Since its launch in 2004, Digg has been the leading news link ranking site, revolutionizing social news. In fact, Digg just crossed the million mark. In addition to the size of user registration, there are other evidence of its influence: clones and Digg gaming schemes. We have witnessed vote buying, rigging, charges of thug rule, and profile sales. All of these just prove Digg's widespread influence and ubiquity.

So how can you optimize Digg for social bookmarking? First of all, you need to have Mozilla Firefox (with Stylish and Greasemonkey script support) installed. And then you can start optimizing Digg with the following Digg-mods and add-ons:

Digg Smart Buttons. After installing Digg Smart Buttons, a tiny button will appear in your browser, found at the bottom right hand corner. The button will instruct you to "Digg This" in case the web page you're presently viewing hasn't been submitted to Digg yet. Just click on the button to submit the web page to Digg. However, if the page you're currently viewing is already submitted to Digg, the small button will show the existing number of Diggs. Just click on the button to Digg the web page.

Digg Washer. If you're sick and tired of seeing those Digg articles regarding the Creation Museum, almost ancient iPhone news, and very lame home videos, among others then you need to install the Digg Washer. This add-on is basically a filter for Digg. "Hidewords" allow you to filter out things you don't want to see, leaving only the things you're interested in.

Custom Tabs. You can now also add custom topics to the header right beside the general topics (Games, Technology, etc.). Simply install the Custom Tabs Greasemonkey script to your Mozilla Firefox browser. After this, you need to go to Digg and just click on Customize. You have to scroll down if you're to edit your custom tabs. How can you add a tab? Do a Digg search and click on "Save Search."

Comment Box Sidebar. Usually, in replying to comments on Digg, the comment box emerges at the lowermost part of the web page. If this is somewhat inconvenient for you, you need to install the Commend Box Sidebar. In this script, the comment box is displayed on the side of the web page, saving you valuable seconds scrolling down.

Digg Mirror Buttons. In this Greasemonkey script, small buttons are added beside every Digg story, allowing you to view a story via a Digg mirror. The advantage of this is that it allows you to see the web page even in case of server crash as a result of too many users attempting to access the page at once.

Simplified Digg, Automatically Reload Digg Pages, and Digg Thumbs are other add-ons that will surely help in optimizing Digg.