What's up with the repeat stories? the repeat stories?

Dear Digg,

Over the last few weeks, submitting stories to Digg has become more challenging. Sometimes, when you hit the submit button, it does nothing. You can wait and wait and wait, but nothing happens.

Human nature says to hit the button again. Voila! It works. Then you go to your submitted stories and you see that you submitted the story again.



First question: Can this be fixed?

Since we know the answer to the first question is "Yes, it's just a bug and we're working on it", it brings to mind the second question: Can we get the option to edit or delete a submission?

It would be a temporary answer to the first question. More importantly, we've all had the occasional snaffu where we notice something after we submit that we would like to change -- misspellings, poor wording, whatever -- and we're stuck, looking foolish, unable to make the change.

Case in point: a perfectly good story ruined by Digg.

We know the technology is available. It's in the comments. A time limited way to make changes. Please give it to us for submissions.

THANKS!

Active Diggers Mixxing it Up

When Greg Davies (cGt2099) was banned from Digg for his 4th TOS infraction, it got a lot of play. Several top Diggers made mentions of the occurence and offered support (and criticism) for this. One thing in particular stood out in the post on his blog: he's found a new home at Mixx.com.

Over the past couple of weeks, a subtle under-current of curiosity has brought many of the most active Digg members to check out this Digg Clone. None of them have left Digg. Many haven't even posted anything yet. Still, they were curious.

We could discuss the platform differences, community difference, pros and cons all day, but this is not a critique. I'm not bashing Digg. You won't be hearing about the "Mixx Effect" any time soon. The Wall Street Journal won't be partnering with them. Any rumors that start flying around about the sale of Mixx will not be in the $300,000,000 range.

Comparisons are for others to make. I just put together a little screenshot that I thought was interesting.



A few heavy hitters' names in that list.

I'm not sayin'. I'm just sayin'.

Social Media
Social News Articles

Until they fix shouts, use: Digg_This:_09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

The way things work with the current shout system, you can shout spam a story to every one your friends list in 3 quick clicks. In contrast, if you want to send a REAL shout, you have to do it one at a time.

To me, it's completely reversed from the way that it should be. I watched Graham (CosmikDebris) send shout after shout to some of his friends regarding an apparent bug on the Digg website. He had to copy, click, click, paste, and click over and over again several times just to get an important question out to his peeps, yet a shout spammer can fill our shout board and send hundreds of people "Please digg this" spam in a matter of seconds.

Until Digg fixes this issue, I have a possible solution. If you want to get a message out to your friends and you don't want to spend an hour doing it, use the infamous Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0 post and share it. As of now, it's difficult to use share to put out a message because many, myself included, skip right past any shouts that have stories attached. I almost missed a very nice message by Verge who was shouting a story to send a mass message.

The Digg_This:_09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0 post is probably the most recognizable post in Digg history. With over 44K diggs, it will stand out as your friends sift through the shout spam to find any real messages from their friends. Even if they scan quickly, it will most likely get their attention and at least make them check to see what someone is saying about it.

Just a thought. Please Digg this and get the word out. The shout feature can be one of the best new changes to Digg in a long time. We just have to figure out a way to wade through the sea of spam. Hopefully this is an answer.

Social Blog

Agalychnis callidryas - zaimsaleembatsu conspiracy

????????????????????
Are Zaibatsu and MSaleem sharing the same brain?

Or are they the same person? Come to think of it, I've never seen them together in the same place. The Drill Down -- could it be one person disguising his (or her) voice? Is MrBabyMan part of the conspiracy?

Were they hacked? By a tree frog?

Whatever is happening, it's clear that Agalychnis callidryas, the supposedly innocent red eyed tree frog, is hind-leg deep in the middle of it.

Digg Blog

zaibatsu vs. msaleem: The Race to 1000 is ON

They do a podcast together.

They are two of the top 3 members of the most powerful social news website in the world.

They've shut down their share of servers for a day.

This month, they are going head to head.

