Why Do You Screw Your Site Over For Few Diggs?

[Chris Lang]

I cannot for the life of me understand why you spend your time chasing a few Diggs and totally DEFRAG your site over.

I have posted so much content here explaining how Google knows that you are spamming Digg and in turn, the Google index.

This may be one of those Chris Lang rants, I don't know when I start these posts, it just happens.

Digging their own content over and over kills you in Google. The Google Christmas slapdown in coming this fall and those of you who are doing this stupid crap that I told you not to do a HUNDRED TIMES are going down hard.

The Google slapdown came hard in 2003 and last year it was almost as bad.

The sites that have learned to use social bookmarking correctly will be left standing in the wake.

I just took number one an Google for a term that returns 200,000 searches by using social bookmarking properly. My client paid me $1500 for that and it took me 5 minutes.

This is not in the book and I can't even tell you the term it is under or who my client is. He will probably be on stage with me after the 1st of the year for my Chris Lang Social Marketing Conference 2009.

What we are doing in social sites is absolutely leading edge and totally white hat and it works like magic. We shall see who is right about this when October comes.

What do you all think? Jack, how about some input?

[Jonathan Gunson]

Dead right.

OK How do I get to your 2009 conference Chris?

I'm in, coz you're the social marketing man - mouth and all.

Jonathan ;-)

[Chris Lang]

Still in the planning stages, got another 6 months of work to really get to the bottom of how Google is using social bookmarking to rank blogs. Check your email, I am contacting your off list. - Chris

[Jack Humphrey]

Good luck with the conference Chris. They are a pain in the butt and the market is saturated, travel is expensive, and Americans are spoiled with all the conferences we have in this country. But with enough energy and help, you can pull it off.

[Chris Lang]

Thanks Jack, it is up to me to make the jump from the know it all that I am to the authority figure that you are. You have to remember that I am a programmer, not a marketing guru or even a decent copywriter.

[Tim Fox]

Thanks for hammering this home Chris. Due to my newbness before I found this site I wasn't aware of the consequences of digging or sharing your own stuff so it may be too late for me. For everyone else out there listen to Chris. The guy knows what he is doing. I may be dead overall but I'm getting some high ranking terms lately on google cause of digg and following his tactics.

[Chris Lang]

You aren't dead yet Tim, you just have to start adding outside content to your Digg profile and delete your shouts from your shout history. That is a good start. Tim, did you buy my book during the special offers promo?

[Jack Humphrey]

The best thing that ever happened to me with Digg is they banned my URL. I wasn't spamming it but they didn't like other people submitting my site. By the way, if you want to get rid of a competitor in Digg, just submit everything on their site.

Which is a lesson to those of us who still have unbanned domains. You can't abuse Digg. They are the original social news site. They've been fighting spammers longer than anyone else and have some serious tools to defeat anyone who is not at the top of their game.

No way to really know the google stuff Chris mentions for sure. A lot of what people who don't work for Google say about Google, including me, is really just conjecture at best. Lucky guesses and hunches.

That's why treating Google like something that can be gamed, again, is only for the egg heads. Don't chase pagerank, serve good content, get valuable links (regardless of their pagerank) and realize that a link holds no true value if all you know about it is the pagerank it has.

A link is truly valuable based first and foremost by the actual traffic it sends. That's all you can count on. Google will do what they do, how they want to do it, when they want to do it. That is called something that is totally out of your control.

I like to control the web. The only way to do that is to go after links based on actual, real traffic and let the Google chips fall where they may.

Does it work? All the proof in the world is on my sites. Can't be any clearer than that.

Marketers are generally the most impatient, inexperienced, greedy and unethical (not always intentionally) group on the web. When money gets involved and everyone starts thinking they're going to be Bill Gates, they'll generally do the most stupid, idiotic, unbusiness like things to do themselves in.

I have watched thousands and thousands of people come and go the last 10 years and they all made the same mistakes. They were greedy, impatient, and wanted something they didn't do a thing to deserve over night.

The reason I don't chastise people like Chris does is I've seen this time and again. When you warn people enough, there's no sense in putting time in on them after they ignore advice and screw up anyway.

I don't have energy for anything other than teaching people who want to learn. People with maturity and willingness to work to have something like I have. Not business sense. That can be (somewhat) learned.

It is an insult to the 10 hard years of work I've put in to have to work with people with anything less than 100% willingness to do what it takes to get to this level.

And so, I don't spend time trying to save the masses anymore. I love my life and my time with my wife and son. Focusing only on the very few people who will ever do anything significant online has freed up my time to do rewarding work.

Trust me Chris - you're going to get ulcers preaching to the deaf.

[Chris Lang]

Actually Jack, I post these kind of links to see what people say in return. I have gained valuable insight to what people are thinking about what I say and what they want out of a product that teaches them if anything, what NOT to do.

Mostly they ask for proof. Obviously I need the endorsement of more valuable Internet marketers with long term reputations. Also I deeper case studies of what I have seen and done. It is hard to do because I cannot reveal all that I know and what works.

