1It’s The (Other) Algorithm, Stupid! Understanding DiggRank
29 November 2007
Have you ever wondered what it really takes for a story submitted to Digg to get to the home page? Or why a certain story—even a really good, social media friendly story—never got to the home page? I’m frequently asked the question “Hey, my story has [number] of Diggs but it still hasn’t been promoted to the home page. Any idea what’s wrong?” And relatively less frequently I hear someone saying in amazement, “Wow, all it took was 29 Diggs and that story rocketed to the home page!” I’m always tempted to reply “It’s the algorithm, stupid!”
Digg has an algorithm?
Yes, just as PageRank and other algorithms are used to rank web pages by search engines, some social sites use algorithms to determine which stories become popular. Call it DiggRank, if you will. Let’s take a deeper look at what the Digg algorithm is and venture a few guesses about how it works.