Chances are good that sometime during the month of November, 2007, both zaibatsu and msaleem, two of the most prolific contibutors to Digg, will surpass the 1,000 mark for stories they submitted that reached the Digg homepage. Yesterday, I sent a shout to each about the magic number. Here were the responses:

------------------------------------

Me to msaleem: "Submitting a ton lately, I've noticed. We should have a betting pool (fake money, of course) on what day you'll hit 1000 "Made Popular" submissions. My guess is November 19."

Msaleem response:

"Haha, that's very kind of you. Who all is in the pool, and can I join? (That guy, Zaibatsu certainly won't make it easy for me).

Just kidding Z, Peace in the chicken grease."

------------------------------------

Me to zaibatsu: "Hey Z, I predicted Muhammed would hit 1000 "Made Popular" by November 19. When are you going to hit the magic number?"

Zaibatsu response:

"I'm actually fighting to regain my former glory. It's on baby and November 19th days is way to long, I can FP 10 in a day my friend. Help me kick some ass on digg, spread the word it's NEO vs. Morpheus on Digg. Who ever get to 1000 1st gets to pick who the f*ck they are. I don't want to be Morpheus.

I'm sitting at 922 now, give me until Nov 10, wekends suck for me and I need to a day or so to recover from a FP streak!"

SOUNDS LIKE IT'S ON!

------------------------------

Here is my take on the two. No offense intended to either. I have the utmost respect for both apparent styles. In real life, both may be completely different, but on Digg and The Drill Down, here is how they come across to me:


Zaibatsu is the Digger for the common man. Excited, passionate, ever-active, he wants everyone to Digg his submissions because they're good and because he's Digging your stuff too. Rolled up sleaves, shovel in hand, ready to get to work. A Donald Trump style power digger.


Msaleem is a Digger for the elite. Proud, selective, enduring, he only wants to Digg what he likes and expects people to judge his submissions on merit. If it's crap, it's crap, and neither shout nor reciprocated Digg will earn his vote it's crap. A Crown Prince style power digger.

------------------------------

The stats and analysis:

------------------------------

Member since:
zaibatsu - 12/2004
msaleem - 09/2005

No advantage here for either. Both have been on the scene and well known across Digg channels long enough.

------------------------------

Friends:
zaibatsu - 178
msaleem - 98

The more quality friends (those who are active and Digg your stories) you have, the more Diggs you can potentially get. The way the Digg algorithm seems to work, the more friends you have, the more Diggs you need to make it to the homepage. Both have found what they consider the "sweet spot" as far as number of friends. Whichever one is right may end up being the winner.

------------------------------

Diggs:
zaibatsu - 82,517
msaleem - 42,975

Again, this comes down to personal preference. Zaibatsu is more prolific in his Digging, honestly telling people that he'll Digg a lot of their stories, as many as he can, as long as they are Digging his as well. Msaleem is more selective, trying to take the higher ground by only Digging what he considers "quality". As with everything else so far, it seems that the advantage will come to whoever's strategy is more correct, and only the programmers for Digg know for sure.

------------------------------

Comments:
zaibatsu - 1,493
msaleem - 1,613

Some say it has an effect. I tend to believe that it just gets more people to your profile page with an opportunity that they'll like your stories. I've been wrong before, but I think it's pretty much a non-factor.

------------------------------

Submitted:
zaibatsu - 2,150 --- Last 8 days: 5, 9, 7, 3, 4, 9, 2, 2 -- 41
msaleem - 2,997 --- Last 8 days: 10, 11, 8, 0, 1, 4, 9, 12 -- 55

Msaleem has an advantage here. More submissions means more opportunities. The one good thing for zaibatsu here is that he can ramp his submissions up. It will bring his percentage down, but a month's worth won't damage his high popular ratio too badly.

------------------------------

MADE POPULAR:
zaibatsu - 925
msaleem - 945

A big lead going in for msaleem. Twenty is an awfully wide gap to overcome.

------------------------------

Popular Ratio:
zaibatsu - 43%
msaleem - 32%

Zaibatsu has always been one of 3 or 4 top Diggers to maintain a 40% or higher Popular ratio. In this race to 1000, ratio may get thrown out the window. It's all about bulk. Will he be able to step up?

