Social bookmarking sites have been a game-changer in the online world, presenting an innovative way to manage, share, and discover web content. Whether you’re a digital marketer, a blogger, or simply an Internet enthusiast, these sites offer countless benefits.
For SEO, they can be a goldmine. By sharing your website on these platforms, you generate backlinks, which search engines like Google love. This, in turn, improves your website’s SEO ranking. But that’s not all – social bookmarking sites can also drive a significant amount of traffic to your website. When you share engaging content, other users may just be intrigued enough to visit your site, thereby increasing your website traffic. So, if you haven’t explored social bookmarking sites yet, now’s the time!
Social bookmarking sites have evolved into a pivotal digital strategy. Remember the buzz around platforms like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Delicious? The scenario has seen a dramatic shift. Let’s walk down memory lane, reminisce, and uncover the mystery behind their current status.
What is Social Bookmarking?
Social bookmarking is when users save and organize web pages for future reference. You can tag websites with keywords or phrases to make them easy to find on the bookmarking platform. We use social bookmarking to easily save and find online resources. Users can save web pages for easy access, without needing to remember long URLs or search again. Furthermore, social bookmarking allows users to find and share content with like-minded people.
This promotes collaboration and facilitates knowledge sharing within online communities. Users on social bookmarking sites can rate and comment on content to find reliable sources. You can use these platforms to organize content. You can make your own collections of bookmarks. This helps users reflect their expertise and interests. Social bookmarking is important today. It helps us store, organize, and share online resources.
What are Social Bookmarking Sites?
Imagine a virtual place where you can store, classify, share, and search links through practice-based groundings. That’s what a social bookmarking site is in a nutshell! These sites allow users to bookmark their favorite web pages, which they can later access from any device, anywhere. You might think of them as a more public, interactive version of your browser’s bookmark feature.
Benefits of Using Social Bookmarking Sites
- Boosts Website Traffic: One of the major benefits is the surge in website traffic. Sharing content on these platforms exposes it to a wider audience, bringing in new visitors to your website.
- Enhances Online Visibility: Being active on social bookmarking sites increases your online presence. It can make you or your brand more noticeable, building a digital reputation.
- Improves SEO Ranking: Search engines like Google take into account the number of backlinks to a website when determining its ranking. Sharing your website on these platforms can generate backlinks and improve your SEO.
- Facilitates Content Discovery: Lastly, these platforms are fantastic for discovering new content. They’re a treasure trove of information, with users constantly adding new, interesting links.
The 2010 Era: The Reign of Digg, StumbleUpon, and Delicious
Cast your mind back to 2010. Social bookmarking platforms like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Delicious were everyone’s talk of the town. They were a dream come true for website owners as the traffic and engagement they brought were overwhelming. Digg’s top stories could snag as much as 3,000 diggs!
However, Digg’s misfortune began with the introduction of a new version. The platform nosedived as loyal users abandoned ship, claiming the site had lost its essence. What was once a stronghold of engagement became a ghost town.
And what about Delicious, the pioneer of social bookmarking sites? Loved by a huge user base, the platform was deemed incredibly useful. However, in a shocking turn of events, Yahoo!, the company that bought Delicious in 2005, announced the platform’s potential shutdown or sale. That was a heartbreaking moment for many.
StumbleUpon had a similar fate. Once a significant traffic source for numerous websites, its importance dwindled over time. Webmasters started noticing a distinct drop in traffic from the platform, hinting at a downward spiral.
Enter the new kids on the block – Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit. With their rising popularity, the social bookmarking landscape underwent a drastic transformation. Instagram’s visually engaging platform, LinkedIn’s professional networking charm, TikTok’s short and snappy video content, and Reddit’s dynamic community-based discussions all diverted users’ attention from traditional bookmarking sites.
The Present Scenario: Who’s Wearing the Crown in 2024?
Fast forward to the current digital era. Platforms like Reddit, Mix, and Scoop.it are dominating the social bookmarking realm. Reddit, aptly named “the front page of the internet,” provides a unique platform where users can share links and start discussions on countless topics.
Scoop.it is another platform winning hearts, particularly among professionals. It allows users to curate and share content to their own private ‘topic’ pages, contributing to information sharing and thought leadership.
