OPEN

The Telegraph’s Ian Douglas muses on the temptation of writing Diggbait after experiencing some gratifying web traffic from Digg, the community news site.

Diggbait is a bit of jargon that describes someone who writes a post that is tailor made fro the Digg community’s tastes, is likely to gain votes and attention on the Digg site and then deliver a rush of visitors to the Diggbait page.

The term is already being used in comments on Digg by users who "aren’t going to fall for it", which would indicate that obvious abusers of this appraoch will be ignored.

There’s a fine line between Diggbait and being genuinely useful I would imagine. But those who are perceived to be abusers may find their reputations in Digg communities and wider damaged by the practice.

Eventually codes of ethics and behaviour will begin to emerge about this sort of thing.

It’s a debate that people looking to optimise their content for social networks will need to pay close attention to. Search engines and communities alike don’t like being gamed and they will find their own ways around it.

: : The concept also reminds me of the practice of SEO-influenced copywriting in that New York Times article "This Boring Headline Was Written for Google". Individuals and organisations are beginning to piece together strategies for competing in a networked online world where aggregators, memetrackers and search engines deliver big rewards for those who get themselves noticed. 

Tags: SEO, distribution, social_networks, digg, news, media