------------------------------


I've tried to look at this as a race. Then, the image of a hot dog eating contest came to mind. Finally, I came to the conclusion that it's like Iron Chef. A time limit, a goal, two different styles, two different strategies. I see MrBabyMan sitting at the thrown overlooking kitchen stadium nodding his head at their efforts.

Pownce for Marketing? SEO? Social Bookmarking?

Pownce. Some call it Digg social. Some call it Twitter 2. I call it a potential website marketing goldmine.

Well, at least a silver mine. Maybe bronze.

Okay, so it doesn't have all of the things that you look for in a link-building social network or bookmarking website. The pages are not indexed regularly, but this can be fixed. There is no ability to plug in anchor text on the links. The links are not contextual. It's hard to build a theme of relevance.

With the negatives aside, here are the positives:

1) Nofollow -- Not there! Just like with Digg, the links are valid. No redirects, no nofollow attribute, just good, clean links.

2) Control -- You can plug in whatever you want and delete whatever you want. If you look at Automotive Marketing on Pownce, you'll see that I have been able to start slow and build up from there.

3) FUN -- It can be enjoyable building links, marketing, and interacting at the same time. Sometimes, promoting a website can be very tedious. Pownce makes it a bit less mundane.

4) Direct to Friends -- The interface to build friends is very easy. Not TOO easy, where whoever you add is a friend automotically, but easy enough to get a nice long list in a short amount of time. You might be able to get some traffic after all from your efforts unlike many of the other link-building techniques.

5) Fast -- It takes about 15 seconds to build a link on Pownce. Compared to directory submissions, articles, soliciting, etc., it's faster. Not as fast as a BM button, but not bad at all.

6) Indirect -- Here's a thought. Build up links to the pownce profile that will draw traffic to it. This indirect sort of marketing can allow the profile itself to place in the SERPs if done well, not to mention the direct traffic and the increase in the quality of the pownce links themselves.

7) No Risk -- There is nothing worse than working on a website that eventually gets banned, a BM profile that gets banned, or anything that gets banned for that matter. From what I can tell, as long as you follow the rules, you won't get banned as a spammer.

The Pownce experiment is on. I will try to see how hard it is to get indexed. I will contribute to the cause, meet people, be friendly, build links, and promote the page itself. I'll let you know how it goes in a few weeks.

Social Bookmarking
Optimization

Social Bookmarking Experiment: Sending Visitors to See the Penguins

Here is a little experiment. Using only social bookmarking websites, we are going to see how much traffic we can send to an article about penguins. Penguins.

This article is from automotive.com, which is a high traffic website, but this article surely will not receive a ton of traffic. It's from the American Bus Association (already a tough article to get views) and their campaign using penguins to promote bus services.

The story itself isn't important as long as it doesn't draw its own traffic based upon the material. The article is Take the Bus for Penguins, which as you can tell, won't get too many people looking for it on Google. We are submitting it only to SB websites. The benefits from a search engine optimization perspective are well documented, but how much direct trafic comes from SB websites. I'm betting high, but we'll wait for the empirical data first.

As a control article, we are also submitting a potentially more popular article from the same website. Since concept cars and information about them gets its own traffic, 2008 Nissan Skyline GT-R will be submitted to the same social bookmarking websites as a traffic comparison. People at SB sites will often click on an article, but leave immediately, so this will purify the data.

PLEASE, if you contribute to the social bookmarking of either of these articles, post it here. Every effort must be documented to make sure that the data is real. We want to know the instant traffic boost as well as any residual traffic in the future.

Thank you for your support.

Search Engine Optimization Bookmarking

Adjusting to the New Digg

Okay, it isn't that bad. It took forever to make it to the homepage (12 days) but once there, I realize that it isn't that bad. Here are the adjustments that I made:

1) Getting 30, 60, 90 Diggs isn't as easy as it used to be. Before, having a ton of friends and doing a ton of Digging was enough to ensure that you could get a bulk of Diggs to anything. Now that people actually have to click on to the page, there is a chance that they will read it, which means that spam submissions is out, for the most part. This is a HUGE plus for Digg users, especially those who hate the spam. Will it continue? Of course. But the chances of a spam submission getting more than the initial Digg is greatly diminished.

