So, apparently Digg unbanned certain domains from having stories submitted but feedback I've been getting and direct observations show that any stories submitted from these allegedly non-banned sites are quickly "buried".

Connected Internet shows how the "Digg mafia" buried a story within minutes from their site. Pronet Advertising found evidence of a Digg "bury brigade". It's all childish nonsense and pretty much relfects the user base of Digg.

I understand the rush from getting thousands of new visitors within a few hours but it's nothing more than Digg crack and can hardly be taken as a serious marketing channel any more than playing poker in Vegas is a viable career.

Labels: digg

Today I noticed on a trackback link from Pronet Advertising that Digg has decided to un-ban a number of domain names. Neil Patel's name is listed as the author of the blog post and he lists Online Marketing Blog at the top. I appreciate the heads up.

I suspect there are people wondering what the owners of the sites that are not on Digg have to say about this.

Here's my reply: Sigh.

We weren't relying on traffic before toprankblog.com was banned and certainly haven't missed it since. In fact, our visitors, RSS subscribers and page views are up by 30%.

What I do appreciate about being "unbanned" is that if someone submits a story from our site to Digg, they will no longer get the "This domain name has been banned from submissions" type of message.

More importantly than re-including sites, I hope Digg implements policies similar to search engines as far as identifying and dealing with spam along with re-inclusion. I understand as well as anyone that mistakes can be made on both sides. But without a better process, Digg will alienate itself from growing its user base.

Labels: digg