Online Marketing Blog - Latest Comments in The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Hendrik — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:29:51 -0000

I have run the web site www.grand-illusions.com, which is about science and education toys, since 1996. Part of the site is a toy shop selling a small range of things that are hard to source elsewhere.

A few years ago, someone posted a piece to Digg which mentioned an item that we sell, called the Metal Pen. Maybe it was a quiet days for news (it was December 24th!) but it did get a lot of discussion, and we certainly saw an increase in traffic and sales. As I say, this post was nothing to do with me. To be brutally honest, I had not heard of them before this happened.

Remembering the good effect that other person's post had for us, I thought I would try to post a story myself about a new item that we have just got, which I think is really amazing. However I discovered that the whole www.grand-illusions.com domain is banned. Initially it said that we hosted adult content (which is not true). Then the support people said that it was a spam issue.

All I can say is that, before this week, I have never posted anything to Digg. So this all seems to have come about due to the action of others.

Sorry for the long post.

Hendrik

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Cathie — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 18:28:50 -0000

I was told by another site to "Digg" as many stories as you can to get the word out and bring traffic to your site, I know the person who said this didn't do it for spite but Digg didn't even send a warning that we were in trouble of getting banned they just banned us. It's just pathetic that after reading all this others problems that nothing can be done about those holier than thou jerks.

BTW, the traffic was incredible maybe that's what someone didn't like...

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Brian — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:24:41 -0000

Banned by Digg? just get an alternate domain ie the .com, .net, .org version and apache rewrite to the original. Digg only bans one domain, not all iterations.

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Amit — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:46:03 -0000

Today I just got banned from Digg. And when you mail them and ask what is wrong they act as if you are a criminal. My site is as legit as possible and i work my ass off to provide new content every day.
I used to like them but now I really really don't.

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Carlos R. Hernandez — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:50:09 -0000

Lee,

What an unfortunate sequence of events!

I find your posts to be of value and educational and the apparent action reflects fear-based thinking.

I am going to elect and believe your blog will only get stronger with more followers because of this situation.

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Becky — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 02:59:48 -0000

Don't know if you are still interested in this issue. But I have long noticed the same problem and was recently banned by a frivolous complaints. However, this time it seems to be part of a much larger patters. A number of women who operate lesbian=oriented blogs have been likewise banned--and are determined to follow up with it--through publicity, the media, and possibly legal action.

To get a start looking at this please check out this post on my blog:

Thanks

~Becky

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

notoriousxl — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 08:23:34 -0000

Hi, I'm an italian blogger, hosted by Netsons.
When I tried to submit an article for the first time, I got the "spam" error message.

Netsons is a free web hosting service, very popular in Italy. Like Altervista does, every user has an URL like username.netsons.org.

I've discovered that the WHOLE domain, including everyone's account, is banned (not only mine). Digg spam policy really sucks... :(

(sorry for my bad English)

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Digg User — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 11:08:39 -0000

I just tried to submit a toprankblog url and guess what, still banned. I've gotten banned as a user before and quite frankly the digg "support" team is anything but.

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

online casino — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 07:48:33 -0000

Grow that list !

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

rick — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 19:18:37 -0000

Lee,

If you're interested, we'd love to add you to our growing list.

Rick

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Lee Robertson — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 16:53:45 -0000

Opps should have read the comment above...sorry about that.

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Lee Robertson — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 16:52:42 -0000

Has the domain recently been unbanned along with others recently? Just wondering since some other domains that were banned recently were unbanned. I have to wonder if Digg has reached the point that it will start to fall apart.

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Lee Odden — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 06:46:15 -0000

Oh we've taken the hint alright Gerard. We don't show any links to digg our stories and the super popular social bookmarks tool that over 40,000 blogs have used to date, no longer offers digg as one of it's options.

The digg community is as fickle as they get and if that's the kind of audience a marketer wants to reach, then I say go for it. Otherwise, there are plenty of other ways to attract high quality traffic and links with attractive effort to results ratios.

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Gerard McGarry — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 03:34:00 -0000

Here's a radical idea - stop promoting Digg!

I've read enough posts by now suggesting that Diggs policies are tough on SEOs (in particular) and other sites deemed unworthy by the Digg audience.

