Digg - More Than Meets the Eye

January 16, 2007

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Digg - More Than Meets the Eye

Although the concept of 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

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.

ACS where he has lead Internet marketing strategies for companies such as Hewlett Packard and Samsung. Currently Neil blogs about his marketing experiences at

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