The latest analysis from Jakob Nielsen's UseIt focuses on "bounce rates" and getting that elusive "second click". It's pretty much in line with everything experts have been saying on this topic for the last couple of years: unique visitors are a bad way to measure traffic, traffic from loyal users and search engine traffic are the kind of traffic you're aiming for, etc.

Amidst the analysis, Nielsen focuses on Digg, quoting it as a particularly bad example.

"Low-value referrers, such as Digg. People arriving through these sources are notoriously fickle and are probably not in your target audience. You should expect most of them to leave immediately, once they've satisfied their idle curiosity. Consider any value derived from Digg and its like as pure gravy; don't worry if this traffic source has a sky-high bounce rate."

The problem here is that he doesn't understand the value of social media.

Yes, Digg or Reddit or StumbleUpon users will swarm to your page, probably won't click on anything else, they'll probably stay only a couple of seconds, and there's no way in hell you can convert them to buy anything. This is true. Angry website owners have often described such users as lazy bums with a short attention span; I think it's simply because they're smart and they don't want to waste time. When I'm on Digg, I don't want to waste time either; I want to read and see the stuff that really interests me, and move on.

However, it's not true that Digg traffic has no value. First of all, Digg users almost always create a very interesting conversation in Digg comments. The fact that it's not happening on your blog is your problem, buddy. Welcome to the world of fragmented conversations; the same thing happens on Twitter, FriendFeed, and a great number of other social media sites. I'm not sure what the long-term implications of this are, but I sure as hell am not going to fight it; if people would rather discuss my article on FriendFeed, so be it: I'm glad they're discussing it at all.

The thing is, Diggers and Redditers don't see your website as a separate entity. It's a Digg/Reddit link; it's meant to be opened, skimmed, and perhaps read quickly if it's interesting. They do, however, bookmark it by clicking that little vote button, share it with their friends who follow what they like, and comment on it - everything you could ever want from a visitor, really. And, with the upcoming Digg recommendation engine, your article will spread even quicker amongst those who are really interested in it. Yes, I'm sure that every web site owner would want all those comments and links and all that traffic to themselves. Unfortunately, most websites aren't organized as well as Digg and Reddit are, so they'll have to settle with what they can get.

And it's not that bad, really. Digg is indexed by Google well; some visitors will have to click through Digg to get to your site, but I'm guessing that most of them will do it because Digg doesn't steal your content, it merely points to it. Digg itself sends some traffic over time; that initial spike will subside, but hey, people can't be interested in the same thing all the time, anyway. Finally, the biggest value that comes from Digg is the fact that it creates a buzz over your content; it makes your article the Internet's star for a couple of minutes. Use that time well, and even Diggers will recognize that your site is great and will start visiting it on a regular basis.

Therefore, instead of shunning Digg's traffic as useless, analysts should try finding the hidden values it contains, even if it's not happening directly on your website. Underestimating the power of social media - which may not have even reached its full potential yet - is the same as thinking that only unique visitors count.