Bookmarking Site |
Pros |
Cons |
|---|---|---|
Highly active community, potential for high visibility. |
Strict rules, potential for backlash if content isn’t well-received. |
|
Digg |
No longer a bookmarking site. It’s more of a content blog now that covers tech/science content. |
Less active user base than some other platforms. |
StumbleUpon |
No longer a bookmarking site. Instead it was rebranded as Mix. Used to be good for content discovery, chance for high traffic with well-received content. |
Limited control over content visibility. |
Great for visual content, drives traffic to site. |
Limited to visual content, not as effective for text-heavy content. |
|
Good for saving long-form articles, high quality backlinks. |
Lesser social interaction as it’s more of a save-for-later service. |
Role of Social Bookmarking in Today’s SEO and Digital Marketing
In the realm of SEO, social bookmarking is an invaluable tool for enhancing visibility, driving traffic, and improving rankings. It’s no longer about just posting links; it’s about engaging with the community and offering high-quality, meaningful content. Social bookmarking can help build backlinks, contribute to brand awareness, and even aid in reputation management.
However, just like every other digital marketing strategy, the ‘how’ matters. Here are a few best practices:
- Create and share compelling content that adds value.
- Engage with the community by participating in discussions.
- Build relationships with other users and influencers in your niche.
- Don’t spam. Respect the rules of each platform and post responsibly.
The Future of Social Bookmarking
While the rapid changes in technology, user behavior, and online marketing trends make it challenging to predict with certainty, we can confidently say that social bookmarking is here to stay. The adoption of AI and machine learning in content creation, coupled with the trend of personalized content, will likely influence the future of social bookmarking.
The introduction of AI-based algorithms and predictive analytics in social media platforms
allows them to better understand user behavior and preferences. This, in turn, can improve the user experience by delivering content that matches their preferences.
But with the power of AI comes responsibility. Users will demand transparency in how their data is used and will expect better control over their information. This could bring about new user-focused features in social bookmarking platforms, further enhancing the user experience.
In conclusion, social bookmarking is a tool that has evolved and adapted to the changing digital landscape. It continues to play a vital role in digital marketing and SEO strategies. The future holds exciting possibilities, with the potential for new technologies to influence its trajectory. As we move forward, social bookmarking is expected to become even more user-centric and personalized, making it an exciting space to watch.
Here’s a comparison table highlighting the differences that lead to the rise and fall of the various social bookmarking platforms.
Site |
Main Features |
Benefits |
Downsides |
|---|---|---|---|
Digg (2010) |
User-curated news and stories |
High user engagement, could drive significant traffic |
The introduction of a new version led to user dissatisfaction and decreased activity |
StumbleUpon (2010) |
Content discovery and rating system |
Drove significant traffic to websites, diverse content |
Decrease in user activity over time, less traffic driven to sites |
Delicious (2010) |
User-curated and categorized web bookmarks |
Useful for organizing and discovering web content, high user engagement |
Uncertain future after announcement of potential shutdown or sale |
Instagram |
Photo and video sharing, stories, and live streaming |
High user engagement, good for brand exposure and influencer marketing |
Primarily visual, not traditionally considered a bookmarking site |
LinkedIn |
Professional networking, job postings, and content sharing |
Good for B2B marketing and professional networking |
Less suitable for non-business related content |
TikTok |
Short-form video creation and sharing |
High user engagement, good for reaching younger demographics |
Limited to video content, demographic may not fit all businesses |
Reddit |
User-curated content and discussions in dedicated communities (“subreddits”) |
Great for niche marketing, community engagement, and backlinks |
Strict rules, negative feedback can be public and damaging |
Mix |
Content discovery and sharing across various interests |
Helps discover, save and recommend web content |
Smaller user base compared to other platforms |
Scoop.it |
Content curation and sharing on private ‘topic’ pages |
Supports thought leadership and information sharing, good for B2B marketing |
Premium features require paid plan |
Tumblr |
Microblogging and multimedia sharing platform |
Encourages creativity, has a unique and engaged community, supports multiple post types |
Content visibility can be impacted by platform’s algorithm |
This table provides a high-level overview of the mentioned platforms. As the digital landscape is ever-evolving, the specifics and impact of each platform may change over time. It’s always important to keep abreast of these changes to optimize your social bookmarking strategy.
Social Bookmarking Sites Love Blogs, After All
If you wander around Digg and other social bookmarking sites, you will notice a slight discrimination against blogs (or so it appears at first glance). Many blogging-related stories get buried automatically. The ones that make it to the front page often receive harsh comments along the “who cares about blogs anyway” fashion.