2) Shouts don't work for most. I've been tracking some of the "shout spammers" out there and it just isn't an effective way to get Dugg. Sure, you'll get some, but for the most part, you might as well email spam and get the same results.

3) Quality of submissions is ever more important. Catchy headlines will always play a major role in the quest to make it to the homepage, but the story needs to be a good one.

4) Keep it up. Like I said, I wasn't a power Digger by any means, but I used to be able to count on at least one story making the homepage every few days. Now, it seems that the gap is growing. As much as I want to dump the efforts, I just can't. If you are thinking about it, keep going. It'll happen if you stick with it.

5) Fans are nice, but most are meaningless. There are "Fans" out there who never Digg your stuff. Because there doesn't have to be the same gap in time between adding friends, many are trying the bulk friend approach. This may actually work, but you can't just befriend them and go. Digg their stuff, keep digging their stuff, and hopefully you'll get noticed, added, and Dugg.

6) The time it takes to make the homepage seems to have increased. Where before, 24 hours was usually the cutoff, there are more and more popular stories that approach 2 days before becoming obsolete.

7) Submit less. Before, submitting a ton of stories every day would land you somewhere with something on the homepage. I've examined some of the mass submitters and seen literally hundreds of submissions in a row without going popular. Submitting good stories is much more important.

In conclusion, I was completely against the new Digg. I've changed my mind. The quality is improving, and after all is said and done, that is really what will make Digg great again. It was getting too easy to post crap and make it the homepage, or at least get a ton of Diggs for it. Now, you have to submit good stuff to have a chance. This is a great thing for serious Diggers, and even a greater thing for those who read Digg for the news itself.

Digg SEO

Digg to Make Digg Digg Again

There is Facebook. There is Pownce. There is Reddit.

And then there WAS Digg.

It was different. It was better.

There are millions of ways to socialize online.

There are hundreds of places to store pictures.

There are dozens of quality news sites.

None of them were like Digg, until Digg became like them.

This Digg is not good.

This Digg Sucks.

Bring Digg Back.

Digg to make Digg Digg again.

Testing the New Digg System with Self-Promoting Articles

There won't be much here. This is, of course, by design. Just checking to see if another terrible headline with another batch of terrible descriptions leading to a story that doesn't say much will get dugg.

In the past, someone could expect to get a least 20-40 Diggs for meaningless stories if they were submitted by someone with an established group of friends and a high level of activity. The new Digg, which requires that upcoming stories must get clcked on to get Dugg, may eliminate the self-promoting, search engine optimization related submissions.

I have used this method to get a page of a website indexed quickly. For non-competitive keywords, I have actually gotten 1st page rankings in Google within hours for pages that were brand new -- never indexed.

This article is the tester. I will have a buddy submit it who is relatively strong at Digg (he's had several stories make it to the homepage, unlike me). We'll see if it goes anywhere.

And just for the pic factor, here is one so we won't be able to blame it on the lack of a picture:





Social Media Marketing

Web 2.0 Tool

Automating your social bookmarking is an important aspect to using the various SB sites for search engine optimization. While using social bookmarking is becoming a valid method to getting pages ranked, it can also be a long process, one that requires you to fill your browsers with buttons and links.

One tool, the Web 2.0 Toolbar, is an asset that every SEO should incorporate into their arsenal. While it doesn't truly automate the process, it does consolidate many of the top sites into one toolbar, saving room and time.

Many use OnlyWire. It's another tool that submits to 20 or so SB sites. Luckily, the Web 2.0 Toolbar includes OnlyWire in its toolbar.

It also includes:
Digg
del.icio.us
StumbleUpon
Spurl
Blink
Yahoo
Newsvine
Reddit
Ma.gnolia
TailRank
Blogmark
Shadow
Furl
Simpy
and Rawsugar

While some of these are duplicates from OnlyWire, it allows you to vary the anchor text more often. Pound for pound, it's the best free tool that I've found for social bookmarking.

