Top 10 ways to prepare for the Digg Effect
Making it to Digg/Popular is the dream of many. Traffic spikes, thousands of visitors, and poor planning can cause catastrophic failure if you don’t plan carefully. Here are 10 tips to make sure failure isn’t an option.
Making it to Digg/Popular is the dream of many. Traffic spikes, thousands of visitors, and poor planning can cause catastrophic failure if you don’t plan carefully. Here are 10 tips to make sure failure isn’t an option.
Disclaimer: This is what I’ve heard. I’ve never been Dugg.
Infrastructure
1. Have responsive servers
A responsive web server is crucial to serving visitors. Lethargic websites repel visitors, and ultimately you lose the Digg. If a request hasn’t been cached, it needs to be generated quickly, and the only way to do that is with a powerful server. My web host, hostrocket.com, guarantees that my web server has 4.4 ghz of processor and at least 2 gigabytes of RAM. That should do it. If you can, Gzip content.
2. Have bandwidth
A responsive web server is nothing if your “tubes” are plugged or are small. If your host is capping your bandwidth, you’re screwed. If you have lots of media, you’re definitely screwed. My host claims redundant OC-3/OC-12 lines.
3. Cache, cache, cache!
WordPress users especially! Database driven websites will grind to a halt when they make Digg/Popular. If you cache your site, your database servers won’t take a significant hit. Most content management systems include or have caching systems available. Drupal has caching built in. WordPress users should get the wp-cache plugin and LEAVE IT ON.
4. Mirroring
If you have a video, and you’re pretentious enough to host it yourself, do the world a favor and upload it to a video sharing site, like YouTube or break.com, and then link to it from your page. They have bandwidth to supply streaming video to thousands… you don’t.
It also doesn’t hurt to visit your site on caching systems like Coral before you make Digg/Popular. Simply add .nyud.net after your domain. My website, for example, would be http://www.bradkovach.com.nyud.net on the Coral network.
Design
5. Reveal your feeds
If you have an RSS enabled site, show it off! Use the ubiquitous feed icon… Make sure your HTML declares that you have an RSS feed to light up feed finders in all modern browsers.
Put this between the <head> </head> on all pages.
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="[website
title here]" href="[link to RSS feed here]" />
6. Make your site easy to navigate
All the basics should be on your site. Make sure clicking the logo takes you to your home page. If there are dropdowns, make sure the user knows before he or she mouses-over. Add chronological context so that by “going left” users know that they are visiting older context and “going right” is newer content (or vice-versa).
Search is a must. If your CMS doesn’t do this, use Google SiteSearch. It’s free.
Make sure your website works in all major browsers. At least cover the big four: IE6, IE7, Firefox, and Safari.
7. Make Digg buttons available
If your users are coming from Digg, make it easy for them to support your content. Use Digg Tools to make sure your content has a Digg button that works.
Writing
8. Be cheeky
Digg users appreciate sarcasm. If you have opinions, let it show. Make sure diggers know that you are addressing THEM. Diggers also have tendencies that they go crazy over. Ron Paul and Apple gossip are categories that make people salivate/soak undies. The video game phenom Portal is another excellent topic.
9. Use lists
Lists obey the f-shaped pattern and help your visitors get through your content quickly. Diggers are busy people. Make sure you help them speed through the internet. Don’t consume their time. Unless you have games.
10. Think it out
A well constructed article will be organized. A little pre-writing goes a long way. I have this list scratched out in a Moleskine cahier that never leaves my desk. It isn’t much, but it helped me organized the flow of my article. Diggers are know-it-alls. They appreciate good grammar and a spell-checked document. Proofread and find mistakes.
About Brad
Brad Kovach is an award-winning web developer from Afton, Wyoming. In his spare time, he enjoys drumming on Rock Band, and playing with this website.
Help your IE users (discover Firefox)
As a web developer, there are several methods that I have devised to show the Internet how I browse. Using a variety of CSS and HTML tricks, I can publicize Firefox.
