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Did Digg game its own system to benefit publisher partners?

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Re: Did Digg game its own system to benefit publisher partners?

#11

Post by nostrademons »

jacquesm wrote: post #10
chapel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it is their site and they can do what they want, but I think the main issue people have is that they pretend that they are open and for their users. It is one thing to do what you do and not be ashamed of it, but to try and pull the wool over your users eyes and make them out to be stupid is just wrong. I don't use Digg, I haven't for years, because it was too heavily gamed and not enjoyable to use anymo…

> Your comment about Google though, they have to keep the trust of the users and the web as a whole. If they were to game their system for their own gain (that is artificially influence results to improve their own standings) and people found out or could prove it, Google would be in trouble. Don't tell me you really believe that all those sites that happen to be google affiliated really have that much standing in th…

Here's your chance to make it better: what are the queries that turn up too many Made-For-Adsense pages, and what results should they be returning instead?

Re: Did Digg game its own system to benefit publisher partners?

#12

Post by btmorex »

jacquesm wrote: post #10
chapel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it is their site and they can do what they want, but I think the main issue people have is that they pretend that they are open and for their users. It is one thing to do what you do and not be ashamed of it, but to try and pull the wool over your users eyes and make them out to be stupid is just wrong. I don't use Digg, I haven't for years, because it was too heavily gamed and not enjoyable to use anymo…

> Your comment about Google though, they have to keep the trust of the users and the web as a whole. If they were to game their system for their own gain (that is artificially influence results to improve their own standings) and people found out or could prove it, Google would be in trouble. Don't tell me you really believe that all those sites that happen to be google affiliated really have that much standing in th…

I'm not Google fan, but I don't believe that they special case "affiliated" sites in search results. That would be an idiotic move on their part. Possibly undermine their cash cow (search) to boost marginal sources of revenue?

Honestly, your claim sounds like most conspiracy theories. It completely falls apart when you assume the participants are even mildly logical and rational.

Re: Did Digg game its own system to benefit publisher partners?

#13

Post by chapel »

jacquesm wrote: post #10
chapel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it is their site and they can do what they want, but I think the main issue people have is that they pretend that they are open and for their users. It is one thing to do what you do and not be ashamed of it, but to try and pull the wool over your users eyes and make them out to be stupid is just wrong. I don't use Digg, I haven't for years, because it was too heavily gamed and not enjoyable to use anymo…

> Your comment about Google though, they have to keep the trust of the users and the web as a whole. If they were to game their system for their own gain (that is artificially influence results to improve their own standings) and people found out or could prove it, Google would be in trouble. Don't tell me you really believe that all those sites that happen to be google affiliated really have that much standing in th…

Being a master at your own system doesn't mean they are artificially influencing it. It is hard to avoid, and I don't doubt that they know more and use it to their advantage, but I don't think they are doing it in a way that impacts their competitors like you think.

Search for 'search engine' or 'engines' and you will find that Google isn't the first, in fact it is 4th and isn't to the main page but to their custom search engine. There are other cases where this exists, but I guess it isn't the best example just a simple one.

Re: Did Digg game its own system to benefit publisher partners?

#14

Post by jacquesm »

btmorex wrote: post #12
jacquesm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your comment about Google though, they have to keep the trust of the users and the web as a whole. If they were to game their system for their own gain (that is artificially influence results to improve their own standings) and people found out or could prove it, Google would be in trouble. Don't tell me you really believe that all those sites that happen to be google affiliated really have that much standing in th…

I'm not Google fan, but I don't believe that they special case "affiliated" sites in search results. That would be an idiotic move on their part. Possibly undermine their cash cow (search) to boost marginal sources of revenue? Honestly, your claim sounds like most conspiracy theories. It completely falls apart when you assume the participants are even mildly logical and rational.

http://www.google.com/search?q=nike+zoom+rotational

Shows a whole pile of results from 'google shopping' for me.

Are those really the top results?

Re: Did Digg game its own system to benefit publisher partners?

#15

Post by nostrademons »

jacquesm wrote: post #14
btmorex wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not Google fan, but I don't believe that they special case "affiliated" sites in search results. That would be an idiotic move on their part. Possibly undermine their cash cow (search) to boost marginal sources of revenue? Honestly, your claim sounds like most conspiracy theories. It completely falls apart when you assume the participants are even mildly logical and rational.

http://www.google.com/search?q=nike+zoom+rotational Shows a whole pile of results from 'google shopping' for me. Are those really the top results?

Here's what's going on there: Google figures, from your query, that your intent is probably shopping. And those are the top 4 results from the shopping corpus. If you click on the "Shopping results for..." link, you can see the full shopping corpus.

I don't really know how the product corpus works, but AFAIK Google is not being paid anything for those results. They're compiled from a bunch of commercial sites across the web. Google gets paid when you click on the ads, which are clearly marked at the top and right hand column.

Re: Did Digg game its own system to benefit publisher partners?

#16

Post by pilif »

Why are people still upset about this? By now it should be clear to everybody that digg shifted to a more publisher based article listing. Either that's fine with you or you go somewhere else. Why all the complaining?

From a technical perspective though I wonder why digg would add all these bot accounts, creating clutter on the site, when they could also easily achieve the same effect by some background tweaking

Re: Did Digg game its own system to benefit publisher partners?

#19

Post by mikeklaas »

It is extraordinarily odd to me that digg would create fake accounts to promote sites. This is a very inefficient (and public) way to tweak an algorithm that they have full control over.

The only way this makes sense is if it was done by someone without access to the algorithm. Either an external voting ring, or someone in the company who isn't supposed to be doing this.

Even that doesn't make much sense.

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