Have you noticed a decrease in the amount of stories hitting the front page of Digg.com over the past 24 hours and the increase in the quality of those stories? If so, there is a reason behind the change.
Digg.com has tweaked their algorithm so stories will require, in some cases, more Diggs to reach the Digg homepage.
At Pronet Advertising, Neil Patel writes that the new threshhold of Diggs needed for a story to reach the Digg homepage has increased from 30 odd Diggs to 60 or more.
Why? Patel notes:
* Too many stories were being submitted and reaching the front page.
* Too many “friends” were digging each others diggs.
* The quality of stories hitting the front page was decreasing.
Does this mean that making it to the front page of Digg.com is now impossible for sites which are not named TechCrunch?
Nope. It just means that more Digg members are going to have to notice a story’s headline and description before Digging it, so those listing stories to Digg may want to get a bit more picky as to what they submit and how they submit to Digg.
As for loopholes around the new algorithm, it seems that Digg’s mission to push beyond Technology related news will be rewarding Sports and Gossip sites.
Patel adds:
The good news is not all categories require 60 diggs before the story hits the homepage. It seems that Digg has taken multiple factors into account such as number of submissions in a category, diggs, and time because certain categories do not need as many diggs before the stories hit the front page. The sports and entertainment categories are two of the categories that do not require too many diggs because not too many people digg these types of stories and these categories are also low on submissions.
I also suggest reading this piece by Mr. Patel on making the most of a Digg (if your site can still reach Digg.com’s front page), entitled How to get the most out of digg traffic.