Those episodes made me curious, so I decided to dig a little deeper. The question that I wanted to answer was: how popular are blogs within social bookmarking sites? More specifically: what percentage of “popular” stories are coming from blogs? The results were surprising.
The Methodology
First of all I selected three social bookmarking sites to include on the research: Digg, Delicious and Stumble Upon. The next step was to actually define what would be considered a blog, and what would not.
In order to be considered a blog, the website needed to meet 2 out of the 3 criteria that follow:
- It runs on blogging-specific software
- It has a comment section
- Its content is structured chronologically
Obviously there were some gray areas. Some mainstream publications, for instance, are starting to adopt comments on their websites. They also structure the content chronologically, meaning that they could be considered blogs. But they were not.
That said, blogs of mainstream publications were considered as such. While anything coming from www.wired.com, was not considered, stories coming from blogs.wired.com were considered to be blogs.
The actual research consisted of monitoring the top stories (front page stories from Digg, popular stories from Delicious and “stumbled” pages from StumbleUpon) for 10 days. All the URLs of the counted stories were saved.
The number of stories counted each day is variable for the first two social bookmarking sites (since you can not control it) and fixed for StumbleUpon (since you can control how many pages you “stumble” daily). Below you will find the results.
Digg
Surprisingly enough (at least for me) Digg revealed itself to be the most blog-friendly social bookmarking site among the three. Throughout the 10 days, over 54% of the front page stories came from blogs.
This could be explained by the large number of popular blogs (e.g., Gizmodo, Engadget, Lifehacker and TechCrunch) that have a readership very active on Digg.
Alternatively, since Digg is the site that generates more traffic for featured stories, one could argue that bloggers “aim” for Digg when creating and promoting their content.
| Day | Total Stories | Blogs | Non-Blogs | % of Blogs | % of Non-Blogs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 44 | 17 | 27 | 38,6% | 61,4% |
| 2 | 47 | 21 | 26 | 44,7% | 55,3% |
| 3 | 52 | 32 | 20 | 61,5% | 38,5% |
| 4 | 54 | 36 | 18 | 66,7% | 33,3% |
| 5 | 45 | 21 | 24 | 46,7% | 53,3% |
| 6 | 43 | 28 | 15 | 65,1% | 34,9% |
| 7 | 44 | 24 | 20 | 54,5% | 45,5% |
| 8 | 43 | 26 | 17 | 60,5% | 39,5% |
| 9 | 48 | 23 | 25 | 47,9% | 52,1% |
| 10 | 42 | 22 | 20 | 52,4% | 47,6% |
| Average | 46,2 | 25 | 21,2 | 54,1% | 45,9% |
Delicious
Delicious was the most balanced site. Consider that 3 days out of 10 presented more stories coming from blogs. On average, 45,7% of the stories that appeared on the “Popular” page of the social bookmarking site were coming from blogs.
Again, even if this number is not as big as the Digg one, we can say that blogs represent a corner-stone for Delicious users.
| Day | Total Stories | Blogs | Non-Blogs | % of Blogs | % of Non-Blogs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 40 | 15 | 25 | 37,5% | 62,5% |
| 2 | 34 | 16 | 18 | 47,1% | 52,9% |
| 3 | 35 | 15 | 20 | 42,9% | 57,1% |
| 4 | 39 | 25 | 14 | 64,1% | 35,9% |
| 5 | 32 | 17 | 15 | 53,1% | 46,9% |
| 6 | 43 | 14 | 29 | 32,6% | 67,4% |
| 7 | 31 | 14 | 17 | 45,2% | 54,8% |
| 8 | 31 | 12 | 19 | 38,7% | 61,3% |
| 9 | 29 | 18 | 11 | 38,9% | 61,1% |
| 10 | 36 | 14 | 22 | 38,9% | 61,1% |
| Average | 35 | 16 | 19 | 45,7% | 54,3% |
StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon had unexpected number as well, but in the opposite direction as those of Digg. There was no single day where the number of “stumbled” pages coming from blogs surpassed the the number non-blog ones.
