Social Media for Link Building: Does Just Being on Digg Do the Business?

By Chris GarrettSocial Media

A while ago people would submit every story they wrote to Digg. Not just to get it voted up, but because “just being on Digg” was apparently good for SEO. I wasn’t always convinced of this but I heard it so much I started to believe there might be something in it. Still, I didn’t follow the practice.

Fast forward a little while and Digg reorganizes the way pages are generated, particularly where member profiles are concerned. One of the effects of this was that fewer pages per story were created, and the knock on effect was fewer links just for being on the site.

Now today I get a question from a reader who has been following commentary about a social media marketing video that is doing the rounds that recommends you submit stories to Digg just because Digg has great pagerank.

My answer was, as usual, to ignore Page Rank, aim to get links through secondary effects, and to not abuse social media sites because they WILL bite you in the ass. But what if I am wrong?

Over to you guys; Does just being on Digg give you a juice boost?

6 thoughts on “Social Media for Link Building: Does Just Being on Digg Do the Business?”

  1. I think alot depends on your niche.

    For travel it’s a complete waste of time and don’t bother to submit to Digg anymore.

    I prefer StumbleUpon which has driven thousands upon thousands of visitors to my blog.

    It’s okay submitting to these social communities, but ifyour content is crap it’s likely not to generate much response.

    The title is vital, so think about that before you submit.

  2. Regardless of what impact it has for SEO I think submitting an excessive amount of your posts has other, more serious negative consequences.

  3. Look, posting your “How to Tame A Housecat” story on a social board for, whatever, Medical Infections is clearly (pick one): stupid, abusive, a waste of time.

    But posting almost anything on Digg or any other social site where you properly categorize the topic and it is not spam is just using the system. Just because some diggerati don’t like stories about SEO (or housecats) doesn’t mean that they don’t belong on Digg. Or that they are SPAM.

    Now, do the results of the posting further your business plan? That is a very different question.

    My $0.02 worth, and, hey, look at the time, let’s go to pub!

    -OT

  4. I agree with Ryan. If you’re writing about “timeless” topics like how-to or resource articles, you’ll need non social voting links because the competition for those type of articles are usually tougher.

    I think Google gives less weight to social voting links compared to other links because they know that anyone can submit an article and get a link.

  5. I don’t think Digg is enough, especially now that they changed their algo (according to someone I trust). Apparently, you will no longer get traffic from Digg unless your story goes to the home page. If this is true (and it appears to be), then bank on just Digg is a very bad idea, now that they’re supposedly even more elitist.

  6. Digg gives a pre-filter serp boost for hot, time sensitive topics. But you surely get negatively filtered down the road if the majority of your backlinks are from social media sites.

Comments are closed.