Notes on getting dugg

Yes, I admit it: I read these pages from time to time. I know, I know, it's generally bad practice to want to hack the system, and instead it is a much better idea to present content so perfect that anybody can accept it and see the deeper meanings. But that does not mean that these websites should be entirely ignored. As I read through all of these websites, it sometimes seems as if there is a deeper web dynamic to traffic flow patterns and hits/hour. In particular, out of the 20K hits that I got as a result of being put up on Makezine last Friday, there was only a small percentage that downloaded the biokit and even a smaller percentage that joined the mailing list or relevant Facebook group. And there was an astonishingly low number of people who were blogging (I guess not many bloggers extract value out of Makezine?). So these low percentages are to be expected in nearly anything, especially in advertisements and even in the propagation of biological epidemics. I collected all of these links as open tabs a few days ago and am now finally processing through them.

How to attract traffic and get dugg
Linkbuilding wiki. Seems to, perhaps ironically, be a linkfarm itself. What does this say about the so-called search engine optimization market that has popped up on the web?

Building traffic with article marketing - the basic idea here is to submit your article in full to some directory, and this "some directory" evidently distributes the entire copy to a number of people who might be interested in it, so it's based on the subscription of people already looking for content. These people then get free content, but the original authors get to have links back to them. So this is kind of like a GPL documentation license scenario, except minimalized where anybody can take any text as long as there is a link-ref back to the original author. An interpretation of this area of the internet would be interesting with respect to "You are what you cache" since ultimately this is a way to submit items to people's caches (directly into their inbox, much like the advantages of tt or RSSing your entire article).

Eight free things that every site should do
1. Register with technorati.
2. Become a Digger.
3. Make a "lens" ... interesting, it seems to be some way to extract contextually relevant information for a particular reader? How does it do this without ai or a wet brain doing the processing in the background?
4. Spread the word through social bookmarking (see also the social bookmark creator site).
5. Issue a press release (perhaps through PRleap)
6. Set up hosting experiments
7. Google Analytics
8. Do something new.
9. (generalization) Make a traffic economy via building up links across various web pages on different websites, such as on the soc-nets (social networks).


This page briefly explains the concept of linkbaiting, or the idea of presenting a link in such a way that its phrasing makes it easy enough to spread, so this is more of the meme theory applied to bits and bytes and the psychology of cyberspace. It seems that it relies on getting the link to at least one traffic promoter, specifically a node on the internet where stories tend to be picked up. Are there any bots that run analytics across the web to discover the up-promoters of the blogosphere or traffic flow economies (patterns)? This page suggests there is a market for links involving trade between bloggers and content producers in the information age. Another suggestion is to surround yourself with people in the niche and stand up on each other's shoulders (standing on the shoulders of giants ...), but this seems rather difficult in some very niche areas of idea-space when there are generally unresponsive people due to whatever problems show up in their daily lives. So the question should then turn how to jumpstart a niche. How much is all of this worth? You can track progress by picking a target (site with traffic) and put a price on getting a link up there, and then attack the context via strategically infiltrating the friend-space and releasing something viral, enough to get the person's attention. Relevant brainstorming here (local cache available).

Types of hooks for linkbaiting
1. News hook. Some new spin on it, some interesting point, some extra thoughts, something unique. Go more in depth if you have to, or explain the broader implications.
2. Contrary hooks. Something controversial, directly contradict somebody in the industry.
3. Attack hooks. Ad hominem fallacy. Enough said.
4. Resource hook - one that aggregates a lot of information together.
5. Humor hook.


