Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Here are a few questions I have for those with experience:
Are these visitors typically NOT going to click on ads- even if they are in a niche that interests the reader?
Is this considered a bonafide "black hat" tactic to generate traffic?
The reason I ask is that my articles haven't quite made it to the front page, though I have the bandwith to handle it if they do....but they have generated some remarkable traffic that so far hasn't converted in my AS stats.
On the other hand, I was interviewed on a major radio program in a major city this morning for something I'm doing in one of my niches- received great traffic as a result- but no clicks.
So where do we draw the line between what is "good" traffic and what is "dirty"?
Thanks in advance for your input.
But, yes, digg visitors are known to be non-clickers :(
No opinion on the radio-slot visitors - cool stuff though :)
As for submitting other people's articles- now you have me thinking that perhaps people would not WANT their product hammered with that type of traffic.
I posted my own blog articles as I thought perhaps some would actually answer directly, but it seems not to be the case.
They simply go back to Digg and basically beat the crap outta just about anyone that submits anything...LOL
There is some kind of sick sport in all of that, isn't there? ; )
[edited by: martinibuster at 2:49 am (utc) on April 4, 2006]
[edit reason] TOS [/edit]
A friend made it to the main page, received almost 13000 visitors in 3 hours, but only 15 clicks.
I tried also Reddit and same thing. Very good traffick but no clicks. Even the proportional eCPM dropped.
So, my conclusion is, don't need that kind of traffick. It's only an expence and dashed hopes.
It remains a different question to find out what digg nd reddit users are looking for and what could entice them to click?
Will this change over time as more regular people use Digg?
Here's the thing - putting aside the fact that as everybody said, Digg types are tech-savvy, most likely have advertising blocked or just ignore it, etc., most Digg users are not out to buy a product.
Most Digg users are there to read an article that others found interesting, and then go back to Digg and read other articles.
It's not your normal users that find your site because they are shopping for something.
In fact, you can easily get a bad reputation or have the post reported for spam if they show up and it's clearly an article trying to sell something or trying to get them to click on the ads. That's a very big no-no with them, from what I've seen.
If you have some exclusive review of some new product or whatever, it wouldn't be considered spam (but then again if it's a brand-new product, the advertising is not going to be there for that specific product).
It's not to say that Digg can't help - out of the hundreds or thousands that show up, a small percentage might bookmark your site and poke around, and if it's not reported as spam and removed, it's a good backlink.
The first time it happened to me, I didn't have a good way of measuring it (mainly, I was unprepared, somebody else submitted it), but my traffic was up significantly (we are talking triple-digit percentage) and things grew tight with bandwidth (due to some high-resolution images). My CTR was just up slightly - maybe half a percent, but not enough to point to being Dugg as the reason why.
The second time I had better stat tracking and I was slightly prepared - the person who submitted the article emailed me about an hour before they did. I managed to switch to a low-bandwidth/emergency theme I have (the ads were still present/normal, however I reduced the graphics on the pages as well as reduced the size of the sidebars, and I made sure the cache setup was working properly). I would say that for every thousand visitors I had the second time around, I probably got around 1-3 clicks - definitely not worth it from that perspective.
As I said though, it might help a little in the long run with backlinks, bookmarks, referrals (people emailing other people the site address), but it's not something I would deliberately do.
However, I did one experience in the past few days with my and my friend's website with digg and reddit and here is my conclusiong:
I WOULD NEVER WANT MY NEWS TO APPEAR IN ANY OF THESE SITES' HOME PAGE. It is a vaste of bandwidth and no click.
it ha spast few weeks, and I still get 1000 visitors per hour that click from backliks...
so I recommand you to get digged
The only upside I can think of is that these people if interested may come back or may pass on the articles to non-tech people and perhaps I will get more adsense over time from the tail end of all that traffic.
gendude writes:
I've been "Dugg" twice or whatever you want to call it. Both times the CTR was horrible, and the bandwidth was through the roof.
Just as a matter of interest how much visitors/pageviews per hour did you have shortly after appearing on digg frontpage?
Just as a matter of interest how much visitors/pageviews per hour did you have shortly after appearing on digg frontpage?
I hit close to 1000 visitors an hour, and probably twice that in pageviews, and the other time it was about 3/4 of that.
Normally I get that in a day, but my normal traffic is much more product oriented - I mentioned that if you talk about a new product, your advertisers probably wouldn't have caught up with you, and that happened both times with me, and so I didn't have truly targeted advertising because the product was so new - that didn't help matters at all as far as CTR. Normally I get the types who are seriously interested in Widget A or Widget B, and they have gotten there because I rank fairly well and am listed on a decent number of sites.
Digg traffic seems more than likely to go back to Digg rather than exiting the site via an ad.
I'm sure some of you have read Kottke's posts/entries either from links here on WebmasterWorld or on other webmaster-oriented sites.
In this case, Kottke's got a very relevant traffic analysis, because he had the same article linked from both sites on the same weekend.
The only problem for those interested, Kottke doesn't run advertising/adsense, etc., on the site he got linked to, and so he wasn't able to observe the impact some of you are interested in.
[edited by: martinibuster at 10:56 pm (utc) on April 6, 2006]
[edit reason] Removed URL reference. [/edit]
So, in my little experiment- it has become evident it is simply some kind of (unmonitored and unfiltered) social club that diggs each other's sites while tearing people up for fun.
As for the whole premise- I'm still at a loss to explain it.
If we are strongly disouraged from sharing our own articles- how many webmasters have been mortified to find their sites bombed thanks to somebody else inviting a football stadium full of people to their backyard- visitors bringing nothing to the party?
An unwilling host stuck with the bill for the party favors and clean-up (read: bandwith).
(Others are spot on here- they never click or provide any feedback whatsoever on the submitted sites).
Hmmm.
[edited by: martinibuster at 10:58 pm (utc) on April 6, 2006]
[edit reason] Removed blog reference. [/edit]
Isn't that against the terms?
I think I will report you to Google immediately.
PS: Just joking. :) In a good mood today. :)
So, in my little experiment- it has become evident it is simply some kind of (unmonitored and unfiltered) social club that diggs each other's sites while tearing people up for fun.
Well put!
Is there anything else like digg or slashdot where you can submit your own entries?
That being the case I want good quality interesting material from digg, not people who are promoting their own websites and blogs with mediocre work.
Frequently on Digg you do see people talking up their own sites to try and get clicks. The negative comments they recieve are entirely justified when they are infact just spamming the board with their own content for their own personal motives.
I would be at the forefront of the mob with sticks when people try to twist what is a great idea to exploit it for themselves.
So if you seriously consider submitting your own site, then the quality had better be there, otherwise all you end up with is a bandwidth issue and some bad press. If you get abused for it then there is bound to be an excellent reason. To blame digg for your own poor content or actions is not fair.
This is the self monitouring aspect of community sites like digg that really do work. Sure its dog eat dog, but if you have good content then you will benefit from it.
I have to disagree with the premise that if you have good content you will be alright- or that if you get hammered its for a good reason.
There are no good reasons- only kids.
I honestly thought I wrote from the heart and was sincere with that one submission- the trollers don't much care what your intentions are if you submit your own.
As this relates to Adsense (the reason we're in this forum)-
after giving it more thought, its probably not even a wise idea to mess around over at sites like Digg for serious webmasters...the downside can be rather sobering, I should think. The place isn't exactly full of intellectuals looking to promote meaningful discussion...LOL
