Digg Reacts to Critics: Changes the Way the DiggBar Works
While we liked Digg's new DiggBar for its features, its release also created quite an uproar in the SEO community. Now, Digg has announced that it will change the way the DiggBar works, which should pacify a lot of Digg's critics. Among other things, the DiggBar will now only appear when users are logged in to Digg, so that content providers will continue to receive full credit from search engines, without Digg's iframe getting in the way. Digg will roll these changes out over the next week or so.
These changes to the DiggBar's behavior, according to Digg, will also ensure that Digg's short URLs won't be indexed by any of the major search engines. Just last week, Digg's John Quinn told us that the company wasn't planning to use regular permanent redirects, but clearly, the protests over the last few days made Digg change its mind.
For more details about the 'Diggate' controversy, have a look at our earlier coverage of the DiggBar's implications with regards to SEO and copyright.
Lots of Activity on the DiggBar
Digg also announced that an astonishing 45% of all the activity on Digg is now happening on the DiggBar, and 25% of all DiggBar users are using the toolbar to discover new content by looking at related stories. According to John Quinn, only a very small number of Digg users have disabled the toolbar.
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This seems like a good solution to me. Curious as to why they didn't do this to start off. 45% is astonishing.
Great that they stop the IFRAMEing. Hope the other iframers will follow:
http://rogerkar.blogspot.com/2009/04/framing-gone-wild.html
That would make sense because when the diggbar launched, it was enabled by default... And non-registered users didnt have a choice when they clicked a link on digg.
Though people are hating it just because its an iframe and use the digg servers but i like the idea as ultimately it drag more traffic to the site and energize the digg tendency of the users.
What say?
Shame on ReadWriteWeb for reporting this news without knocking DiggBar or Digg.
The fact that Digg has changed their tune so quickly is proof in itself that what they did was wrong. Nothing about Diggbar is okay.
Report it that DiggBar is a pathetic attempt to inflate their stats. They no longer have the user's best interest in mind. Why can't someone report it as such?
You know what? I should be writing for tech blogs because they all seem too scared to portray a tech "company" for what it truly is.
I've disabled the toolbar. Its not like its a walk in the park to find where in your settings you can disable it.
I dumped it early on - little too big brother like for my tastes.
Nothing has changed:
1. It's still framing other websites
2. It's stealing content, traffic, and potential revenue from those websites
3. It creates incentive for others to follow, create their own framebars and cluttering the Web.
4. It's unethical and illegal
If you're not breaking the DiggBar, you're part of the problem.
http://tomuse.com/break-digg-diggbar-publishers-responsible-spambar
digg toolbar is help for me
I'm disabling this stupidity. Diggbar and related crap functionality like this deserves the fate popups received. Get out of my browser when I click from your site.
Diggbar and related crap functionality like this deserves the fate popups received. Get out of my browser when I click from your site.
I'm leaving this nonsense. DiggBar and functions related to garbage like this deserves the fate of pop-ups will receive. From my browser when I click on your site.
DiggBar make it easier for the operator Digg.
Diggbar and related crap functionality like this deserves the fate popups received.