The Decline of Digg
October 12, 2008 – 12:53 amBy Jordan Kasteler (Utah SEO Pro)
Preface
Let me begin this post by stating I have recently been banned by Digg…on two accounts. One account I have put many hard working hours into and had front paged 45 stories. This is not the reason for this post, I was pissed with Digg far before my ban. This post was incited by Social New Central as a call for action to Diggers and ex-Diggers to voice their opinions and grievances about Digg.com.
Digg’s Decline
Digg is on the decline and I don’t stand alone on this issue. Take a look at their Alexa statistics over the past 6 months:
They are losing viewership rapidly. They are down 59% of visitors in the past 3 months since they started banning people but up 16% of page views.
Digg’s Agenda
It is much speculated that Digg is trying to increase their page views for more ad impressions for their advertisers. Blind Diggers posed a threat to page views by “blind Digging”. Blind Digging is the act of Digging a submission without viewing it and a lot of top users did so to gain support from other Diggers.
Digg recently announced they raised $28.7 million in VC money to upcoming ventures. Then came this post about script banning along with my, and many others, banning script usage. It’s all too coincidental that these things happened back to back.
The Bannings
Is Digg pressured into banning anyone who knows Digg well enough to use scripts to automate increasing Digg authority? I think so, Digg’s been trying to sell for awhile and they can’t sell a site with spammers, marketers, or gamers. They could get their script users to stop with temporary bans or warnings without permanently banning though. That just creates anger and hatred for them.
Digg thinks they are cleaning house by banning people that are blind Digging via scripts.The people likely to be using scripts on Digg are top users. Why ban top users of a site which contribute to almost 50% of the content? Digg acts as if they’re listening to the community who feel it’s unfair to see the same users front page everyday when in fact they are creating a community of hate towards them.
To ban a user for life for blind Digging script usage is a bid absurd. There were no warnings and no communication regarding it. After the initial ban, I stopped using scripts but that was not enough. They wanted to ban people that knew the name of the game. In all honesty, I never knew that using a script would get me in trouble or was against anything. It simply automated a process that took me a couple hours to do daily. I had built my account up manually digging and had only used the script for a couple months. That alone was all it took.
Digg for Social Media Marketing
Digg acted as if they were trying to crack down on people using it for a Social Media Marketing platform but in all reality it’s almost impossible to market on Digg anymore due to them only front paging certain authority sites like Huffington Post and Arstechnica. It’s become less about the content and more about the domain and submitter. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of social news?
The Aftermath
The content on Digg.com after the bannings has gone to hell. The lamest things are front paging and even duplicate stories and have front paged. This is going to cause Digg to lose even more viewership. Banned Digg users have moved on to communities that welcome them like Mixx, and even communities that DON’T welcome them like Reddit.
Since Digg doesn’t listen to it’s most dedicated users, and chooses to get rid of them instead, they will die a slow cold death.
(Update: Deleted childish humor which makes Digg thrive due to the offense of friends.)
28 Responses to “The Decline of Digg”
I’m really not goingto comment about the recent bans, you guys know how I feel. But if you’re a SEO or SM, or just a blogger hoping to get onto the Fp of Digg, well it’s next to impossible.
I’m banned and I can still drive a story to the Fp… maybe once, from a non-whitelisted site. And that take a huge effort and lots of resources.
So to all of you people out there trying in desperation to get the “huge” Digg traffic to your site, well it’s possible , but more like impossible.
I’ve been on Digg since month 1, I’ve lived the algo. Eeven with all my resources, and being banned “which doesn’t matter” I only know 5 or 6 diggers that can do that on a whim.
I can…. still get stuff onto the FP, but it takes more work then you guys can imagine.
Move your asses over to Mixx.com 4 million uniques per month and a crappy FP… They’re working on it, trust me.
By zaibatsu on Oct 12, 2008
True. Digg used to be a great place. Now its just plain boring with the same sites hitting the front page. All you have to do is add those sites to your rss reader and you dont have to visit Digg at all.
Mixx is growing and I like it as well.
By esvl on Oct 12, 2008
You take this way too seriously.
All your charts, graphs and research? WTF? Why is it that important to you.
The fact that you say “One account I have put many hard working hours into and had front paged 45 stories ” is proof that you need to find a hobby.
Who cares about your 45 stories? It doesn’t take a genius to mention/promote the work of others. You didn’t write those stories.
Seriously..
And I thought *I* needed a life.
By Scott on Oct 12, 2008
i also think that digg is the place only for big websites and for power diggers. you have to waste a lot of time there and i see there are a lot problems also in the digg algorithm.
By Ajay on Oct 12, 2008
You need a digg button so I can dig this article.
By Eric on Oct 12, 2008
I have decided to bail on Digg due to the sheer amount of Huffpo and Kos spam. I would much rather see user generated content so I don’t get propaganda shoved down my throat.
