Alright, so not exactly.  However, we can make some educated guesses about what Digg takes into consideration when deciding what stories get big buzz, and which ones are merely going to tread water until they fade off into obscurity.

Stumbleupon, Reddit, and others have been semi-transparent with their algorithms, while Digg is still a pretty big mystery.  The social media experts over at SEOmoz.org recently had a lot of success while exposing the algorithms of some major social sites, but Digg?  Still a mystery.

If you look at how social sites work, it’s always going to rely on a few deciding factors.

1. Votes
2. Submission Time
3. Votes from friends
4. Different story, same people voting
5. Authority

Those are taken into consideration at every social site.  These algorithms are getting more and more difficult to exploit, which leads to a more level playing field.  And lately, some pissed off Diggers.  Recently a story received over 1,600 Digg’s, and NEVER MADE IT TO THE FRONT PAGE!  This led to outcries from Diggers, and an overal admission (from everyone but Digg), that the algorithm may just be broken.

Look for changes to take place shortly, but for now, we can only use an estimated guess to assume that the following factors are what Digg looks for.

• Submission Time
• Submission Category
• Submitter’s Digg authority
• Submitter’s website wide activity
• Sumbitter’s friends and fans
• Subsequent digger’s authority
• Subsequent digger’s friends and fans
• Subsequent digger’s geo location
• Subsequent digger’s HTTP referer

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