1. What Talk Digger is?
2. Who can use it?
3. How to use it?
4. What is the "RSS" button?
5. What is the "bookmark it!" button?
6. What do I need to make it works?
7. How to implement Talk Digger on my Blog or Website?
8. Code to implement Talk Digger on specific blogging systems


1. What Talk Digger is?

Talk Digger is a meta-search engine. It asks major search engines: "Who links that URL?" The results will then be processed and displayed on Talk Digger. This is a free web service developed by Frederick Giasson.


2. Who can use it?

Talk Digger is basically intended to bloggers that want to know, in a single click, if new people talked about their blog or one of their specific stories.

Is Talk Digger only for blogger? Certainly not; anybody can use it; there are some situations where you could want to use it:

  • You are a blogger and you want to know who link to your blog
  • You are a blogger and you want to know who link to one of your specific stories
  • You are reading an article somewhere on the Internet and you want to know who talk about it and what they have to say
  • You are someone that is interested in comparing the results of different search engines

3. How to use it?

Basically, you have three things to do when you want to search for an URL:

  1. Enter the URL you want to search for into the edit field
  2. Press the "Dig it!" button
  3. Wait until the results appear
Then Talk Digger will ask major search engines: "Who links that URL?" The results will then be processed and displayed on Talk Digger. There are three specific things that will appear when you dig for a link:
  1. Result. This is the number of links to the URL
  2. Trend. This is an arrow that shows you if the number of results for that search is higher, lower, or the same as your previous one. This is really effective when you wake up the morning and that you need to instantly see if someone as talked about your blog during the night
  3. Seven last digs trend graph. This is a graph that shows you the evolution of the results returned by the search engines in the last seven search requests
You will have the choice to make 3 different actions when a result will appears. Each time that a result is received by Talk Digger, these 3 icons will appear bellow the result’s number:

  1. The leftmost one will redirect you to the search engine to see all the returning results. It will redirect you in the current window
  2. The middle one will also redirect you to the search engine to see all the returning results. But that time it will be in a new window
  3. The rightmost one will display a grey box bellow the icons; then you will be able to see the first 3 results returned by the search engine
    1. When you click on it, the icon will be change for a "minus" instead of a "plus". If you click on that new "minus" icon, the grey box will collapse and disappear





4. What is the "RSS" button?

This button will redirect you to the RSS feed generator page. Click here for more information about the RSS feed service


5. What is the "bookmark it!" button?

If you enter an URL into the edit field and click on the "Bookmark it!" button instead of the "Dig it!" one, the "add a bookmark" window of you browser will appear and ask you to add a bookmark. If you add that bookmark, you will be able to instantly do a search with that URL by a simple click on the bookmark. With that feature, you do not need to enter the address of your blog or web site every time you need to do a search on Talk Digger with it: you simply have to click on that bookmark.


6. What do I need to make it works?

You need two things:
  1. JavaScript enabled
  2. Accept cookies from Talk Digger's web site
You need to accept cookies from that site because all the previous search statistics are stored in them. Each time you perform a search with a specific URL, the results will be stored in a cookie for further analysis. It is used to show the trend of your search over time.


7. How to implement Talk Digger on my Blog or Website?

If you are a blogger, or a person that write articles on his website, you could be interested by implementing a text or a button link that would redirect your reader to Talk Digger with the article or post's URL. Then they would instantly know who is talking about your article on the Internet. How can you add such a feature on your blog or website?

You only have to create a link with that URL:

http://www.talkdigger.com/index.php?surl= mydomainname.com/mystory.htm

Then, people using that link, will instantly start a search on Talk Digger with that URL: mydomainname.com/mystory.htm

Note: You will need to encode the URL you want to search for. By exemple, you will need to use fonctions like: escape() in JavaScript, and urlencode() in PHP. That way you will be sure that the entire URL will be processed by the Talk Digger's system. Contact me if you have any problem implementing it on your blog or website.


8. Code to implement Talk Digger on specific blogging systems

8.1 Word Press

<a href="http://www.talkdigger.com/index.php?surl={permalink_link}" title="Check who link to that story via Talk Digger">Dig it!</a>


Go to your administration panel. Go to Manage -> Files. Check if you are able to modify the post file. Then add that HTML line somewhere into that file.

This How-To for Word Press has been written by Frédérick Giasson. You can check the result and what it looks like on his old comments blog.


8.2 Blogger.com (blogspot.com)

<ahref=http://www.talkdigger.com/index.php?surl=< $BlogItemPermalinkURL$>">TalkDigger MetaCosmos</a>


You paste it in to the template with the footer of the post, where the comments link & signature link & stuff are.

This How-To for Blogger.com has been sent by John Jewitt. You can see what it look likes in action on his blog (this is the "MetaCosmos" link at the bottom of each of his posts).


8.3 Roller

<a href="http://www.talkdigger.com/index.php?surl= $absBaseURL$entry.permaLink">Dig It!</a>


You need to edit and implement that code directly into the HTML code (the blog’s template) and not via the wyswig interface.

This How-To for Roller has been sent by Craig Bender. You can see what it look likes in action on his blog (this is the "Dig it!" link at the bottom of each of his posts).


8.4 b2Evolution

You need to add that code into the _main.php file of you skin, near the line 160:

<a href="http://www.talkdigger.com/index.php?surl=<?php urlencode($Item->permalink()); ?>" title="Check who link to that story via Talk Digger">Dig it!</a>


This How-To for b2Evolution has been written by Frédérick Giasson. You can see what it look likes in action on his blog (this is the "transmitting antenna" at the bottom of each of his posts).