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Feb. 20, 2007 at 11:06am Eastern by Neil Patel
Three Proven Steps For Getting On Digg's Homepage
There are tons of tricks that people use to get stories on the homepage of Digg. Unfortunately, in their eagerness to get the visibility offered by Digg, most people are ignoring basic submission guidelines. Rather than concentrating on gaming Digg, if you submit stories using some common sense, your chances of hitting the homepage drastically increase. Here are three surefire steps to help you submit stories that Diggers will love to Digg—and, if you're lucky, get your story on Digg's homepage.
Step 1: Submit the simplest URL
The first step in submitting a story to Digg is submitting the story URL to Digg. Although this seems very simple, it is complex because some sites may have three or more URL variations for the same story.
Example:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/18/missing.climbers/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/18/missing.climbers/index.html?RSS1034#
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/18/missing.climbers/index.html?1034#
All three of these URLs point to the same story, but the one you want everyone to submit is the first one. Digg's algorithm is currently not complex enough to stop users from submitting all three URLs. This can cause the votes to be split between all three URLs. If each URL received 20 diggs (votes) then none of them will make the homepage, but if one received 60 diggs then the chances are much greater that it will make the homepage.
Step 2: Create a compelling title and description
A lot of diggers are compulsive voters; many of them end up digging stories based solely on the title and description. You don't need to submit the original title—in fact, you should try to fashion a title that's appealing to diggers. When submitting a story, make sure that the title and description is attractive, without being deceiving. Here is an example of a good, creative Digg title and description.
Original story title:
Your Anti-Terrorism $$$$s at Work
Digg story title:
Man arrested for taking public photo of Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell
Digg description:
According to the police, the taking of this photograph in a public street constituted a criminal act.
Even with the original title the story could have potentially made the homepage, but the Digg title was so ridiculous that you had to vote for it. The title was so successful that the story actually made Digg's daily top 10 chart.
Step 3: Submit to the right category
There are six main categories on Digg: Technology, science, world & business, sports, entertainment and gaming. If you want a story to make the homepage you have to make sure you submit it to the right category. If you don't submit a story to the right category there is a chance that a story will not make it because the people who are interested in it may not find it.
For example, I am interested only in technology stories on Digg, so I view only the technology section. If someone submitted a technology story to the business section, I would not Digg it because I would not be able to find that story easily. And if someone submitted a business story to the technology category, I would not Digg and probably bury the story by marking it as "wrong topic". This would decrease the chances of that story making the homepage because buries count as penalties, so the more people that bury a story the harder it is for that story to hit the homepage.
The image above shows a story that is about the top dating sites. A story like this probably will not do too well in the "health" category.
By using some common sense when submitting stories, you can increase your chances of getting a story on the homepage. There are other tricks that you can do to increase your chances of getting stories on the homepage, but without getting the basics right you are already setting yourself up for failure.
Neil Patel is co-founder and CTO of ACS and writes regularly on social media issues through the company's blog, Pronet Advertising. The Let's Get Social column appears Tuesdays at Search Engine Land.
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By Neil Patel
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See Related Stories In: Let's Get Social, Search Engines: Digg, Search Engines: Social Search Engines, Social Media Marketing
Reader Comments
Hmm - seems like we have seen this type of post about 1,000 times. Neil is a brilliant person and this type of post is really just Digg bait.
Everyone knows by now category, title and url matter. Of course my belief is that the person submitting the url matters the most.
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February 20, 2007 3:31 PM
Thanks Neil,
I usually try coming up with (for lack of a better word) link-bait-like titles, but it is a good point that Digg is it's own subculture. What might draw clicks from a less-sophisticated user in the SERPs probably wouldn't work on Digg.