Today the topic is on Revie of Digg.com storty 2005-2012 .Our site has been around since late 2010, and we have had the unique opportunity to experience the Power of Digg.com, its interaction with social bookmarking services, social networking sites and the ever evolving social media space. This post highlights some important events in Digg history scattered with some links to articles as we followed its incredible journey.
I’m sure you’ve heard that Digg has now sold out to Betaworks for a mere few million dollars! This is especially after its founder Kevin Rose was featured on magazine covers with the grand title of how this kid made $ 60 million in just 18 months after starting Digg!

@The Power of Diggs
We joined Digg in 2005, and it was a great experience as it was famous for huge traffic spikes and crashed servers when your story got up voted to feature on the Digg front page. I recall all bloggers used to actively submit their best stories in the hope that some story would make it to the front page and result in lot of free traffic. And it sometimes actually did hit the front page. Following a good Digg hit, the exposure of your site to the Digg community was immense. It didn’t matter if you were a new one-month-old blogger or a large media giant.
Our list about the amazing Digg tools collection topped several bookmarking site charts as well. (The collection is much smaller now as many websites closed down). Actually once your story hits the Digg front page, there was a high chance it would also get popular on delicious.com, StumbleUpon and other social bookmarking services. So the traffic amplification effect was mind blowing.

In early days it was not so difficult to make a story hit the Digg front page. It was exciting as several of our blog posts made it to the front page which resulted in exceptionally high traffic spikes which nearly crashed our shared hosting server.

In fact fluctuating Digg traffic spikes became an important reason for site owners to switch to VPS hosting / dedicated hosting (with new concepts like cluster hosting / cloud hosting) as shared hosting servers were unable to cope with the huge traffic, and servers often crashed or the hosting bandwidth expired and prevented Webmasters from capturing this extra traffic. It was also the reason why many WordPress caching plugins became popular as they helped to make sites Digg-proof.
Actually this phenomenon inspired this Digg Song below. A masterpiece reminder of the great Digg times!

Many Digg clones continued to copy the concept in a hope to gain users and traffic. Can you believe that websites used to post their official Digg policy! Digg was the most powerful social media tool out there to bring you huge traffic, for free.

@Top Digg Users
As Digg continued to evolve, people realised the immense power of controlling the Digg front page. Many active Digg users became popular, created extensive networks, and controlled many stories which appeared on the Digg front page.  It became increasingly difficult for stories to hit the front page as it occurred earlier.  The Digg algorithms continued to evolve and it became more difficult to cheat Digg, but despite everything the sheer surprise and pleasure of experiencing a big spike of traffic from the Digg front page became a rare occurrence for most bloggers.
I recall the top Digg users were so powerful, that many were willing to hire them as social bookmarkers for a few thousand dollars per month across different social networks like delicious, Netscape Propeller etc. In fact the first 10 Netscape Navigators were selected from 3 of the top 12 Digg users!
“The fact is that the top 10 users on DIGG are responsible for 30% of the front page stories on DIGG. That’s 3% of total front page stories each!!! Think about that for a second…”
The top Digg users list kept appearing and disappearing on the website. Then Digg turned two years old with over 700,000 users, continue to evolve, continued to ban some popular sites, then unban them, and soon crossed 1 million users and announced the Digg party.

Do you want to write something loved by search engines and human both? Bloggers and webmasters know a lots of ways to rank higher in Google for particular keywords. But ranking well in Google isn't enough, its just an opportunity to you to  get visitors and show your work.

If you don't have quality contents or something  for organic visitors (visitors that come via search engines), any amount of traffic is just useless. To retain those users for maximum time, you must have quality stuff in your blog. You can realize the quality of your contents by looking at retweets, comments on posts, Facebook likes etc.

If your blog/website have a higher rate of bounce rate (i.e. people come and leave your website quickly), then it is just like they did not come to your site. It happens when you are getting a good amount of traffic from search engines but your contents are not better enough to keep the visitors on your blog. Better SEO techniques might rank you on first page, but better Blogging skills will give your articles not only maximum visibility on Google but also love of humans and machines (search engines).

Here are two important steps which will help you to get love from humans and machines, both.

@1- Steps to write lovable articles :


Write at least 500 words long articles. Your articles must be enjoyable, lovable and scannable.