Although we know that Firefox has some issues, a large portion of the internet is starting to use Firefox. As a web developer, there are several methods that I have devised to show the Internet how I browse. Using a variety of CSS and HTML tricks, I can publicize Firefox. Since my website was designed with primarily Firefox in mind, my users would benefit from switching. I’m no dummy… I’ve made my website work in the Big Four: IE6, IE7, Firefox and Safari. Through this article you should be able to learn some techniques of making IE cooperate a little more.
Firefox is gaining, but it still isn’t catching IE.
Easy: reveal something in the page.
We could use some of the advanced facets of conditional comments but we are only interested in appealing to one group of IE users: all of them. This conditional comment should do the trick…
<!--[if IE]>HTML<![endif]-->
The “HTML” is where we’ll put the IE specific content.
To show your IE users a Firefox banner, you could use…
<!--[if IE]><div id="getfirefox" style="text-align:
center"><a href="http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=0&t=216"><img
border="0" alt="Firefox 2" title="Firefox 2" src="http://sfx-images.mozilla.org/affiliates/Buttons/ firefox2/468x60FF2_Orange.png" /></a></div><![endif]-->
Simple as that. Anything inside the conditional comment will be shown to your IE users!
Easy: Reveal something with server-side scripting
Using a variety of server-side languages, you can determine whether a user is using IE or not. I prefer PHP, since I’m a WordPress junkie.
<?php
if (eregi("MSIE",getenv("HTTP_USER_AGENT")) ||
eregi("Internet Explorer",getenv("HTTP_USER_AGENT"))) {
#insert IE specific code here.
}
?>
Method 3: CSS
You can easily assign classes to elements that will make a Firefox link look extra Firefoxy. This particular example will push over a link to make room for a little Firefox icon.
.firefox {
padding-left: 20px;
background: URL(firefox.png) no-repeat !important;
}
Now, in my web pages, I can assign this to anything I’d like, including links that would let you download Firefox. To make this link, I simply added the Firefox class to the link…
<a href="http://www.spreadfirefox.com" class="firefox">links that would let you download Firefox.</a>
Other uses for conditional comments
Aside from using conditional comments to evangelize Firefox, I’ve also used them to keep my valid CSS code hack-free. In some of my websites, such as ones I did for Lincoln County School District #2, it wasn’t appropriate to force an opinion on users. However, It is very appropriate to warn the users that they are using an old version of their browser.
In the case of IE7 being the latest and greatest breed if Internet Explorer, the following code will tell users that an upgrade is available for them. If you want the background as well, you’ll have to change the URL(ielogo.jpg) part to match a background image that you like.
<!--[if !IE 7]></p>
<div id="ieupgrade" style="background: URL(ielogo.jpg)
no-repeat; padding: 10px 15px 10px 200px; text-align: right;">
<h2>Uh-oh!</h2>
<p>Although we’ve taken every possible step to ensure our site
works well with your computer, your browser is out of date!</p>
<h3><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx"
target="_blank">update now »</a></h3>
</div>
<p><![endif]-->
Conclusions
Although good web developers shouldn’t be narrow-minded and develop for one browser, evangelism of a safer Internet is certainly worthwhile. Any action to help your users make a security-conscious decision is a good action. Do it.
Citations
- How to block MS Internet Explorer from your site… [http://www.devin.com/ieblock_howto.shtml]
- About Conditional Comments [http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537512.aspx]
About Brad
Brad Kovach is an award-winning web developer from Afton, Wyoming. In his spare time, he enjoys drumming on Rock Band, and playing with this website.
© Brad Kovach and Friends 2004-2010 | Powered by Wordpress | Log in
Brad Kovach and friends is a website made by friends for the world's enjoyment. We like computers, art, having fun, and sharing! We try to keep things G-rated, but we're all adults–so take that for what it's worth. This page took 24 queries and 0.569 seconds of computer labor to produce.