One of the most popular sites on the web, Digg is the holy grail of geeks worldwide. Its unique ability that allows the users themselves to decide what is posted on the front page has proven popular beyond belief, and changed the way we view the web today. Every day, hundreds of stories submitted by users make it to the front page, but just what makes these stories so popular?

We took 15 frontpage Digg stories and found some statistics about them such as average word count, average Alexa rating, average number of diggs, and more! Because Diggers voted stories with these properties to the front page, keeping your submissions in line with the stats below might help your submissions get more attention, assuming they’re newsworthy in the first place.

 

Average Number of Diggs: 387.47 diggs

Average Number of Story Comments (at Digg): 49.33

Average Number of Diggs per Comment Posted: 7.854

Average Number of Blogs per Digg Story: 1.73

Digg Story Title Word Counts

Average: 6 words

Highest: 12 words

Lowest: 3 words

Story Description Word Counts

Average: 30.67 words

Highest: 60 words

Lowest: 15 words

Story Word Counts:

Average: 333.5 words

Highest: 915 words

Lowest: 82 words

Alexa Traffic Rankings of Stories’ Websites

Average: 15,954.85

Best: 12

Worst: 62,312

Most Popular Categories: Technology (27% of stories surveyed), Apple (27% of stories surveyed)

Most Common Domain Name Extension of Stories’ Websites: .com

Conclusion

Based on the results above, it’s clear Diggers seem to like things that are mildly short and to the point. You shouldn’t use very long, complex titles and keep story descriptions concise. The vast majority of websites surveyed had a .com domain name, making it a good choice if you’re thinking about developing a new site.