As far as being banned from Digg, heck yeah! I was sick and tired of being buried by the bury brigade and I do not miss Digg a bit. Although, I do continue to analyze Digg for clients and advise them on how not to hurt their own Google standings by abusing Digg.

I am still gathering data on what goes on between Google and social bookmarking sites. We will not know for sure until Google comes out with the annual pre-Christmas slapdown. I have been through 3 of them now in the last 10 years and I expect this one to focus on social bookmarking abuse.

In fact, I was one of the few left standing in 2004 when Google knocked everyone down for overly commercial sites that lacked content and were only ranked well because of link strategies. I was number for Video Greeting Card in 2004 after that Google algo change. You can't guess how well I did that Christmas!

[Michael Lang]

Chris, I know what it's like being the"deviant voice", as Lenny Bruce called it, trying to rattle people's cages in an attempt to bring truth and clarity into a situation.
There is much wisdom to what Jack stated earlier although I personally have not always chosen that path.
Let you successes speak for themselves.
I use Social Marker as a tool to submit to array of Social sites which most times includes Digg. My content is at least 90% original and I've guess I should consider myself lucky so far as I haven't been banned...but I could be an accident waiting to happen! I've been through a few "slapdowns but wasn't personally affected....yet!

If I might offer a suggestion which is not totally altruistic. Offer a couple of solutions or alternative courses of action to posting to Digg. Just make it a posititve instead of a negative and I bet you would have an overwhelming response.
Your thoughts?
Mike Lang (no relation...I think)
The Lang Report

[Chris Lang]

Mike, I believe that Social Marker is one on the worst tools to use on social sites, or any automated Social bookmarking submission tool. Let's look at it from Google's perspective and let's agree that Google prefers a natural progression of linking to your blog. Let's also agree that Google does not find lots of sites linking to yours with exactly the same link text in a very short amount of time. Both pretty much taken as fact today right?

Why would anyone use an automated site, to submit the EXACT same title and description to all the bookmarking sites from the same IP address with a timestamp on the post within minutes of each other?

From the Google Webmaster Guidlines:

"Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service." (they are talking about Google here, not social book marking)

Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"

Need I say more?

I predict that the next Google slapdown is going to be over social bookmarking site abuse. We shall see in October.....

[Michael Lang]

Chris, thanks for taking the time to give me that feedback, I followed your thinking and train of thought and i have a few questions.
1) Are you saying that any and all of the "submitter" tools do more harm than good? This would include Web 2.0 Submitter....
2) It is the timestamp that does the most harm...and if so, does that mean that submitting to each site individually and manually will produce the desired results?
3) And/or are you saying that the whole strategy of posting an article to The Lang Report and then submitting that article to an array of Social sites is a waste or is it that there is a specific way to submit.
I am trying to narrow down my options as I am always willing to re-examine my methodologies.
I have been trying to take what Howie Schwartz has been preaching and apply it to my particular niche and I have to admit I am having an inner struggle with it.
So if you know something that I don't then Iam open to learn. My first impression of your respnse was that you disagree with some of the things Jack is preaching and I trying to sort through it.
Thoughts?
Mike
p.s. So you know and can better reply to the above, here is my daily procedure after posting to TLR.
a) open TrackBoost and add lin
b) I open OnlyWire to ping article
c) Open Pingoat and submit to other sites
d) Open Social marker and summit to approx 12-15 sites
e) experiment by submitting to 1 or 2 other sites
That's basically i!

[Chris Lang]

What I am saying is that what you are doing is spamming the social bookmarking sites. Period. I will not reverse my stance on this if God himself comes down and tells me I am wrong.

First of all I do not care about the traffic from social bookmarking sites. IT IS WORTHLESS for the most part.

I target a demographic within social sites that converts for me, not raw social site traffic.

Secondly if you are submitting your own content to the social bookmarking sites every time you publish you are spamming them.

All I am asking is for you to use your head and consider that there MIGHT be larger things involved than what you see right in front of you.

I watch Howie Schwartz closely, I am testing a few of his strategies right now. They rock.

What I am saying is this. Would it appear natural to Google for your blog post to be submitted to every social bookmarking site?

At the same time, within minutes of each other?

With exactly the same title?

With exactly the same description?

In the same exact account every time?

From the same domain?

Does that appear like something that would happen when you blogged the article and did not submit it yourself?

I might just go out on a limb here and say that maybe, just maybe that that might not sound like a NATURALLY OCCURRING trend to Google.

Next, what is converting better, your social bookmarking strategy or your search engine rankings?

If you are not tracking and testing everything you are doing you are running on a hope and a prayer.

If your social strategy converts highly then frak (battlestar galactica reference) Google.

If your search engine rankings are high and you rank well and the traffic converts then maybe you might at least consider submitting something but you own content.

I am certainly not coming out against Jack's software, I am not here to make enemies. I am here to find out what you think and what you do.