And the List of Domains Ditched by Digg Keeps Growing
Dec 21, 2006 by Chris Winfield | Social Networks
Yesterday, Lee Odden posted about his blog being banned from Digg. A few of his stories were submitted and his domain was basically labeled as spam. The result? A lifetime banning from Digg. Don’t pass Go, don’t collect $200 – go straight to the Digg Jail. This hit home because Lee’s site is an excellent resource and you would be hard-pressed to find someone who would ever view it as spam. It is a site that focuses on SEO and social marketing.
Digg URL bannings have occurred for awhile but it was usually sites that were MFA (Made For AdSense) or some guy submitting every page from his Viagra “resource” site to try and build links. But there have been other sites that have been banned unjustly IMO. Here’s a list of the ones that I came up with:
Lee Odden’s Online Marketing Blog – explained above
John Chow - one of the highest profile bannings that really caught fire
Digital Point - yep, the entire forum is banned
Squidoo - no Lens for you or for anyone else for that matter
Text Link Ads - people were submitting stories with their affiliate IDs in the URL, as a result TLA is banned
SEO News Blog – having the letters SEO in your URL can’t be good. More from Todd on that here
ecademy - a social networking site with over 100,000 users isn’t allowed to submit any stories either
SearchBliss - a webmaster resource site
Connected Internet - this owner never even got the standard response from Digg regarding his ban
Real Estate Webmasters - the owner of the site figured out why they were banned
Rock My Monkey - their ‘Digg of the Day’ inadvertently got them banned
Paul Stamatiou - Paul hasn’t published any info about this but he confirmed his banning to Tamar via email
Paula Mooney – Paula is not sure if it was her Digg button or her cracks about Democrats
Can they come back? The Mu Life points out that Digg partners Revision3 (Diggnation) were at one point banned but somehow overcame this, despite this statement:
When submitted stories are consistently reported as spam and users complain via our feedback email about submission spam, we ban the domain. The domain will not be unbanned.
So, Digg can obviously un-ban a domain especially if they have close ties to them.
Graywolf had a great post this week called How to be a Dirty Digger where he lays out some simple steps to get basically any site you want banned in Digg. The sad thing is that this is basically true at this point. Can you imagine if it was this easy on the search engines?
As Digg continues to grow in popularity this will become an even bigger problem. I was thinking about it and my first thought was ‘They should have a reinclusion process like Google‘. That would be a start and be good for the Real Estate Webmaster guy who knows specifically why he was banned. But what about someone like Lee Odden – who has no clue as to the reason why he was banned? Shouldn’t Digg have policies for reincluding sites? Manual reviews? I know that this would increase support costs and perhaps decrease “Democracy in Action” but isn’t strong user generated content what drives Digg? The stories I Digg are equally split between big sites and blogs (yes – including SEO blogs). If they were to ban all SEO blogs they would be losing a strong part of the community that helped make Digg the site it is today.
The URL list above is by no means complete but just some of the ones that I know about and were able to find info on. If you have others – please feel free to add them.
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62 Responses to “And the List of Domains Ditched by Digg Keeps Growing”
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It looks like “Democracy in Action” has been infiltrated by “Organized Crime In Action” just like the real world.
[...] Update: Chris Winfield has a writeup on what’s happening, with a list of well-known web sites who have been banned by Digg, called And the List of Domains Ditched by Digg Keeps Growing. [...]
Thanks for the comments Chris. I think it’s a good thing to draw attention to it because who’s to say another category of site won’t become the focus of such a “witch hunt”? Soon enough, digg could go the way of DMOZ, which has similar ambiguous editorial and banning practices.
i like digg a lot but this kind stuff worries me when sites make judgements like that. i hope they fix this soon
[...] Apparently not – a list of some of the more high-profile domains banned by Digg is listed at 10e20 – and it includes places such as DigitalPoint and Squidoo, Seth Godin’s entrepreneur site. [...]
Yeah I am the owner of seonewsblog.com and it got banned after only being out less than a week. I am guessing someone really hates SEO.
Those sites all suck anyway. No big deal.
[...] Digg’s “2.0 Spam Fighting” Getting Reputable Domains Banned December 21st, 2006 at 10:00 pm by Tony Well, well, well. It looks like the SEO community started noticing Digg (not necessarily a bad thing), and Digg started noticing back . And in the dustup, it looks like they all learned a harsh lesson that John Chow learned a few months ago : Digg’s definition of Spam is completely relative. [...]
