rank.
I have noticed less Digg results in SERPs as well.
Nice article!
We’ve been doing humor hook linkbait on the web since 1995 at Zug.comIt would be great to get your feedback on the comedy linkbait angle!ShelahMarketing Assistant https://www.zug.com/us/about/link-baiting.html
Great article, btw, are you attending SES London?
hmmmmm
I am just curious, I won't be there, but Frank will, and I hear it will be rad...
:)
Any event that Frank attends usually ends up being rather fantastic. Us Australasian folk tend to have that influence on things.
I wonder if we are seeing the impact of the "freshness" component of the algorithem that I believe has been discussed here in the past. Certainly the archives of Digg, while may have both high amounts of authority and relevancy, may lack the freshness. If this is true, any large archive driven site might see rankings drop on old pages that get no updates, comments or anything that might otherwise alter the "last modified" date from Google's perspective. If that is true then there should be a correlation to test the last modified date with its position in the SERPS.
My thinking though is Digg's ranking in the SERPS can be fair or foul. If your site is lacking in "TrustRank", you might not rank as well for your own linkbait. So, you might get more traffic through Digg and this in my opinion is a plus. However, if your established Authority site has the capability to rank for it, then your likely losing traffic by Digg's presence in the SERPS.
An interesting dilemna...Good observations Jane, I'm glad you shared them!
Mike
Hi Mike,
I'd tend to agree about the freshness, although I saw these Digg referrals for almost six months, so I can't attribute this to the decline of a freshness spike. While the homepage of the blog I cited is up to a 4, it lacks overall trust and only ranks for terms on which I've focussed.
Maybe I am living in a dream world, but I'm looking forward to the day when even sites which lack trust can rank well for their own linkbait, due to search engines' increased understanding of social media successes. That way, no one will need Digg results to rank well in SERPs.
This will also give a better indication of how long it takes for Digg traffic to really dry up. Digg referrals that bring in search engine users aren't really Digg referrals at all: they're search engine referrals that happened to jump over a Digg hurdle on their journey to your site :D
I understand what is your point, but actually, the Digg ranking is the reason why I continue submitting some pages or articles to Digg. If my pages doen't rank by themselves, at least I have a second chance with the Digg page. :-)
From what I've seen, you may see this less and less and begin seeing your actual pages ranking instead, at least at Google. Which would rock, no? :)
It would be great!
I think that is both good and bad. It's good in if you have a highly optimized site, or one that ranks good on it's own, in that you don't want to be outdone by Digg.
On the other hand, for smaller/newer sites, who might not get ranking at all on their own, being mentioned, viewed, and possibly clicked-through via Digg is a good thing.
So I think it's a matter of "Where you stand depends on where you sit".
The site in my above example is a virtual no-name: a niche blog that lies abandoned most of the time and is salvaged every four weeks or so. It ranks for some nice, niche phrases but it's far from powerful. It's no way near as powerful as Digg and yet Google has recognised that Digg is not the authoritative resource for this linkbait.
If Google is getting as good at this as it appears to be, I wouldn't worry about smaller sites not rakning for their linkbait. It would be fantastic if search engines become savvy enough to determine single pages' authority in terms of certain searches, while not penalising small / new sites for their domains' lack of power.
Google's increased ignoring of Digg pages suggests that this is where things are headed. Happiness :)
This is a good move by Google. Sites, small or well-stablished ones will have a fair enough competition now
"It must be far easier just to crawl Digg and bring up its archives when someone enters a longtail query that matches some obscure piece of bait..."
Jane - this may be an ignorant question (I don't know), but is it possible that the SE algorithms treat different types of sites differently?
For example, in this case, while it may be easier to crawl Digg's archives; knowing that Digg is not a canonical source "type of site", couldn't they simply return the canonical source url above the Digg url in the SERP?
You'd definitely think so, wouldn't you? And this seems to be the thinking of Google's engineers (if they're thinking about this at all; it's probably just a result of other changes, but it's cool nonetheless.)
I'd have thought all the SEs could apply some sort of filter that specified Digg's authority as an aggrevator of content but not as a canonical source. Here's looking at you, Yahoo :)
I agree with omarinho, I submit some articles and pages to social networks and other sources in casa my Site doesn't rank by itself. SE are always changing their algorithm to make (more money) a better experience for users.