Link Building Guide
  1. Study and understand the guidelines for a natural simulation.
    1. Have a varied anchor text -- Target your keywords but make very sure to vary the anchor a lot. Even a few “click here” is good to get. Note that this increases the easy ability to get a link to copy and paste somewhere, so this gradient allows for people to 'attack' the link as if they are eating away it (nature abhors a gradient).
    2. Come from related pages --- This is probably the most important, especially for english web sites. It is commonly believed that links from related pages carries more “weight” (not PR).
    3. Come from different locations on the linking pages -- Don’t have all the backlinks from footers or any other specific place. Have them on the top of the page, inside the body text, navigation, footer etc.
    4. Placed with a gradual natural increase -- Don’t place hundreds or thousands of links to a new site the first days … I have tested that and gotten the site banned in Google. You need to gradually place the links and the quantity all relates to how much links the site is usually getting. So if a site usually gets 10 new links per week then don’t place 100 suddenly one day.
    5. Placed from pages with a varied PR value -- In my opinion not more than 15-20% of your backlinks to a site should be from PR 5+ pages.
    6. Come from good neighbourhood -- Don’t have a majority of your backlinks from adult, pharmacy, and poker/casino sites. Such sites are known to spam and I am pretty sure Google frowns upon them.
    7. Come from different C-class IPs -- Google sees this. Have your links coming from total different sites.
      8. Come from both old trusted as well as new sites -- It is also good to mix this up.
    8. Come from reciprocal linking -- Reciprocal links are still good but don’t have them as a majority of your backlinks. 3-way-linking is a good alternative but don’t use any pattern.
    9. Point to internal pages as well as your home page -- Never underestimate backlinks pointing to your internal pages. As you have your internal pages SEO’d as well, get backlinks to these as well with varied anchor. It is been speculating that the value of these has increased during the BigDaddy update.
    10. Come from non-directories -- A selected few directories such as ODP and Yahoo carries trust in Google from the editorial vote. However, many directories does not give that and I even suspect that having a majority of your backlinks from 200 free general directories even can do harm to your link profile. They can still be good but should just be something extra to the links you already have.
    11. Not be temporary -- The age of your backlinks is important. It has even been speculated that this is a factor of the Google Sandbox filter. Strive to get permanent links. When renting links, rent for as long as possible.
    12. Not have paid linking footprints around them -- Words such as sponsors, advertisement and the like are spotted by Google and are devalued. If the majority of your backlinks come from such links it could maybe even do you harm.
    13. Not come from pages that links to bad neighbourhood -- You should not place your links on pages that are in bad neighbourhood, but you should also not place them on sites that themself link to these kind of sites. Google uses advanced relation and co-citation systems in their algo.
    14. Come from pages with the same language -- Seem to be obvious but is very important to show up properly in the Google country specific searches. It seems to be from my recent observations that this is the most important factor in determining the language of the site for Google (other factors is IP, Domain name TLD and actual written language of the site).
  2. Study and understand your link profile.
  3. Study and understand the effective ways to get links.
    -- Linkbaiting is based on a trust/traffic economy, when you market your links you are creating a certain amount of expectation within your consumers. Be a high-quality node.
    -- Reciprocal link programs, the good old fashion way. I link to you, you link to me. I remember trading links back when I was 12. I would link to somebody on my website, if they would link back to me.
    -- Buy links at high PR places like here or here.
    --- An interesting idea might be meta-linktrading because then you are trading links to places with high quality, high signal to noise sites, so that you can actually get your link relevantly placed somewhere, i.e., if you specifically know that your link is relevant but the blog owner needs some convincing of one sort or another.
    -- The linkdomain tool in Yahoo! Search is awesome.
    -- Write testimonials and reviews.
  4. Work out your own link building program.
  5. Get the links!
Do not ask bloggers for a link but instead constructive criticism, go implement the changes and come back. Then, they may link you. This page may be interesting, but it's only for already established ecosystems out there on the linkosphere. How to build traffic via copywriting and this guide is useful, but it sort of assumes there's already a copying culture in place. Links aren't the only things that get copied, but how often do we see link propagation going around the internet, eh? I certainly see the storms that hit the blogs where everybody picks up a story because a friend of a friend picked it up, but what's going on? What inspired these copying networks, and why do some people only seemingly 'trust' certain repeaters of the very same information?