Social Media Marketing
Automotive SEO

"I Support Bush" and 9 other reasons this won't make the Digg homepage

1) Bad title. It mentions a top 10 list and doesn't bash the Republican party in any way. Plus, it's too long and doesn't say [pic].

2) Nobody important in Digg visits this blog, so it will probably be submitted by a loser (or me if nobody submits it at all by tomorrow, which they probably won't).

3) It doesn't fit into any category other than "Offbeat News" but it's really not that offbeat and it's definitely not news.

4) The Ron Paul Online Army doesn't know my blog exists. If they did, they would spam it, so I prefer the anonymity.

5) It is posted on a free blog that was created a few months ago, so it would take 150 Diggs and 50 comments to get it past the Upcoming section.

6) I'm broke -- can't buy Diggs.

7) The story description will probably be really bad. In fact, they'll probably just cut and paste reason number 7 (if the digger reads that far down).

9) It will be buried as inaccurate since I skipped #8, thus, there aren't "9 other reasons this won't make the Digg homepage". (did that make sense?) Plus, there is a mispelling somewhere in this post.

10) The picture in the story is boring -- just a list of the top Diggers according to votemoojj.com.


Social Bookmarking Blog

Kevin Rose's First Digg that DID NOT Go Popular

It's official. Kevin Rose, the Digg Master, has submitted a story that did not make it to the Popular front page. His 285 submitted story, "XREP - Taser via Shotgun", was submitted on August 7th.

It has stalled at just over 100 Diggs and did not make it over the hump.

Proof positive, in case anybody doubted, that Digg is truly algorithm based without manual override.

The funny part is, that story will probably get more hits now than it would have had it gone popular. You have to admire the guy, not just for creating the most powerful social news network on the planet, but also for "keeping it real" in most situations and not abusing his fame and power. Unless...

Why would he have submitted this story? It doesn't seem to fit with his standard Digg-related or tech related-story submittals. Did he just find the story interesting, or was it one of my possible conspiracy theories?

1) He was paid. Lots. The company with the product or the website with the story (or both) sent him a large check with a url.

2) Someone close to him was kidnapped. The ransom was one crappy Digg submittal.

3) Blackmail. Someone found a deep, dark secret about Kevin and they forced him to submit the story in exchange for their silence.

4) Hackers. His account was hacked and he either hasn't noticed or he's keeping it quiet until there's a full FBI investigation.

5) Disinformation. The algorithm IS rigged and they wanted to ruin his perfect record just to prove it.

6) Stocks. Kevin bought a ton of stock in a company that manufactures the Taser XREP and he's trying to cash in.

7) Attacked. Someone hit Kevin with the XREP, knocking him unconsious. They had just enough time to submit the story, and since there's no way to unsubmit or correct errors like there should be (like with comments) he was unable to correct it and just hoped for the best.


Whatever happened, I give my full kudos and respect to Kevin Rose...

...but something seems fishy.

Social Media Marketing

Using Social Media to get Pages Indexed Quickly

Sometimes I laugh at the ads posted through banners and links on different web pages.

"We'll submit your website to 65 trillion search engines for $29."

Sometimes I just shake my head, not because it's such a scam, but because I know that people do it. That's their $29 SEO. The pay and go and wonder a few weeks later why Google has not indexed their page yet.

There are a few things you can do to get your pages indexed if your site is new. You can submit it to the search engines. This takes a while and by the time Google and the others get around to indexing submitted sites, you've probably given up on it.

There is the link purchase, where you buy a link on a PR 6 or higher websites. It works, but it costs quite a bit, especially if you're smart enough to search for relevancy.

The easiest way to get you pages indexed is to "AddThis" or whatever widget you use for social bookmarking. If you submit your site to Digg, Furl, Reddit, etc, you have made the second step towards getting your website indexed.

The first step? Be active and make friends on Digg, Furl, Redd1t, etc. There are many people who have these accounts on the SB sites, submitting their own work in a few seconds, and never exploring or making friends or anything that will actually help them. It is a time investment, but the rewards can be tremendous.