Two top diggers’ sites have been banned as well: chrisek.com and go2web2.blogspot.com.
[...] The irreversible Digg bans. Today, Lee Odden of TopRankBlog, an extremely respectable SEO blog, discovered that Digg had banned his site. Chris and I discussed this this morning and he made a wonderfully researched post on the growing trend of Digg bans. The post on our company blog did make the Digg homepage, but it was there for a few minutes before being buried (see the comments, especially those that were buried — some people didn’t hesitate). [...]
Even shortText.com is banned…and that’s a community driven site. Strange are the ways of Digg
[...] Here’s a list of sites that are being banned by Digg. I guess this happens when links to a particular site is submitted too many times, or a critical number of Digg users complain about the site in question being “spam” or something. [...]
It looks to me some individual members has been banned without notice. My username has been deleted without notice.
I didn’t know how wide spread Digg’s censorship was. I’m pissed at them for banning a very good, albeit controversial, but favorite blog of mine: Roughly Drafted…
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/
Its entries in Digg were being attacked by trollers who were dragging the threads into the gutter. Digg overacted and banned Roughly Drafted instead of the trollers.
Unfortunately, Digg has enslaved bloggers with their easy to use one-click Digg link and some promise of 15 minutes of fame on the net. I think it’s a scam.
I find Digg highjacks blogger’s ideas. The threads on Digg take on a wild-west-anything-goes life of their own and I find it distracts from the blogger’s theses.
I’ve found that threads at the blogger’s site are more civilized and on point. So I prefer discussing things on the blogger’s site.
I don’t dig Digg because they’re self-agrandizing, censoring the wrong people, and ultimately not valuable to the dissemination of ideas. I boycott Digg and think everyone should do the same.
[...] And the List of Domains Ditched by Digg Keeps Growing [...]
Lots to read here: http://digghater.com
And the List of Domains Ditched by Digg Keeps Growing…
A lot of domains have been banned from Digg recently, particularly ones from the SEO community. Many of these sites are quality resources that really shouldn’t be banned. SEOyak.com, of course, specializes in SEO social news….
SEOyak.com is a new SEO focused social news site where people can go for their SEO news instead of Digg.
[...] Here is a list of the domains that digg has banned. Have no fear, 2007 will be a year of where digg is going to find some competition I’m sure. Not saying that digg will die or anything, but there will be alternative’s to digg in the coming year. I guarantee it. [...]
Some Of Digg’s Ban Domain List…
The 10e20 blog complies a list of the sites they know are banned from Digg.com. There has been a recent wave of Digg bans, and reportedly, once your banned, you cannot get back in. Here is a current list of banned sites as per 10e20’s post…….
Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Digg wouldn’t be so popular if it hadn’t been for the seo community’ which by the way, does not equate to spam. Digg wouldn’t know spam if it bit ‘em in the butt. A perfect example is Lee Odden’s blog. Those making the decisions obviously don’t know or haven’t read Lee. If they had, there would be no ban. And that’s also true of many on the banned list above.
[...] The list of domains ditched by digg keeps growing – Chris Winfield [...]
[...] The list of domains ditched by digg keeps growing – Chris Winfield [...]
They also block Freewebs and most tinyurl-like websites.
[...] While admittedly I’ve never been a huge user or submitter to Digg, I think Digg’s predilection of late of banning real blogs and sites from submitting posts is going to cause its demise. Granted they have to protect themselves from true spammers, knocking sites out without any recourse is just bad news. [...]
The Digg Bans Begin…
Taking a serious stand with those abusing its system, Digg (digg.com) has
permanently banned several……
The truth is that the minority must accept the majority’s rule. I love digg, but if the majority keeps being douchebags then maybe it’s time to move on.
It seems Digg does not remember where it is coming from. As many before me stated, it is the common people like us who make Digg what it is today. They even blocked my blog, and it contains nothing against their TOS. I submitted a few of my posts as stories, and I mean they are really helpful. A couple had affiliate links which cannot be totally avoided, but the majority would hel
Digg needs to get a life! I think we should all just quit this Digg madness and see what happens to them. I know they would be sorry.
Personally, I think the ban of my domain (digitalpoint.com) is a good thing. Keeps people from posting idiotic threads just so they can submit it to Digg. I never asked to get it unbanned, and in truth if Digg did unban it on it’s own, I would ask them to reban it.
I think it is hilarious and ironic that Ecademy has been banned. As a site run by people who believe in the “Law of Attraction”, they can be safe in the knowledge that they brought it on themselves.
