Although the concept of Digg seems very simple, it is actually very complicated.
Most people think stories are submitted and the ones that are at the top of the upcoming section are the ones that are going to get promoted to the homepage next.
Digg Upcoming
The screen shot above shows that the first two top stories have 68 diggs and 59 diggs, respectively. Both of them are in the “World & Business” category so you would think that the story with 68 diggs will make the homepage first, right?
Digg Homepage
Well, what actually happened was the “Germany authorities say hell no to Scientology. That-a-boy Germany!” story reached the homepage before the other story which had more diggs. This is a simple example of the fact that the Digg algorithm takes more factors into account then just the number of Diggs. Here are some of the things it may be taking into account:
- The identity of the diggers – If the same 20 people are digging each story it may seem like they are gaming the system or they are all “friends”. Digg takes this into account and this could cause a story to require more diggs before it reaches the homepage.
- MY#1 – If a handful of users mark a story as MY#1 before it hits the homepage, this could mean that the story is valuable which may cause it to go to the homepage quicker.
- Timing – When breaking news gets submitted to Digg, such as about the iPhone or the hanging of Saddam Hussein you can expect these stories to get tons of Diggs within a short period of time. If Digg sees stories getting a lot of diggs within a short period of time they might promote these stories to the homepage because they can be considered breaking news.
- Compulsive diggs – Some users are known for digging 500 stories in one day. The chances are they are not reading the majority of these stories and they are just clicking on the “digg this” button. Votes from these users may not count the same as votes from someone who only diggs 20 or 30 stories in a day.
- The identity of the submitter – Users who submit on a regular basis and have been using Digg for over a year may have more power than new users because they have built up a reputation.
- Number of buries – There are two types of votes on Digg. The first is digging a story and the second is burying a story. If a story gets buried a few times it could require many more diggs before it can make the homepage and if it gets buried too many times it usually gets removed from the upcoming section.
- Time of day – If most of the stories in the queue (upcoming section) are not getting too many diggs the system may promote a story just to keep the homepage fresh.
- The Digg crew – Kevin Rose admitted in the past that people at Digg are constantly monitoring it for quality control. Who knows, if they like a story, they may just bump it up to the homepage.
Can you think of other things that may be factors in Digg’s algorithm? If so feel free to share by leaving a comment.
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Neil Patel is an Internet marketing consultant for ACS where he has lead Internet marketing strategies for companies such as Hewlett Packard and Samsung. Currently Neil blogs about his marketing experiences at Pronet Advertising.