If you can make enough friends (and by friends, I mean those who mutually befriend you) by Digging their stories, the right people will befriend you and Digg your stories back. This is the key. Hoping that your one single Digg to your page or website will be enough is a stab in the dark. It may get indexed, it may not.

Friends allow you to get 10, 20, 30 or more Diggs on a story. If it gets 30 Diggs, Google will index it. If somehow it is able to go Popular, prepare for the storm of traffic.

A case in point is Portland Toyota Dealers. They are a new site that was having trouble getting indexed. Using my SB sites, I was able to get it indexed and start a nice flow of backlinks pointing to it.

If you do not want to spend a few hours per week with social bookmarking to help your SEO, you shouldn't spend any time at all.





Social Internet Marketing

Social Bookmarking Profile: Digg

Digg is changing the world of news as we know it. If anyone is ever interested in what's hot in the world at that particular moment, just check out Digg. It's topics are wide ranging and they vary in scope from the war on terror to tips for cooking on the grill.

What is it?

Digg is the grandpappy of the social bookmarking sites. Started by Kevin Rose, it allows people to submit stories from pages on the internet. These submissions are placed in a constantly updated pool of stories for others to "Digg" (vote up) or "Sink" (vote down).

An algorithm looks at the Diggs and decides which ones are to go "Popular", or be placed on the coveted 1st page. Many servers have crashed by the exponential increase in traffic from making it to the front page of Digg.

Strengths

No other site has the instantaneous effect that Digg can have on a popular story. From a SMO point of view, it is the light at the end of the tunnel, as traffic is guaranteed. From an SEO point of view, the links can be strong when a Digg from a high PR/TR user is indexed at the right moment.

Getting Dugg well is a guarantee for indexing.

Weaknesses

It takes a lot of effort, Digging other people's stories, making friends, and luck to go popular. Above all else, it takes interesting stories, videos, or articles. Still, having the best written piece ever is no guarantee without some help from friends. If a story doesn't get Dugg quickly by a few people, within the first hour or so, it is doomed to sink to obscurity.

Some Diggers have a strong enough base of friends and reputation to post articles on about C-Span and go popular. This is a flaw in the system, but it also helps. It is possible for someone to go on, post a single story, and have it go popular. I've seen it happen. I've also heard about people winning the lottery, though I never seem to get close.

Nofollow

Digg has held strong and not adopted the dreaded nofollow attribute.

Conclusions

Anyone who wants to get into SMO must get into Digg. It's the Google of social bookmarking.

More about SEO can be found on Automotive SEO, a specialized blog about search engine optimization for car dealers.




Social Bookmarking

10 Tips for Getting Dugg on a Small Budget

There are 10 things I've learned about Digg over the last few months:

1) You need friends. Unless you are a respected Digg member, you can post a Pulitzer Prize winning piece, but without a few friends to Digg it with you to get it noticed, it will soon fall to the "under 10 Diggs hell" and lost forever.

2) Appealing to the 20-something crowd works, but it is no longer the only way to get Dugg.

3) Sex, drugs, and video games are not topics that will get Dugg easily anymore.

4) Humor works, but it has to be really funny.

5) You need friends. A video of an alien abduction will get buried if you don't get a boost of people to push it into the spotlight. Not a lot -- 5-15 friends are enough to get it noticed by the casual and hardcore diggers.

6) You must be FAST with national news. Constant, diligent monitoring of feeds is the only way to scoop a story.

7) Sometimes, scooping is not enough. You can Digg a story first, but if a "power-digger" posts the same story a few minutes later (and ignores the duplicate check), yours will get a few diggs, but not enough to make it.

8) Unknown blogs need a power-digger to get them popular.

9) Digging stories directly from other social sites is taboo. Digg it from the source.

10) You need friends. An story written by J.D. Salinger will get buried if you aren't respected and don't have friends.

* * *

The other technique is to pay for it. Contact someone who's stories always go Popular and offer them a hefty fee to submit your story or video for you.

Article commissioned by the royal automotive kings at Dealer Website Design.

Special thanks to the Digg community and creators for putting together the highest quality social bookmarking site in the universe.




Social Bookmarking SEO