@Research: Its the most important factor. First you need to realize what people are you searching for. You should write accurate and unbiased facts and opinions.
@Presentation: This is what makes your articles look interesting and eye-catching. You need to present your work in the best and interesting way. Use bullet points, sub-headings, pics, infographics instead of writing long paragraphs.
@Editing: Once you are done with writing article. Re-read and edit the entire article. Here you get a chance to fix some serious editing such as rectifying grammar or/and spell mistakes etc.


@2- Making Contents Lovable for Google :


Now its time to get a better rank in Google. You will have to work on it because mere a well written article is not enough to rank you higher in Google. You will have to optimize your article according to latest optimization techniques.

Using Google keyword tool and finding keywords based on your topic is a great idea. You can pick few keywords which having low competition and search between 10,000 - 12,000. Pickup 5,6 keywords from the tool and use it in your article. Dont use these keywords a lots of time in your article i.e. integrate the keywords seamlessly.

Making your blog look interesting and catchy is one of the most important thing. Adding a colorful popular posts widget is a nice option to make your blog look more beautiful and eye catching. By default, blogger allows you to add a popular posts widget however, in this article you will be able to add a multicolored widget displaying popular posts of your blog.




The widget script comes with three display options i.e. display only titles of post, titles with thumbnails or just thumbnails. Follow below mention steps to add a widget.

How to Add a Colorful Popular Posts Widget on Blogger :

• Go to Your Blog Template > Edit HTML > Proceed and check "Expand Widget Templates"
• Find this code

/* Variable definitions
   ====================
Place this code
<Group description="PopularPosts Backgrounds" selector="#PopularPosts1">
<Variable name="PopularPosts.background.color1" description="background color1" type="color" default="#fa4242" value="#ff4c54"/>
<Variable name="PopularPosts.background.color2" description="background color2" type="color" default="#ee6107" value="#ff764c"/>
<Variable name="PopularPosts.background.color3" description="background color3" type="color" default="#f0f" value="#ffde4c"/>
<Variable name="PopularPosts.background.color4" description="background color4" type="color" default="#ff0" value="#c7f25f"/>
<Variable name="PopularPosts.background.color5" description="background color5" type="color" default="#0ff" value="#33c9f7"/>
<Variable name="PopularPosts.background.color6" description="background color6" type="color" default="#ff0" value="#7ee3c7"/>
<Variable name="PopularPosts.background.color7" description="background color7" type="color" default="#ff0" value="#f6993d"/>
</Group>

@Now, find this code
]]></b:skin>

Place new code just before/above it.
#PopularPosts1 ul{margin:0;padding:5px 0;list-style-type:none}
#PopularPosts1 ul li{position:relative;margin:5px 0;border:0;padding:10px}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child{background:$(PopularPosts.background.color1);width:90%}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child:after{content:"1"}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li{background:$(PopularPosts.background.color2);width:85%}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li:after{content:"2"}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li{background:$(PopularPosts.background.color3);width:80%}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li:after{content:"3"}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li{background:$(PopularPosts.background.color4);width:75%}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li:after{content:"4"}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li + li{background:$(PopularPosts.background.color5);width:70%}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li + li:after{content:"5"}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li + li +li{background:$(PopularPosts.background.color6);width:65%}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li + li + li:after{content:"6"}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li + li + li +li{background:$(PopularPosts.background.color7);width:60%}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li + li + li + li:after{content:"7"}
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child:after,
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li:after,
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li:after,
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li:after,
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li + li:after,
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li + li + li:after,
#PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li + li + li + li:after{position:absolute;top:20px;right:-15px;border-radius:50%;background:#353535;width:30px;height:30px;line-height:1em;text-align:center;font-size:28px;color:#fff}
#PopularPosts1 ul li .item-thumbnail{float:left;border:0;margin-right:10px;background:transparent;padding:0;width:40px;height:40px}
#PopularPosts1 ul li a{font-size:12px;color:#444;text-decoration:none}
#PopularPosts1 ul li a:hover{color:#222;text-decoration:none}
Find this code
<b:section class='sidebar' id='sidebar' preferred='yes'>
Paste the code shown below just below/after it
<b:widget id='PopularPosts1' locked='false' title='Popular Posts' type='PopularPosts'>
<b:includable id='main'>
   <b:if cond='data:title'>
    <h2><data:title/></h2>
   </b:if>
   <div class='widget-content popular-posts'>
    <ul>
     <b:loop values='data:posts' var='post'>
      <li>
       <b:if cond='data:showThumbnails == &quot;false&quot;'>
        <b:if cond='data:showSnippets == &quot;false&quot;'>
         <a expr:href='data:post.href' expr:title='data:post.title' rel='bookmark'><data:post.title/></a>
        <b:else/>
         <a expr:href='data:post.href' expr:title='data:post.snippet' rel='bookmark'><data:post.title/></a>
        </b:if>
       <b:else/>
        <b:if cond='data:showSnippets == &quot;false&quot;'>
         <b:if cond='data:post.thumbnail'>
          <img class='item-thumbnail' expr:alt='data:post.title' expr:src='data:post.thumbnail'/>
         <b:else/>
          <img alt='no image' class='item-thumbnail' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_tfHWeUiDFE2UphZspO8Eq90VDYQjwTgKpunDiGuV499G7fQgUgUIancvGeOIu9Q1hBQWgMTvkK3b_lSmzmgk7PNNoRJZPUvevVLsMLPqLAl3yKPn6wKW6jXsyZysDxw4sF3NQdvhsPg/s1600/defaultimage.jpg'/>
         </b:if>
         <a expr:href='data:post.href' expr:title='data:post.title' rel='bookmark'><data:post.title/></a>
         <div class='clear'/>
        <b:else/>
         <b:if cond='data:post.thumbnail'>
          <img class='item-thumbnail' expr:alt='data:post.title' expr:src='data:post.thumbnail'/>
         <b:else/>
          <img alt='no image' class='item-thumbnail' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_tfHWeUiDFE2UphZspO8Eq90VDYQjwTgKpunDiGuV499G7fQgUgUIancvGeOIu9Q1hBQWgMTvkK3b_lSmzmgk7PNNoRJZPUvevVLsMLPqLAl3yKPn6wKW6jXsyZysDxw4sF3NQdvhsPg/s1600/defaultimage.jpg'/>
         </b:if>
         <a expr:href='data:post.href' expr:title='data:post.snippet' rel='bookmark'><data:post.title/></a>
         <div class='clear'/>
        </b:if>
       </b:if>
      </li>
     </b:loop>
    </ul>
   </div>
  </b:includable>
</b:widget>

