Why I Don’t Care About Getting Digg Traffic
November 23, 2007
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I have to admit to being hesitant about whether or not I should evenpost this because there are probably going to be people who claim that
it’s a ‘linkbait’ post. But that’s not my intention - this is just
something that I feel I need to get out.
So if it draws comments, positive or negative, I can live with that.
If you think I’m full of it, that’s fine too. Don’t zoom it on BloggingZoom. Bury it if you want.
Whatever.
I know that a lot of bloggers want to have a story get popular enough to
wind up on the front page of digg, and for the life of me, I cannot
figure out why. The digg nation is extremely fickle, and to think that
if one of your posts gets dugg and a flood of traffic comes in that that
traffic is going to return is just naive. And the chances that a blog
post will wind up on the front page aren’t very high. Unless you have a
large network of friends that you can get to digg your post, it’s
probably not going to happen.
And if the post gets buried a couple of times, it doesn’t matter what
your friends do. It’ll go nowhere.
That’s why I think that something like BZ is a much more powerful tool
for bloggers. Submitting your own stuff is fine. In fact, it’s
encouraged. Sure, stuff could get buried, but if it does, there’s a
better chance that it was for a legitimate reason, rather than you just
rubbed someone the wrong way. Or you didn’t have the right number of
friends. Obviously this isn’t always the way that it is on digg, but
there’s never been a shortage of stories about how some members of the
digg nation abuse the ‘power’ that they seem to have.
Don’t get me wrong, I am NOT against the idea of what digg does - it’s
what BZ is based on as well, after all. It’s just that the current incarnation of digg is not something that I really care if I ever attract.
Write your posts for your readers, not for digg or Google. Your
*readers* are the ones that will come back.
You’ve just got to give them a reason to.
(I may or may not get a chance to check in and follow up on this post as I just found out that I’m moving to a new position at work. But I will be approving comments whenever I get a chance. I just might not be able to respond to them right away.)
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November 23rd, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Great points. I agree the BZ delivers a lot more to a blogger and actually get people interested in your content and willing to participate and comment on your blog, as opposed to Digg …
I guess its a matter of a difference between one hit wonder and a consistent quality traffic
we all shoot to what we are trying to accomplish …
November 23rd, 2007 at 7:50 pm
I agree. I never could seem to get into Digg. I feel that BZ is much more able to meet the needs of bloggers.
November 23rd, 2007 at 9:20 pm
I agree that Digg isn’t the traffic-generator we want. The only thing I find good about Digg is the backlinks that Google seems to love. Besides, what do you expect from a social site that’s dominated mainly by 12-year olds?
November 23rd, 2007 at 11:27 pm
I’ve never quite understood the obsession with Digg that some bloggers have either. It’s not quality traffic for the most part (if you can even get it) and there’s a good chance it would crash your site if you did actually get the front page. Building a community of readers will serve you much better in the long run than building a hit or miss series of articles to try to lure in some visitors from Digg
November 24th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
@Alex: That’s a great comparison. Why be a one hit wonder when you can hang around a lot longer and get a much higher and valuable quality of traffic.
Thanks very much for the contribution.
November 24th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
@RT: Heh. It was actually the backlash from the 12 year olds that I didn’t want to attract with this post. I’m glad to see that it didn’t have the negative impact that I was a little worried about.
And yeah, I’ve found BZ traffic to be of a higher standard than what you’d get from Digg.
November 24th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
@Jason: I’ve said for a long time that the only good thing that comes from your site being Dugg is that you get to test your server against an onslaught of traffic.
November 28th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Digg is a joke anymore and you are correct, front page means nothing if the traffic isn’t going to return later.
November 29th, 2007 at 8:47 am
True enough. In fact it doesn’t matter *where* it comes from if it doesn’t come back. It’s kind of the equivalent of your 15 minutes of fame.
December 7th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Thanks for a great insight.I will be looking forward to your posts.
Peace!