By h8f8kes on Oct 12, 2008
I stumbled this page, go to stumbleupon.com FTW. More than 5 billion stumbled pages proves it being better than digg or anything.
By mono on Oct 12, 2008
Some of these people may have been “blind digging” in the classic sense, but I will say that most weren’t, I had a greasemonkey script, that I foolishly left on, even though I seldom used it, I was a heavy digger, but I did look at content and sources…..there should have been a “we (digg) suspects you are using script letter sent 1st”…
By petsheep on Oct 12, 2008
Digg made the change because the scripts were dominating the results. Too many legit articles were being flagged as inaccurate, because operatives did not like them.
By Grooker on Oct 12, 2008
Stumble Upon negates Digg.
By Kannon on Oct 12, 2008
FYI… Reddit gladly takes any user. They just hate the childish mentality of the overall Digg community. Which most of us can agree with.
I definitely suggest Reddit since they have doubled in size over the last 6 months and growing insane fast.
By Brent Csutoras on Oct 12, 2008
Great post, Jordan. I hadn’t seen the traffic graph- made me feel better since I had also been banned, unfairly of course, and decided not to return to Digg.
By Brian Carter on Oct 12, 2008
This looks like a fairly good analysis to me, I am going to forward this link to a friend who has been analyzing Google and Digg for months. Hopefully he’ll pop over and give this another sphinn.
By JohnT on Oct 12, 2008
Just take a short look at the Mixx Alexa numbers of the last 6 months
By Tad Chef on Oct 12, 2008
Digg has only had a limited application for certain blog topics. For health blogs like mine, it has been pretty unremarkable for driving web traffic. Like stumble or other similar tools, I am sure they only really work for most people if you have a massive network of digg friends to ‘digg’ your articles.
By Jarret on Oct 12, 2008
It’d be interesting for Kevin Rose to share the real data publicly and either confirm/kill the rumors. I mean, his community would crucify others for not being open and transparent right, so if there’s a problem with the community they feel ‘ownership’ of… shouldn’t he have to comply with community standards?
By Gab Goldenberg on Oct 12, 2008
Alexa isnt the best to measure traffic because it just gives estimates. However, they actually use the quantcast js code on their website. This is far more accurate than Alexa as a result:
http://www.quantcast.com/digg.com
As you can see. . . there is no dropoff.
By FSP on Oct 12, 2008
You gamed a platform and they banned you. Amazing!
d
By RedEvo on Oct 13, 2008
Hi
I am working on a site which try to solve many of the problems with digg.com.
You can find it on http://crowdnews.eu.
The main problem with digg is the voting system.
When only top voted stories get on the front page it has
to be a subject that many can relate to,
which result in stories with a low information content.
Crowdnews solves this by using sharing instead of voting.
Every have a personal news page on which they can subscribe to other users and when those users share stories they will appear on the personal news page.
Join me on CrowdNews
By knud on Oct 13, 2008
This must be a joke.
For months (over a year, even) “analysts” have theorized that Digg is on it’s way down. Here’s one article on the subject from almost one year ago: http://www.techipedia.com/2007/dont-buy-digg and here’s another from over a year ago: http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/digg_too_big_for_their_boots as examples.
Digg is (and will continue to be) a power player in social media.
There is no doubt about it. There are just too many users and too much traffic going through Digg to say that it is on it’s way down the tubes (pun intended).
Digg isn’t declining in quality or quantity. It’s staying right where it is for the foreseeable future.
So stop whining about being banned from Digg and start finding ways to really provide news and valuable information to the search and social media industries.
Please.
By Tanner Christensen on Oct 13, 2008
@Jordan - All in due time my friend.
By Tanner Christensen on Oct 13, 2008
I have been on the mixx since day one
what I found was weird is when all these digg refugees came to Mixx and I joined the digg refugee group and I don’t know why
I was instantly messaged what to submit
and to only submit things that were anti digg etc
Now thats Lamer then crying about Digg two months later. Please don’t turn the Mixx into the ghetto that DIGG is Thanks.
And most of those gamers are a bunch of snob selfish lamers anyway so they’re just as guilty as DIGG letting only certain things to the Front page HEY let your site/blogs stats rest on the merits of your work not your so called skillz
By John Sullivan@POTPOLITICS™ on Oct 23, 2008
Digg - see ya later. hope you die.
By web design company on Oct 23, 2008
I’m extremely happy to see people are finally catching on to how much Digg sucks. It’s not really Digg that sucks but the people who run Digg… especially that condescending elitist Obamabot Kevin Rose.
The fact that this site exist should speak volumes:
http://www.ihatekevinrose.com
By I Hate Kevin Rose on Nov 9, 2008