How to Ensure Your Digg Story Gets a Thumbnail

by Patrick Altoft on December 4, 2007 / 6 responses

Digg launched a new images section yesterday with some interesting new features for all areas of the site, not just the images section. As well as a clever duplicate image detector every story in any section is allowed a thumbnail.

When a user submits a story to Digg the page is analysed to find compatible images and Digg then allows the submitter choose a thumbnail to go with the post.

You can see how eyecatching the thumbnails are by looking at the screenshot below:

As you can see a submission in the upcoming queue with a thumbnmail has a huge advantage over a submission without a thumbnail.

How to make sure you get a thumbnail

The Digg thumbnail algorithm seems to follow a similar pattern to the Google News thumbnail system. Here are some simple rules to follow:

• Make sure the image is a jpg. I have yet to see any other formats being supported however this may change
• Images will be resized to around 160 pixels wide x 120-160 high
• Use stunning images otherwise the submitter might not bother with a thumbnail

Unless you have an image that can be resized to between 160×120 and 160×160 Digg will not offer the submitter a thumbnail to go with the post unless the submission is an images submission rather than in the news category.

If you have a number of images on your page and want to force submitters to choose a good one you could make some of them a non-compatible aspect ratio but the best tactic is to make sure that every post has at least one compatible image and let your readers do the rest.

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Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.