Hmm... I registered to this site few days ago, first I thought this would be good site for finding information about how to promote own website and services. Couple days later I found thread about using 'friend bot' for adding thousands friends at myspace.com Today I find out that few of Digital Point members are abusing digg.com services for marketing their own site or services, "brownload for download", like good old pnp-system worked in mp3.com ... Question is... how low can you go or is mass-marketing only way to go? Is spamming and/or gaming really only way to promote your website? I thought it would be about getting users to promote site forward, not about using really low-life methods for it, this kind of gaming & spamming "promotion" is only ruining internet. Why people can't trust into their good ideas and quality with content, design?
Hmm... was this question found too provocative or why it didn't got any replies? Wrong forum or title? "I thought it would be about getting users to promote site forward" I ment "Spreading the word", like it's quite normally happening with succesfull viral-marketing campaigns.
Actually, probably because it makes no sense There are tons of great idea on this forum...The fact that you were able to find two which you do not agree with doesn't mean they are all bad. Most people in this forum would object to the Digg Ring someone tried to create but they were doing it on their own site...Thats their right. As far as mySpace...Again, a minority here would use a automated friend adder but Im not sure why discussion about it should be taboo just because its not your thing. This forum is great because you can explore anything and get lots of advice. If Shawn started deleting anything he wasn't interested in, this would be like every other forum
No sense? What do you mean? So you think it's ok to abuse digg.com digging system, just only for promoting own website?
I thought I explained it pretty good...There are tons of people creating and promoting great sites and services. Why not highlight those? It makes no sense because I have no idea what you are trying to achieve by your comments Nope, and I have made my opinion known on that matter.....But its peoples right to discuss it
anyone manipulating the search engines' rankings is doing the same thing as what you consider "digg abuse". Yes, the number one focus should always be quality of a site, but don't throw stones unless you yourself are close to perfection.
Ok. Now this cleared things little bit, maybe I was just driving too fast conclusions. I agree this forum should be great idea, normally it's quite hard to find and share good promotional tips and tactics with other webmasters. Some things I do, might also be considered spamming or gaming. I think I'm drawing the line into email spamming, using auto-bots and gaming with systems like digg.com . I guess sometimes it's difficult to define what really is gaming and spamming. Hmm... so I was interested how someone gets Xk amount of friends in myspace and now I'm quilty for something? Is asking a crime? Is this clever backdoor for people to slip from my original topic and question? My idea was trying to raise discussion about gaming and spamming, if people are looking for Mr. Perfect to start topic about it, I think they are not going to find it from these forums... I replied to your first post, but I think this is cleared now?
For many members here, hitting the basics and creating great sites that are useful to visitors is old hat. In turn, sometimes they want to promote that quality site in a unique way and try out these things. I don't own any viagra sites, nor do I send emails for stock quotes. Some people here so, I'm sure, but this forum is not about the quick buck. If you don't see a thread concerning some type of marketing, start it! If you don't get a response, PM me and let me know about it because I am always interested in good old fashioned ways to market yoru product (Such as Public Relations etc) No, that was exactly my point...Asking is not a crime! Its encouraged in this forum and if you decide something isn't for you for whatever reason, you go to a discusion that suits your needs
So manipulating the search engines rankings is ok or it is gaming too? I guess line goes there if you add keywords which are only there because they're top100 keywords and not actually related to content of your site. Basically adding metatags is already manipulating search engines, if you want to be really strict. I earlier discussed about this with my friend, he said it makes google results look like shit, my opinion was that it doesn't make sense... because if people come to site due wrong keywords, it's like zero visit and not useful... it's just ghost traffic. Quality of the sites, well... I think website I'm promoting has really good idea and also quite good design and technical concept. Lot of sites/links I've clicked here are not really representing something what I understand with quality. I don't see any idea promoting a site, if it's original idea is already done like-zillion-times-before and it has fairly unattractive design. Or... are some sites only existing as 'drive-thru' places? People come there, click ads and move on? Then having page with 'no actual content', 'no design' would make sense. Well.. this sounds way better. I think I'll share some of my viral-marketing tactics here, hopefully people will use them with good marketing manners and don't abuse them for spamming purposes. I guess it's so easy to involve spamming and gaming to everything, no matter what kind of service you'll find on internet, spammers are there, sooner or later.
In a perfect world digg should be able to have the best stories featured regardless of manipulation and Google should have good results no matter what search engine marketers are doing to get their own/clients' sites up there. Of course some overdo it and then everyone gets blamed
True, I'm not sure how manipulated digg.com already is, I've noticed that some really good articles get only like less than 10 diggs and then there's loads of shit getting hundreds of diggs really quickly and they end to the frontpage. I guess site is already "under manipulation" and there's lot of people digging stories before bothering really reading them and thinking if stories are worth 'digg' or not.
Hmm... well, I think it would be great for webmasters to talk about ethics related to their promotional work... or? I don't think you can skip digg.com gaming just by saying 'life is not fair'...??? Well... why don't we do something about it? It's usually webmasters who are gaming with rating systems like digg.com has. I really hate gaming and spam. It ruined mp3.com, while it was still really cool place for uploading new music and checking other artists, then they introduced new pnp-system (pay for play) and everything changed. People started gaming with their download stats and whole thing went into bizarre 'brownload for download' circus... finally mp3.com was sold to cnet.com and now it's only for major artists. Myspace.com is now maybe same what mp3.com was for indie artists like 7-8 years ago... but myspace is quickly turning into ghost-town (yes, it's now 1. site in US, but what happens in next 6 months?) due spam, gaming, hoax messages and all other negative things what usually popular sites collects. It's like warm shit is attracting flies.
I suggest that you dont use them then. There are much better ways to market sites, move on and find them. From what I have heard, there isn't much of a conversion rate with digg anyway.
Like what for example? I think digg.com could work, if you really can create BUZZ with some ground-breaking story, but posting something fairly lame which gets linked to site which is also on profile, I guess people see it fairly quickly that it's only question about gaming with digg.com
"Lame" is a subjective opinion, as it seems there are many others that didn't agree with you and dug the stories. As for marketing ideas, just stick around and search these and the other great marketing forums and you will find some items that will fit your business needs.
Search this forum for threads about stumbleupon.com (stumble upon.com). People with quality sites are getting good numbers of visitors, without 'spam or gaming'. It's very fun and addictive, I don't even bother with marketing anything or promoting sites at SU yet.