There’s a bit of discussion concerning the traffic from Digg versus from other social sites. I thought I’d toss in two cents as I’ve had experience with traffic spikes from several sources, namely Digg, Valleywag, Shoutwire, Techmeme, and Megite.

I won’t go into details with raw numbers, but each service above is listed in order of the amount of traffic sent, but with an inverse relationship to the longevity of said traffic. With Digg, it was tons of hits over the course of two or three days (which took my site down twice), versus Techmeme and Megite on the other end of the scale – the latter two provide much less traffic, but a more consistent amount over a longer period of time.

The persistence of the traffic is definitely related to the likelihood of your link being found on the service site. With digg, the odds are very low that a link will hit the front page, and once it’s there, it won’t be for long, but the traffic coursing through that site is titanic. Shoutwire’s odds are higher because there are less stories and users – therefore my link got on the front page with less than a hundred “shouts” and hung on the front page for several days. Valleywag was similar, but in that case Nick Denton decides to link to you.

With Megite and Techmeme, once you’re in you can basically write about anything that anyone else is writing about and garner a front page link. So although the links don’t stay around all that long, the odds of you writing something new and getting to the front page are obviously much higher. With digg, it’s almost like you’re starting from square one each time.

So here’s the steady paycheck analogy. digg is like working on commission or for bonuses where the payout can be huge, but the consistency and longevity isn’t so good. It could be feast or famine from one week to the next. Other sites might not “pay” as much but the reliability is like a steady paycheck. I guess the “entry” to Techmeme is rather like a job interview. So there are plusses and minuses either way. Problogger suggests it’s totally possible to build traffic through digg. But the more I go at this blogging thing, I’m definitely finding I’m more of a steady paycheck guy (just as in real life).

In addition to that analogy, I’d say there’s no reason why you can’t play several tables. It’s just worth thinking about what sort of content you create, and what sort of audience you’re looking for. I sometimes write tongue-in-cheek lists about corny subjects while other times analyze things in more depth. It’s fairly obvious which stories would garner more interest at which sites.

Note: I must admit, the first time this blog got any notice (or noteriety) was through digg. I can draw a pretty direct line through the services above and realize that if digg, Shoutwire, or Valleywag hadn’t linked to this blog, I wouldn’t have been picked up by Techmeme. The digg experience of having a site wiped out also forced me to start taking this blogging thing a bit more seriously. So in a roundabout way, despite my agreement that digg users can be flighty and crass, I should mention that if not for that first traffic spike, you might not be reading this article.

Anyhow, I’m sure others out there have had more or different experiences with other social sites feeding traffic to yours, so feel free to chime in if you have anything to add.

Additional reading: Mathew Ingram, 10e20, SiteLogic, Chip Griffin, Small Business SEM

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