"Hence the introduction of this DiggBar business. When a link makes its way to the top of Digg, it gets republished quite a bit. Now that all these links will land a user at Digg.com, Digg that collects the unique users from this collateral linkage. And it's working, too. In a recent interview, VP John Quinn of Digg said that the DiggBar has given them a 20% boost in unique visitors. This move shows that not only is Digg willing to pull some sleazy shit to increase their unique visitors, but that they also need to pull this sleazy shit, because they need more unique visitors."
I'm glad that someone in the technosphere, someone with a rep and a bit of street cred, came out and said the sleazy word. I think the DiggBar overlay, as currently implemented, is slick and really cheesy: sleesy. You have to give the site(s) you're referring to the credit.
You're still going to get traffic, Digg, but do you have to suck the life, and search engine juice, out of the very Web sites you so depend on in order to even exist. OTOH, this is just emblematic of how distorted the Web has become due to influence of search engines, and these crowd-sourced news sites that get gamed constantly. We're now arriving at Hell, in that handbasket.