@Save Your Template

@Settings :

• Now got o Page Element You will find out a popular widget
• Click on the edit link of Popular Posts widget
• Select “Display Up To 7 Posts”
• Now Save the widget

@How to Change the color scheme
If you want to change the color scheme, Go To
Design → Template Designer → Advanced → PopularPostsBackground
and select the colors you want.

Facebook recently has introduced a new social plugin called Facebook Recommendation Bar. FRB is useful plugin which helps you to drive traffic from Facebook. With Facebook Recommendation Bar, Your blog viewers can LIKE you posts and can see related posts as well.


@How to Install the Facebook Recommendations Widget in Blogger :


You first need to add Facebook open Graphs meta tags. Here is the simple way to add Facebook open graphs in your blogger template.

Got your Blogger template and find this code
<head>
Add new code just AFTER searched code.

<!-- Begin Open Graph metadata -->
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<meta content='article' property='og:type'/>
<meta expr:content='data:blog.title' property='og:site_name'/>
<meta expr:content='data:blog.pageName' property='og:title'/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.postImageThumbnailUrl'>
<meta expr:content='data:blog.postImageThumbnailUrl' property='og:image'/>
</b:if>
<b:else/>
<meta expr:content='data:blog.title' property='og:title'/>
<meta content='website' property='og:type'/>
</b:if>
<meta expr:content='&quot;en_US&quot;' property='og:locale'/>
<meta expr:content='data:blog.canonicalUrl' property='og:url'/>
<!-- End Open Graph metadata -->

Save Your Template
Now go to  Facebook Recommendations Bar Official Page
No need to enter anything, directly click the Get Code Button


Click on Create a new app Link

Enter the App Name with your Blog Title and App URL with your Blog URL and click on Continue


Enter Captcha Code and Click Submit button

Enter your blog URL in URL of the article box and your domain name in Domain box, Click the Get Code Button once again


Copy the code that appears in First Box and Encode the Code using HTML parser.

Now, go back to Blogger > Template > HTML > Proceed and select Expand widget templates
Search <body> and past the encoded code AFTER <body> tag
Now search for;
<data:post.body/>
Paste below given code after the code you searched.

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<div class="fb-recommendations-bar" data-trigger="onvisible" expr:data-href="data:post.url" data-read-time="30" data-action="like" data-side="right" expr:data-site="data:blog.homepageUrl" data-num-recommendations="2"></div>
</b:if>

@Save your template

See your blog, a Like button will appear on the right-bottom side of your blog. This button will also be converted to recommendation box.