Can I suggest that all the SEOs talking about marketing on Digg should switch to talking about Reddit or Stumbleupon and create a bit of buzz for those communities? Sure, Digg may create a tsunami of traffic initially, but I'd sacrifice the Digg pack for a more mature audience any day.

That's nothing against Kevin Rose and Digg - I think he's achieved a phenomenal thing with Digg. But the Digg audience are sending out a clear message and maybe SEOs and pro-bloggers should take the hint.

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Lee Odden — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:26:04 -0000

Hi Chris, thanks for the nice comment. You are right, it doesn't affect my business. The main thing that bugs me is when people submit stories from our blog and get the "this domain on the banned submissions list" error message.

I might email digg again, but right now my focus is on our clients, training our team and trying to keep things interesting on this blog.

Cheers! :)

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Chris Nielsen — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:14:06 -0000

Lee,

As if you need them... :-)

When I heard they banned you and SitePoint and not me, it's clear that they have huge problems with their procedures and policies.

If it were me, I would first try to contact the management of Digg and explain to them what is happening. This would be as a courtesy and not because it's really hurting your business. If this leads nowhere then I would issue a press release and tell the entire, documented story. Not because you need to, but because it would help all the small SEOs and anyone else targeted.

I don't care about Digg one way or another, but I can't just sit by when I hear about misuse of power or screwed up systems that hurt people.

I am willing to donate to this cause, just let me know. I just read about this issue in LED Digest (http://www.led-digest.com). I'm going to go see if I can find some contact information over at Digg... :-)

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Lee Odden — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:27:14 -0000

Hi Adam, thank you for your comment and yes, I did see the post in LED. I see that Wired Magazine has a prediction in that it's over for digg in 2007. If their editorial and moderator process weeds out enough good content sources, that may very well happen. But not before the recent funding runs out. :)

Cheers!

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Adam Audette — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:14:00 -0000

Lee,

Just wanted you to know I posted about this today in the LED (issue #2317). Hey, if *this* blog can be banned, then any site any time can be banned by catering to the "wrong" demographic.

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Mihaela Lica — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 09:33:19 -0000

I believe if digg doesn't fix these problems soon it's going to lose more and more users. After reading a few similar blogs today, and seeing how many other fellow bloggers are beeing banned (probably as I write this comment), I have decided to stop using digg before it's too late! I am sorry for what happened to your blog, Lee. But hay, digg does not define your work, nor who you are! And I still remain an admirer!

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

G-Man — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 02:11:00 -0000

Bummer that happened to you!

I haven't been going to digg much since my ip got banned :P

I was one of the people who checked out spike the vote before it was sold to a friend of digg :)

LOL

G-Man

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Paula Mooney — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 01:51:47 -0000

I'm sleepy, I'll skip the HTML:

http://paulamooney.blogspot...

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Christoph C. Cemper — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 08:30:10 -0000

Hey Lee,

I really don't support that weird domain banning thing.
It sucks.

In fact it sucks just as the Adsense account banning policy of Google Adsense. They also kick small accounts with low volume while leaving some big spam scraper adsense sites operators in the program, just because they make enough of money...

Therefore I don't agree that Digg will just suffer itself from it's banning policy... it's just the same simple minded evil 100% or not evil 100% ( do I hear black or white seo ) that Google propagates...

and obviously Google is doing good with that policy, altough I don't think it's right and hurts the wrong people - sometimes...

best regards & merry xmas
christoph

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Pierre — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 08:14:28 -0000

Let's all submit digg.com to digg and bury it :) I'm sure our collective effort will get the message through.

Pierre

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Lee Odden — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 14:42:36 -0000

Hi Li, it may be that search marketers are paying closer attention. It is a social news site and if they choose to run it this way, that's their perogative.

I do wonder a bit though, if it's a symptom of growing pains or if they really think the current editorial and exclusion policy is the best way to go.

Thank you for your very kind comments on Search Engine Gurus!

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Li Evans — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 14:31:27 -0000

Lee - I just don't get what's up with Kevin Rose's and Digg's policy on this. Isn't it that obvious how open for abuse this is? Or is it that we as a community are the only ones seeing this?

How can anyone protect their reputable, newsworthy sites from having this happen to them. Its like a bunch of Digg Nazis or something "No Digg For You!" :(

What they did to TopRank is just wrong, wrong, wrong!