As they regularly ban members of Ecademy (17 recently – http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/23/ecademy_bannings/) for disagreeing with the management, they deserve it. Now if only Google would see them for what they are.
I got this from Graywolf’s SEO Blog
http://www.wolf-howl.com/grayhat-seo/how-to-be-a-dirty-digger/#comment-29138
It’s a rather interesting case study
Thanks for this post, dude. Getting banned from Digg was almost the best thing to happen to me!
It probably is not a good idea to ban – perhaps certain domain-submission could first be given a manual review – then if spam continues -they could Ban AND warn the owner or submitter
But of course, if a story is a real gem -someone could use a redirt url
[...] Unlike a suspect that is given a fair hearing, Digg’s current policy doesn’t allow you to do so. And clearly, this is something that has got to change. A couple of sites that I enjoy reading has already received the boot, and it is not surprising that others will soon be added to the list if this continues. [...]
[...] As if Matt, Brian, and Lee wasn’t enough here’s the ever growing list of domains that have been banned. [...]
[...] Begginers guide to Digg from Pronet Using digg and Netscape to get traffic How Not To Get Your URL Banned From Digg How to get the most out of digg traffic More ways to make the digg front page Traffic comparison of StumbleUpon, digg and del.icio.us What you need to know about digg and Netscape Why Digg gets Dug Digg unto others as you would have them Digg unto you The hypocrisy of digg and spam Session: Social Media Optimization Session : Link Baiting & Viral Search Success SES Chicago Social Media Optimization Panel And the List of Domains Ditched by Digg Keeps Growing [...]
[...] Popular Domain Names Banned By Digg The list of popular domains banned by Digg grows. Many well read domains are already featured on the list and according to Digg there is no way to get unbanned. [...]
So the question now is…is it possible to bury the digg.com domain from digg.com? It would be an interesting test to see if that would be possible using the same standards that they have applied to Lee’s blog and others. Who’s with me?
We are a UK-based media brand focussing on the online travel industry, banned from Digg.
a post highlighting our own plight:
http://travolution.blogspot.com/2006/12/we-are-diggered.html
The frustration for us is that we have been talking up Digg as one of the facets of Web 2.0, and in turn Travel 2.0, for months, but when our URLs were banned they refused to answer press enquiries about the general issue, as well as webmaster-related ones about our own particular problem.
[...] And the List of Domains Ditched by Digg Keeps Growing More Digg drama. It’s funny watching this site become an out-of-control digital recreation of every high school around the country. (tags: digg drama web web2.0 web20) [...]
I am the owner of real estate webmasters and after doing some “Digging” heh, and writing some emails back and forth with Digg, I have managed to get my URL unbanned from DIGG
Oh yeah, there is a thread about us being unbanned from Digg here: http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread12199.html
Pimp my links: Kineda…
The second site we are going to feature in the Pimp My Links series is Kineda. Kineda is a blog that focuses on entertainment, lifestyle, and pop culture and has been around for over 8 years now. …
Don’t forget KoolAidGuy: http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=90
LOL, I wonder who he was? =P
I just purchased boycottdigg.com and boycottdigg.org
Don’t be afraid to speak out.
Join us in the fight.
Join us in out discussion @ http://www.ny-dev.com/forums/f97/digg-good-bad-downright-ridiculous-1354/
, send me an e-mail @ webmaster@ny-dev.com or PM me @:
AIM: useri4823
Yahoo: sinjix_media
MSN: infitech@infitechdesign.com
We’re looking for experienced web developers interested in helping us develop the site.
Don’t let this injustice happen without a fight.
Quote from our discussion:
“When Danny attempted to contact Digg regarding this issue, as we are still a small site trying to expand, and one of the avenues we’ve selected in order to achieve this is through partnerships with sites like digg to get our content out there – he received the following (I presume automated) response from digg:
Quote:
When submitted stories are consistently reported as spam and users complain via our feedback email about submission spam, we ban the domain. The domain will not be unbanned. The domain would consistently get reported as spam otherwise.
-The Digg Watch Team.”
How To: Get on Digg If Your Domain Is Banned…
Back in December, there was considerable noise in the blogosphere surrounding the growing list of domains banned by Digg. As you all probably know by now my domain is on that list and has been for something like a year now. Digg’s efforts to hind…
Love and Hate with Digg and Blogs…
As the author of a relatively new Blog (4 months in), of course I was happy to find out about Digg. I was even more happy once I learned how to integrated Digg into my WordPress 2.1 website (Blog), and see my traffic start increasing as readership gr…
My super dooper blog Swollen Pickles has just received the Digg ban! Down with the fascists!
