SEO rules change all the time and it is really frustrating to have spent countless hours and tons of money to optimize a site and all of a sudden see that the website is not ranking well anymore. It is even more frustrating, when the site gets banned from Google.
While Google doesn't ban without a reason, a web master should be prepared that this could happen to him or her and have backup plans for action. Website traffic from Digg and the other social bookmarking sites is one of the best strategies to get traffic.
Is Digg Traffic Reliable?
Digg and the other social bookmarking sites are a viable alternative to Google and certainly they are a good way to get traffic. If a site is banned from Google or simply out of luck with its ranking algorithms, then social bookmarking sites and social networking sites become one of the major ways to get traffic to a website.
All equal, Digg, Twitter, StumbleUpon and the other popular and not so popular social bookmarking sites are just one more way to get traffic. Even for sites, which do well in Google, any additional traffic stream is welcome - there is no need to put all eggs in one basket.
What is more, when a site (or more precisely separate pages from that site) rank well on a top social bookmarking site, this boosts Google rankings as well. In some cases a web master might be lucky to get a link without the 'nofollow' attribute (i.e. a real link, which counts for SEO purposes) but usually with large social bookmarking sites this doesn't happen. Nobody gives backlinks for free!
However, relying heavily on traffic from Digg and the other social bookmarking sites doesn't make a web master less dependent than relying on Google. Yes, there are many web sites that get traffic mainly from Digg and the other social bookmarking sites but this doesn't mean that every site, which manages to get to the front page, will be a traffic magnet forever.
The Rules to Get Website Traffic from Digg Differ From Those of Search Engines
Unlike Google, where there are at least some rules that help to optimize for good results, Digg and the other social bookmarking sites don't offer such how-to's. In a sense, high rankings with Digg and the other social bookmarking sites are less predictable and there are fewer opportunities to influence them.
Even if it can be assumed that there are rules how to optimize for social bookmarking sites, these rules are kind of different from the rules for Google optimization. For instance, keywords in headlines matter less on social bookmarking sites and human-friendly headlines attract more attention than keyword-rich headlines.
The dilemma is not exactly if a web master has to optimize for Google or for Digg because both media are not mutually exclusive. Digg and the other social bookmarking sites are valuable additions to a SEO strategy and if used well, they can drive a lot of traffic to a website.
Tsveti Georgieva - I have been a full-time freelancer since 2005. Before that I was a serial job quitter and but now I have finally found a job - i.e. ...
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