The Perfect Digg Bait

The other day I was browsing the Digg homepage and noticed something really weird. It seems Craigslist made the homepage for an article that was about "why geeks and nerds make the best boyfriends" and to top it off it did really well.

digg craigslist

The date shows this article was written on April 3, 2005 so it is probably safe to say that it is not "digg bait" and it was written for fun. The article contains no sales pitch and seems like it was written by a geek. The important thing to take from this is that if random stories such as ones from Craigslist or ones about Kevin Federline can make the Digg homepage, then you can too with a little creativity.

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Reader Comments (6)

Alister Cameron, Blog Coach, February 26, 2007

Neil, I think what's equally weird is the number of good stories that don't make it anywhere in Digg.

Seems a lousy story submitted by a popular digger has every chance of success while an excellent story on an unknown site by a new digger can well and truly die a thousand deaths.

It's not a serious news bookmarking system... it's more a game.

Of course it can be a fun one :)

Chip, February 26, 2007

I agree with you Alister. There are too many lousy stories on the digg homepage. I guess digg is all about networking.

This is one of the reasons reddit seems better to me. I have no friends in my list and I still made the homepage with two stories.

Pete Wailes, February 26, 2007

You have no friends? Aww... Poor Chip...

Seriously though, I think Alister has hit the nail on the head - Digg isn't a news reporting site. It's a site for interesting tidbits. Nothing more.

If you can get a story up, great. If not, sucks to be you. :)

Neil Patel, February 26, 2007

I agree that there are better stories that don't make the homepage, but the reason this story did so well is because it was stupid and entertaining.

As for power users causing stories to reach the homepage, that isn't the case anymore. Digg's algorithm is quite complex and from what I have noticed non-power users can get stories on the homepage as easily.

Chip, February 27, 2007

In my post I did not want to say that "I have no friends... poor little old me". :)

I just wanted to emphasize the fact that, unlike digg, in reddit you do not need to have a network of friends to get to the front page.

zenshadow, March 10, 2007

I post to Digg/Netscape/reddit & (new!) coRank (beta). I make an average 5 Diggs/4 Scapes/1 reddit per post, depending on subject (mostly satire/humor blogs). More important to me is the traffic that comes to me as a result of the submissions. Digg averages 80 Hits/Netscape 100+/reddit... a few/ It's become a habit of mine to consistently submit to these outlets immediately after posting. My blog is spanking new (though I've been 'around the blog block, lol). These techniques are the greatest means I have to generate readership. Google search? Very few. Linkbait on other sites is worthwhile. I go for big sites and make a comment on them, such as to Real Time with Bill Moyer (HBO.COM) if there's an article that matches up well to one of my posts. Anyway, here's some linkbait back to me: http://www.blogtopicz.com