I was thinking about ways to increase the popularity of my hubs and HubPages in general, then began to think along the lines of social bookmarking services. If a whole lot of HubPages users were to band together on Digg, and Digg each other's hubs in an effort to gain popularity, would this be allowed? If so, I think we should make a HubPages community on Digg! This would bring massive pageviews, and therefore heightened earnings as well as boosting HubPages popularity.

Sibaire wrote:

If a whole lot of HubPages users were to band together on Digg, and Digg each other's hubs in an effort to gain popularity, would this be allowed?

That sort of behavior is what gets a site banned from a service like that.  That's not how it's supposed to be used.

Of course you are right but if you genuinely like the hubs there is nothing wrong with it. I have participated in arrangements like that on Stumble Upon and have seen huge traffic increases. The problem is that when it grows larger you are generally obliged to stumble or digg everyone's sites and then you wind up doing it for ones you don't like and if they get banned for spam or whatever you can look suspect too.

I did it on Stumble Upon until I had like 30 friends and then I could naturally send articles to my friends based on their interests and they usually stumbled them because I sent them things they were interested in. I think it is a small semantic difference but a difference nonetheless. I think your thumbs up hold more weight in their algorithms that way too.

A better strategy might be just to ask people on Hub Pages what their digg names are and add each other as friends. Send them stories or shout outs when you genuinely think they will be interested knowing that once in a while they will not be interested. "Gaming" the social networks only works in the short term or if you can literally outsource and pay someone to manage them for you. Big bloggers do that.

Anyway, good luck.

relache wrote:

Sibaire wrote:

If a whole lot of HubPages users were to band together on Digg, and Digg each other's hubs in an effort to gain popularity, would this be allowed?

That sort of behavior is what gets a site banned from a service like that.  That's not how it's supposed to be used.

That's why I asked whether or not it was feasible. But thanks for the reply anyway. \

France, I'm just going to do what you said, add people from HP ask them to digg stuff I think they might like.

I don't know what Digg.com think of hubpages but if you are able to write something really new, and I mean bleeding edge new, before engadget and gizmodo etd. then maybe you'll get yourself a scoop.

Then again remember the digg effect, chances are the sudden increase in traffic would make HP hit the skids

But yes, mass uploading to digg wouldn't be a good thing, speaking as someone who uses digg alot, I know they'll not appreciate spamming techniques like that and would likely get HP written out of their algorithm/banned.

What if there were a Group specifically for Hubbers?  I see plenty of groups created there on "Social networking", "gaming", etc where people list sites within the group- that wouldn't exactly be considered spam and if the group banded together and befriended each other, that's got to give you and your site some kind of added weight.

Even if we aren't digging each other's hubs, we would be adding some extra internal link backs which is never a bad thing.

I think what we're talking about here is some form of social networking in HubPages.  I'm all for getting the word out for HP as I have found a lot of useful (and sometimes useless) information I wouldn't see on a typical site.

Maybe in the future HP will add a better rating system more like Digg.com

As for links I know that people have been told off in the past and if we all start doing dodgy links then chances are Google, Yahoo and MSN will start ignoring Hubs in search results.  I have heard about this and would hate for HubPages to be frowned upon.

Anyone on Digg coincidentally?