My Traffic Experiment with Stumbled Upon and Digg

After reading an outstanding article about a Digg vs. Stumbled Upon experiment from Social News Watch, I had to try it myself and see what kind of results I would get. It is not my intention to steal any thunder from this article, but after trying it I wanted to share my results with you. I highly recommend reading Social News Watch.

Overview

• Eazy Cheezy was established on September 24, 2008
• Prior to my experiment, traffic = 62 visitors, 80 visits & 190 page views per day.
• I had logins for both Stumbled Upon and Digg, but wasn’t active in their communities.
• Experiment start date = October 12, 2008.
• Google Analytics used for statistics.

Actions I Took

1. Added large group of friends to build Digg network & have a total of 274 Digg
“Friends.”
2. Found myself stuck in the “Digg Mine and I’ll Digg Yours” system
3. Shouted out stuff I wanted Diggs for.


1. Completed my profile & uploaded a picture.
2. Searched & added a few friends with similiar interests.
3. Joined a few of the Groups I had interest in.
4. Reviewed friends profiles & stumbled the pages of theirs I liked.
5. Stumbled several other pages, only giving thumbs up & reviews for those I liked.
6. Stumbled a few articles to share with the community.
7. I rarely send articles to anyone’s inbox in Stumbled Upon.

Results

Day 1 – Oct 12, 2008
Traffic increased from 80 visits to 465
Overall – 433 visitors, 465 visits, 801 page views

• Stumbled Upon- 352 visits(75%)
• Digg – 48 visits (10%)
• Direct – 37 visits (8%)

Day 2 – Oct 13, 2008
Traffic jumps from 465 visits to 18,904
Overall – 20,322 visitors, 21,166 visits, 32,002 page views

• Stumbled – 18,904 visits (89%)
• Direct – 2,100 visits (10%)
• Digg – 27 visits (.13%)

Day 3 – Oct 14, 2008
Traffic stays consistent from previous day & Delicious comes out of nowhere
Overall - 17,660 visitors, 18,529 visits, 29,098 page views

• Stumbled – 15,992 visits (86%)
• Direct – 2,231 visits (12%)
• Delicious – 100 visits (.31%)
• Digg – 12 visits (.06%)

Day 4 – Oct 15, 2008
Traffic significantly drops from 18,529 to 4,883
Overall – 4,649 visitors, 4,883 visits, 8,085 page views

• Stumbled – 3,985 visits (82%)
• Direct – 735 visits (15%)
• Delicious – 41 visits (.084%)
• Digg – 1 visit (.01%)

Note: The statistics from day 4 are not 100% complete. Site was redesigned and I forgot to put the Analytics tracking coding within the new template. This is approximately 8 hours of data.

Day 5 – Oct 16, 2008
Traffic increases from 4,883 visits to 7,262
Overall – 6,697 visitors, 7,262 visits, 12,274 page views

• Stumbled – 5,609 visits (77%)
• Direct – 1,213 visits (17%)
• Delicious – 117 (2%)
• Digg – 7 (.11%)

Day 6 – Oct 17, 2008
Traffic drops from 7,262 visits to 2,878
Overall – 2,613 visitors, 2,878 visits, 5,304 page views

• Stumbled – 1,916 visits (67%)
• Direct – 643 visits (22%)
• Delicious – 38 (1%)
• Digg – 5 (.2%)

Day 7 (Oct 18, 2008)
Traffic stays consistent with previous day
Overall – 2,601 visitors, 2,804 visits, 5,254 page views

• Stumbled – 2,034 visits (73%)
• Direct – 578 visits (21%)
• Delicious – 29 visits (1%)
• Digg – 4 visits (0%)

Day 8 – Oct 19, 2008
Traffic stays consistent with previous 2 days
Overall – 2,293 visitors, 2,528 visits, 4,919 page views

• Stumbled – 1,689 visits (67%)
• Direct – 590 visits (23%)
• Delicious – 27 visits (1%)
• Digg – 4 visits (0%)

Day 9 – Oct 20, 2008
Traffic drops from 2,528 visits to 1,939
Overall - 1,765 visitors, 1,939 visits, 3,449 page views

• Stumbled – 1,269 visits (65%)
• Direct – 473 visits (24%)
• Delicious – 19 visits (1%)
• Digg – 1 visit (0%)

Overall Results

77% of all traffic from Referring Sites (129,000 visits) 72% of that traffic is from Stumbled Upon (120,000 visits)
21% from Direct Traffic (35,000 visits)
3% from Search Engines (4,200 visits)

88% of traffic goes to my 5-part series, 50 Free Sites to Watch Movies & TV Online
85% of visitors are new visits

My Thoughts
I went from 62 visitors a day, to about 2,500 (as of day 9). The majority of traffic now comes by way of Stumbled Upon, but Direct traffic has significantly multiplied.

Stumbled worked very well for me, providing more than 72% of overall traffic. I really enjoy the Stumbled Upon community and like the system. I had zero spam messages& only gave thumbs up & reviews for pages I liked.

Digg generated less than 1% of my traffic & less than Delicious & another referring site, bildergic.org. Digg is very popular & I’m a big fan of the site, but it takes more effort & is more dependent upon who you are, than what you submit. Overall, I had more Diggs than visits at probably a 2-1 ratio. I also had my “shouts” (notifications) turned on and received 50 or so shouts each day via e-mail notification for people wanting their stories Dugg. I eventually turned this feature off. I Dugg other stories to get a Digg for mine, which doesn’t always work so well. I know Digg can be very effective and is a great site, but perhaps I need a different approach or more involvement.

This experiment has turned me into a huge Stumbled Upon fan. I enjoy the site and the system that is in place. I’m left realizing that the content & a little luck is important in Stumbled Upon. My top traffic source is over 88% of my overall traffic.

Since my site is still very new, I believe search engine traffic will eventually begin to increase as the various search engines I submitted my URL to should begin to add my site. It’s increased to 3% recently, but I have a way to go.