Busting the Algorithms at StumbleUpon, Reddit, Del.icio.us and Hacker News
By Leslie Poston
Have you always wondered how the places where you submit stories in hopes of getting a little love and attention for them worked? Giants like Google and Digg are ultra secretive with their infamous algorithms, but other social news and social sharing sites are a bit more open.
SEOMoz wrote a great post cracking the algorithms of four of the heaviest hitters. To be honest, seeing the algorithms in their mathematical formats makes my head hurt. I’m not sure about anyone else who reads Blorge, but I’m just not a math junkie. There are so many other, shinier things to play with on the internet, after all. That said, if you are interested in the actual mathematical formulas, you can find them in detail here.
If you are like me and you just want to know how in the heck some people get so much more pull than others, here are a few brief explanations. StumbleUpon is probably the most esoteric of the algorithms. the first person to stumble a story determines the short term trajectory of the story. The larger their audience and the amount of times they have stumbled that domain both carry weight for the story posted. After the initial stumble, further stumbles are weighted on audience size and stumble variables as well.
Y Combinator’s Hacker News is one that many overlooked until Mike Arrington of Tech Crunch fame revealed it to be one of his go to sources for news. Since they got his benediction, the site has truly taken off in terms of readership and use. The formula for this site involves votes, user points and time submitted. Del.icio.us wins for simplicity - the amount times a link has been bookmarked in the last 3600 seconds. That’s it. Very simple - you have to love that.
Reddit system is complex. Early votes are weighted heavier than later votes. All votes and submission are based on a time variable that is constant (possibly the time the site first launched - no one is sure where the arbitrary number came from). The time seems to last about 12 hours for any given post, though future votes do count, just no nearly as much as the first several.
In the end, there is no special way to “game” the system, really, when it comes to getting the word out about your article or blog. Make a few contacts on each network and groom them to be friendly to you. Be genuine. Offer content of value. That way you might get fed a story earlier enough to get a scoop, and in the meantime you might make friends with a Top Stumbler or other top person who can help you turn your great content into something you can sell.
Related:
Stumble It!
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