A great press released is published as an article - this is more than true. The first thing that was picked up on the biohack project was the little blurb I wrote at the top of the page. This should have been expanded into a more complete article for people to copy.

What makes a site link worthy? Beating the sandbox.

The Art of Blog
  1. Regard your readers as your students and they will link to your from the deepest valleys of the Net.
  2. Links and readers, not post length and frequency.
  3. Linkbait. To do this, write something about the other blog that you want to target -- something perhaps controversial -- and get that bigger blogger to link back to you. You will be able to have a percentage of this person's traffic. Then, you can use this to your advantage. Add value when you are unexpected, etc.
  4. Many calculations on headlines lead to success; headlines lead to success.
  5. "Send readers away to other great posts liberally and they will return more fervently and more frequently than if you try to hoard them. In blogging, the tightest grasp is with an open fist."

  6. Send your troops to Digg Great Posts, To Vote on Netscape, to Comment on Reddit and to bookmark on Delicious that they may recruit more readers to your following. Ask that they link to your posts of value so that you may return the favor when the opportunity arises.
Seth Godin suggests:
  1. Use lists.
  2. Be topical... write posts that need to be read right now.
  3. Learn enough to become the expert in your field.
  4. Break news.
  5. Be timeless... write posts that will be readable in a year.
  6. Be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic.
  7. Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.
  8. Announce news.
  9. Write short, pithy posts.
  10. Encourage your readers to help you manipulate the technorati top blog list.
  11. Don't write about your cat, your boyfriend or your kids.
  12. Write long, definitive posts.
  13. Write about your kids.
  14. Be snarky. Write nearly libelous things about fellow bloggers, daring them to respond (with links back to you) on their blog.
  15. Be sycophantic. Share linklove and expect some back.
  16. Include polls, meters and other eye candy.
  17. Tag your posts. Use del.ico.us.
  18. Coin a term or two.
  19. Do email interviews with the well-known.
  20. Answer your email.
  21. Use photos. Salacious ones are best.
  22. Be anonymous.
  23. Encourage your readers to digg your posts. (and to use furl and reddit). Do it with every post.
  24. Post your photos on flickr.
  25. Encourage your readers to subscribe by RSS.
  26. Start at the beginning and take your readers through a months-long education.
  27. Include comments so your blog becomes a virtual water cooler that feeds itself.
  28. Assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.
  29. Highlight your best posts on your Squidoo lens.
  30. Point to useful but little-known resources.
  31. Write about stuff that appeals to the majority of current blog readers--like gadgets and web 2.0.
  32. Write about Google.
  33. Have relevant ads that are even better than your content.
  34. Don't include comments, people will cross post their responses.
  35. Write posts that each include dozens of trackbacks to dozens of blog posts so that people will notice you.
  36. Run no ads.
  37. Keep tweaking your template to make it include every conceivable bell or whistle.
  38. Write about blogging.
  39. Digest the good ideas of other people, all day, every day.
  40. Invent a whole new kind of art or interaction.
  41. Post on weekdays, because there are more readers.
  42. Write about a never-ending parade of different topics so you don't bore your readers.
  43. Post on weekends, because there are fewer new posts.
  44. Don't interrupt your writing with a lot of links.
  45. Dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger.
  46. Edit yourself. Ruthlessly.
  47. Don't promote yourself and your business or your books or your projects at the expense of the reader's attention.
  48. Be patient.
  49. Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.
  50. Ping technorati. Or have someone smarter than me tell you how to do it automatically.
  51. Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.
  52. Write in English.
  53. Better, write in Chinese.
  54. Write about obscure stuff that appeals to an obsessed minority.
  55. Don't be boring.
  56. Write stuff that people want to read and share.
Some good ideas here - particularly, study what links are being bookmarked on delicious. And then there's how to get on to the top of the delicious popular page which involves making ridiculous claims in your linknames. And inspire your readers.

Heh, here's a self-assertive metalist of sorts.

25 tips for marketing your blog
*** 101 web marketing ideas