One of my sites got on the front page of Digg a couple weeks ago, and I was interested to see the final results on this. Finally everything seems to have evened out again, and with some decent (and interesting) results. There were actually a few surprising results according to my analytics software. I might go over some more details in a different post, but here’s a brief run-down of some of the results that had an impact:
- RSS readers increased from 650-ish to around 830 on average
- Within a few hours of hitting the front page, Digg users consumed almost 24 GB of bandwidth
- The story hit front page around 7PM, and traffic was higher the next day. I attribute this to the links back and distribution of the link throughout Digg
- AdSense earnings increased 250% for about 3 days and have slowly dwindled back to normal, or slightly higher
- Total Digg visitors for those few days: 34,186
- Alexa rank didn’t increase very much, possibly due to the fact that not many Digg users actually use the Alexa toolbar.
- The rumor about Digg users having a short attention span is mostly true:
- Digg user’s Average Time on site: 35 seconds – Normal users: 51 seconds (31.16% difference)
- Digg user’s pages per visit: 1.26 pages – Normal users: 1.57 pages (19.57% difference)
- Digg user’s Bounce Rate: 87.28% – Normal users: 78.28% (11.5% difference) – Bounces are when the visitor leaves from the same page they entered (only viewed the one page)
Traffic Graph:
So what are the long-lasting benefits? Well, I got almost 200 more RSS readers (no email subscription offered, regrettably,) and I’ve noticed traffic is still higher than it was before. The links back from other reputable sources is great, but the effect that has on PageRank is questionable since Google’s last PR update. Revenue spiked during the few days it was popular (not proportionally though,) and has settled to a point slightly higher than it was before.
If you have a server that can handle it, it’s a great thing to happen. I use MediaTemple Grid-Service hosting, and the page didn’t even slow down during the Digg frenzy. That’s impressive. As great as that is, MediaTemple has been down and slow a lot recently, so I can’t fully recommend their service, but it seems to have handled a Digg better than other shared hosting would have.
Has anybody else been Dugg and had similar or different results? Please share.
I made the front page several times before too, and I agree with you on many points. However I find that the RSS subsriber count will go back down over time.
Thanks for the heads-up Karol. It’s fluctuated a lot in the past couple weeks, and hasn’t shown a real drop yet, let’s hope it stays that way
Hey Egon, congrats on the Digg effect! I have yet to successfully get much traffic from digg, though I have not tried very hard.
Keep up the fresh content and your traffic and RSS subscribers will definitely continue to go up.
Thanks for the kind words Mark,
Digg is great for traffic only if you get on the front page, or at least the front page of one of the categories. StumbleUpon is much better for sustained traffic, and seems to get users with better attention spans.
Hey, Congrats!
How did your page get featured in DIGG’s first page?
Quality content
It also doesn’t hurt to ask a friend or two for a Digg favor every once in a while, as long as the content is good and they actually do like the article. Anymore it’s almost impossible for a Digg “newbie” to get a front page article naturally, so I don’t think asking friends to Digg it is bad.
>> it’s almost impossible for a Digg “newbie†to get a front page article naturally
That is sad, and that is why those social “machines” loose weight over time.
It will truly be exiting when someone comes up with an idea to handle the “if you can cheat, do it!” mentality
>It also doesn’t hurt to ask a friend or two for a Digg favor every once in a while.
Hmmm… You cheated the system then?
No…I’m not sure if you have a website or not, but webmasters get at least a few requests per day over IM or email to Digg an article if we like it. I’ve asked a total of two friends to Digg an article, if they like it. That’s not cheating the system at all, it’s bringing an article to their attention and reminding them that Digg does exist
Seriously though, it’s all you can do really, when it’s such a biased system. it’s mostly only the “top Diggers” who get articles to the front page, and that’s a ridiculous system.
I suppose you have a pretty valid point there. At the moment there are about 10 diggers that get all the votes which isn’t really fair, so there is probably some block voting going on there.
If anyone has ever seen Eurovision, that is what Digg is like.
Congratulations on hitting page 1!
digg encourages users to form friendships with other users on one hand, but then on the other says it’s against digg terms to request diggs.
The best I’ve managed with natural diggs was page 3 in upcoming but as most of my stories are local to the UK, it’s probably the best I’m going to get.
If only there was a UK rival to digg…!
Could be a decent business plan
you should also look at some high hitting award sites like http://www.thefwa.com as they can drive a lot of traffic as well. a client site of ours saw 10000 extra uniques in a week and 40k over 1 month