The Truth Behind The Digg Effect

[Jeffro2pt0]

Chris Brogan, a social media maven, has published an article on his blog that goes into detail about his experience with the so called “Digg Effect“. Chris provides a visualization which shows the surge in traffic he received when he reached the Digg front page. What happened as a result? According to Chris, NOTHING. His RSS subscriber base didn’t increase, nor did the initial traffic to his site which is the basis for this post. Bloggers and site owners alike believe that getting on the front page of Digg is like striking gold, unfortunately this is not the case.

I’m not saying that being on the front page of Digg is a bad thing, but there is something you have to realize. The type of traffic that Digg sends is the “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” type of traffic. And while were talking about this sort of traffic, the same thing can be said for Stumbleupon, Sphinn, and Propeller. I’ve read so many blog entries that covered their own surge of traffic and the similarities between all of them are the same. No one sticks around, no one subscribes to the RSS feed, and the site that was once popular ends up returning to the shadows of the web.

A blogger or site owner should be looking to grow their reader base and that won’t happen by getting on the front page of Digg or any other major social bookmarking site. There is the argument where if you appear on these sites multiple times, there is a more likely chance of gaining quality traffic. I wouldn’t consider the digg effect to be called quality traffic, but I do think that by receiving this fly by night traffic, your building brand awareness. Your brand being your site and it’s a golden rule that REPITITIVENESS works.

The gist of what I am trying to say is to not rely on Digg, Stumbleupon or any other website to provide you with traffic. Instead, write good quality content. Good quality content does the job of so many other facets of blogging. Good quality content creates links, conversations, interactivity, spawns relationships, builds your brand and does so many other positive things for you, that if I were to write a book on SEO, it would contain one page. That one page would simply say, WRITE QUALITY CONTENT.

Tell me what you think in regards to this issue. I’d be very interested in your opinion.

[guinanie]

That was a great post jeffro2pt0. Digg is a social bookmarking that will gain traffic for a site if you post good and quality content.

[cldnails]

I agree with the Digg thing, but I've had decent traffic retention with Stumbleupon.

[2mymall]

I believe the problem lies with the buying of DIGGS. When you buy DIGGS, you get DIGGS but as to whether there are quality ones is another question.

Quality DIGGS comes from users who sincerely want to digg your content.

[D3n!ss3_gÜrL]

I agree with the above post. ^^^

I am also using digg but it doesn't really gather's so much traffic for me. I don't know... maybe i just don't really know how to use it...

[upsonians]

Well digg is very good for bringing visitors but if some one is using google adsnese on his blog then he should be aware that google adsense is not good with digg.

[Jeffro2pt0]

As a follow up post, I wanted to say that I've noticed that Stumbleupon brings in traffic even after the initial submission. In fact, SU has a unique advantage over digg in that, if someone gives your page a thumbs up or writes a new review for your site via SU, that article ends up receiving yet another burst in traffic. With Digg, you get an initial rush and then things just die off.

I've also noticed that I receive the most traffic from Stumbleupon when someone other than myself submits an article from my site to them. Not sure if this is the case for anyone else but this is what's been going on via my site.

[010081]

goog posting Jeffro2pt0 i agree with you.

[x3mario]

Digg drives my site a traffic but not too high.

[Skinny]

I would have to agree with you.

First off Digg is no longer the hangout of 'nerds' only. So people might not even know how to subscribe to a blog etc.

Secondly, Digg is that kind of site as you mentioned that is here today gone tomorrow.

In other words people visiting Digg just want to pass the time reading about interesting stuff and don't really go any further.

Skinny

[barnabybear]

I've had mixed results with Digg. StumbleUpon traffic seems a lot better.

[Theme Sponsor]

You all are missing one point. If your site is newsworthy enough, the most benefit you'll get out of a front page digg is the blogosphere and people adding links to your article or site.

Those links will benefit you later on. The benefit? higher engine rankings, higher traffic.

So just because someone makes a blog post blasting digg, take a moment and look for long term benefits.

[NSD101]

I strongly agree with this thread...

[jcool8]

yeah i agree 100% with what you are saying

[Jeffro2pt0]

Originally Posted by Theme Sponsor

You all are missing one point. If your site is newsworthy enough, the most benefit you'll get out of a front page digg is the blogosphere and people adding links to your article or site.

Those links will benefit you later on. The benefit? higher engine rankings, higher traffic.

What you say is true. Having a post on Digg.com could definitely be a good source of link bait by having a ton of other people linking to your post which in the end, provides benefits.

The main gist of what I'm trying to say is that, there are too many people on this forum and in the SEO world that in my opinion, OVEREMPHASIZE putting content onto Digg and social bookmarking sites.

It is my overall opinion that by submitting your own content to either Stumbleupon, Digg or any other content submission site is like trying to game the system. The bottom line is, if your content is good enough for any of these sites, someone somewhere will submit it for you. And because the content will be submitted by someone other than yourself, chances are, it will be picked up and looked at in a far more positive way.

[Vibes63]

Very interesting point...

[eXweso]

Put yourself in the same scenario. You are using Digg and you come across an excellent blog. Would you just not register coz you came from Digg?

Chris Brogan needs to check his blog I feel

[EdC]

You have to look at it from what are you trying to accomplish, most bloggers have no plan in place, other what they have been told put a blog up its the greatest thing since sliced bread to get traffic.

This whole social bookmarking thing can accomplish many things myself I am using it for a backlinking sytem, it does generate a lot of transient.

Some of the traffic I track seems to be looking for something but most of it seems to be curious.

As it was put link bait, how strong is your link bait and what is your intent.

I think the Digg effect is over rated there are far to many Web 2.0 sites available on the internet that will give you more targeted traffic.

[lightning77]

I like to get front page stories on Digg mainly for the content-based links on high PR domains. I don't expect too much traffic retention or growth in RSS subscribers unless I have a Digg related site like a tech blog.

[Maa]

I totally agree with you.