The Digg Effect

If there’s anything that running The Pope Blog has taught me, it’s that one mention in an A-list blog can you really turbocharge your traffic (in that case, it was Buzzmachine that did it). There’s the infamous Slashdot effect which used to bring down a lot of servers. And now there’s the Digg effect.

Digg has become quite popular lately, and as its readership grows, the traffic its sends becomes more attractive to bloggers looking to promote themselves (and make money!). Interestingly, traffic from Digg may not be as valuable as your “average traffic”:

1. Digg users do not click ads… In the short run, getting on the front page is more likely to cost you money than make you money if you are depending on ads for your revenue…
3. Digg traffic does not generate new users, comments, or posts. Digg users often comment regarding a site on digg itself instead of on the dugg website…
10. After a site is highlighted on the Digg front page, it will start showing up in the other social bookmarking systems soon.

Point 10 is important though, as getting on “the big one” can help a post or blog go viral.