I’d like someone to tell me what I did to deserve it though!
Here’s another one: BloggerParty.com.
It tried to dig someone’s entry late last year. The same message came up. After some research I realized, they were no longer allowing any diggs from that URL.
BANNED.
Oh well, I’m curious to see where this is all going to lead. I find it amusing to find out that a 12 year old is one of the most active DIGG’ers. A twelve year old? His father monitors his activity from his employment.
That’s probably why the comebacks consist of “Your blog sucks”.
Digg.com is getting cocky and banning small web sites just because digg’s users submit them to digg and digg’s moderators don’t like it. Scifidigg.com is the latest victim of Digg’s “We are big, you are small and we can do whatever we want†attitude.
First some background.
After running the website Scifi2u.com for the last year we realised there was a demand for a scifi digg type website – 6 Days ago ScifiDigg.com was born and is powered by open source Pligg and the YouTube API.
So what went wrong?
The site went live on the 22 March 2007. People submitted stories and video links to digg and other sites del.icio.us, Yahoo, Simply and Reddit. Having a submit button makes submitting very easy and fast but that could be a problem.
Let’s get to the point
WITHIN 6 DAYS THE SITE HAS BEEN BANNED FROM DIGG
Digg’s moderators decided that since the link pointed to my site and the posts are mainly videos from YouTube ScifiDigg should be banned from digg and no other links from scifidigg.com can be posted to digg.
Digg’s response
I contacted digg to find out what happened and why they blocked my site. The response I got from them was that my site violated their terms of use, by copying another site. I explained to them that although the video is streamed by YouTube we give the facility for original coments to be added.
The response I got was that they do not allow sites that copy other sites to be submitted to digg. I told them that according to their rules they should also ban Yahoo news, since it does not have an original content but republish articles from PCWorld, Reuters, MACWorld and others. Also falls under this category other major sites like neowin.net, blink.nu and many more that are doing exactly the same infact they should ban YouTube because the video content is often copied from other video websites. But hey, they are big sites and digg can’t pick on them without repercussion, like they can pick on small blogs that try to establish themselves.
So what have we learned?
· Digg’s users don’t really determine what gets promoted, but digg’s moderators do.
· Digg have a different set of rules for small site and different rules for big sites, even though both are doing the same.
· Digg will ban a small site just because one of its user’s submitted an article that other digg members liked and promoted, but moderator didn’t like the link.
· Digg will not listen to reason when told that the site did not violate its TOS.
And the List of Domains Ditched by Digg Keeps Growing » 10e20 – Search, Design & Social…
A story on how Digg is blacklisting more and more legitimate URLs….
hey my blog was also banned in digg for no reason …
god damn them..
This one makes sence “One’s first step in wisdom is to kuesstion everything – and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.”
we have been banned have not any reason,digg alway banned the small website.
Join us to fight ,
they have same reply format,
———————————–
When submitted stories are consistently reported as spam and users complain via our feedback email about submission spam, we ban the domain. The domain will not be unbanned. The domain would consistently get reported as spam otherwise.
-The Digg Watch Team.â€
I just tried to list my new site, which is also a blog (for writers) in Digg. I had never visited Digg before, but of course I hear about it all the time on blogs and podcasts. I thought it was one of the worse sites ever. They don’t have enough topics, and it’s not very blog-friendly over there. I see it crashing and burning against Technorati.
[...] More, more, more, more, and hopefully we make this list – more. [...]
It’s time to ditch digg. Their website is all about picking up all kind of garbage.
[...] and made a bunch of junk lenses a year ago, links to Squidoo pages are banned from places like Digg, Propeller and Wikipedia. Even promoting Squidoo lenses on your blog is risky, at least if [...]
[IM-420] Remove Digg icon and functionality from the Beat …
So now that Digg is functioning again, I tried a test Beat submission, and — as per before — discovered that…
This URL has been widely reported by users as being regularly used to spam Digg’s submission process and cannot be submitted at this ti…
And the List of Domains Ditched by Digg Keeps Growing
equate to spam. Digg wouldn't know spam if it bit 'em in the butt. A perfect example is Lee Odden's blog. Those making the decisions obviously don't know or haven't read Lee. If they had, there would be no ban. And that's also true of many on the banned list above.
I had no idea you could get banned from digg. I just looked at John Chows site, and he says it is easy for people to bury your digg submissions and get someone banned