Proof that Digg rankings can be bought - Wired.com

by Actual News Geezer | March 2, 2007 at 06:47 am

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Like many others, I've been frustraqted with my pathetic attempts to Digg a story or two - like last night, when I attempted to give a boost to a story on NowPublic about the prominent owner of an airlines who was stopped by police Saturday with a car of hookers and an undisclosed amount of cocaine. Even though I was the first to the net with this story, Dugg it well, it went nowhere. This article is a rehash of the experiment by a Wired,com investigator who proved that money can buy you lots of love on Digg.

Despite the many bold claims by Digg execs that the popular tagging site can easily spot attempts to game the system, Wired.com proves that it can be done - and quite easily too.

Four and a half hours later, I was the only person who had dugg my story. That’s when I hired a Digg-gaming service called User/Submitter, or U/S. This enterprise, run by one or more zealously anonymous individuals, advertises that it can help “submitters” get Digg stories noticed by paying “users” to digg them…Ten hours after hiring U/S, I had 40 diggs…When I woke up in the morning, my story had been awarded the “became popular” tag and had 121 diggs. U/S had done what it promised: The company had helped me buy my way into Digg popularity, and my site traffic had gone way up — overnight, I’d been hammered with so many hits that the diggers had to set up a mirror.