On average, 32,7% of the served pages were coming from blogs. Maybe the results are biased due to the fact that they are coming from my personal stumble activity, and not from the Stumble Buzz page. I am working on the latter and will update the results shortly.
| Day | Total Stories | Blogs | Non-Blogs | % of Blogs | % of Non-Blogs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 30 | 10 | 20 | 33,3% | 66,7% |
| 2 | 30 | 9 | 21 | 30,0% | 70,0% |
| 3 | 30 | 11 | 19 | 36,7% | 63,3% |
| 4 | 30 | 6 | 24 | 20,0% | 60,0% |
| 5 | 30 | 8 | 22 | 26,7% | 74,3% |
| 6 | 30 | 8 | 22 | 26,7% | 74,3% |
| 7 | 30 | 12 | 18 | 40,0% | 60,0% |
| 8 | 30 | 11 | 19 | 36,7% | 63,3% |
| 9 | 30 | 13 | 17 | 43,3% | 56,7% |
| 10 | 30 | 10 | 20 | 33,3% | 66,7% |
| Average | 30 | 9,8 | 20,2 | 32,7% | 67,3% |
Bear in mind that these results might deviate from the actual popularity of blogs within the mentioned social bookmarking sites (even because said popularity changes over the time). I am already working on extending the period of the research to 30 days in order to confirm the results.
On average, 54,1% of Digg‘s front page stories were coming from blogs, 45,7% of Delicious popular stories were coming from blogs and 32,7% of StumbleUpon stumbled pages were blogs.
Regardless of the peculiar characteristics of each social bookmarking site, the numbers were higher than what I was expecting. There are 15 million active blogs in the world, which is a fraction of the active “traditional” websites.
Perhaps there is a widespread misconception regarding the popularity of blogs. In this case, it seems that the facts trump opinions; blogs are more popular and credible than people think.
Top Social Networks – Many Marketers are Considering them the New Social Bookmarking Sites of 2024)
Platform |
Traffic |
SEO Benefits |
|---|---|---|
2.8 billion monthly active users |
Massive user base, potential for high traffic, content visibility |
|
Over 2 billion logged-in monthly users |
Second-largest search engine, high-quality traffic, video optimization |
|
2 billion monthly active users |
Direct communication, personalized engagement, targeted traffic |
|
Over 1.3 billion monthly active users |
Direct messaging, customer support, engaged traffic |
|
Over 1 billion monthly active users |
Visual marketing, engagement, shoppable posts |
|
Over 1.2 billion monthly active users |
Engagement, broad range of services, traffic targeting Chinese market |
|
Over 1 billion monthly active users |
Viral video content, creative campaigns, potential for high traffic |
|
Over 800 million monthly active users |
Traffic targeting Chinese market, social networking, messaging |
|
Over 517 million active users |
Content sharing, customization, traffic targeting Chinese market |
|
Over 500 million registered users |
Microblogging, content sharing, traffic targeting Chinese market |
|
430 million monthly active users |
Diverse communities, content sharing, potential for viral traffic |
|
Over 293 million daily active users |
Ephemeral content, engaging with younger demographics |
|
Over 459 million monthly active users |
Visual discovery, traffic for creative and visual content |
|
330 million monthly active users |
Real-time updates, engagement, content amplification |
|
740 million registered users |
Professional networking, B2B opportunities, industry visibility |
|
Over 500 million monthly active users |
Secure messaging, engagement, traffic for specific communities |
|
Over 187 million monthly active users |
Messaging, content sharing, traffic targeting Asian markets |
|
Over 260 million monthly active users |
Messaging, voice calls, content sharing |
|
Over 475 million registered users |
Microblogging, creative expression, community engagement |
|
Over 60 million monthly readers |
Content publishing, SEO benefits, opportunity for wider readership |
Top “Traditional” Social Bookmarking Sites in 2024
These social bookmarking sites allow users to save, organize and share bookmarks (or links) different resources online that they would want to revisit in the future.
DiggNo longer a social bookmarking site.- StumbleUpon/Mix StumbleUpon was shut down as a social bookmarking service, and the URL now redirects to Mix.com
- Scoop.it
- Slashdot
- Diigo
- We Heart It
- Folkd
- BizSugar
- MetaFilter
Newsvine- Pearltrees
- Fark
- Instapaper
- Feedly
- BibSonomy
CiteULikeMySiteVote- HubPages
Kirtsy- LinkaGoGo
- LinkedIn Pulse
- Blinklist
DropJack- DotNetKicks
- LinkArena
Newsle- BoingBoing
Current- ClipClip
- DesignFloat
- WireFan
43 Things- 1 Look 4
- Blog Bookmark
- Blurpalicious
- Bookmark4You
- Bookmarking Base
- Bookmax
- Cloudytags
- Coolpot
- Dailyhostnews
- Dealigg
- Dzone
- Easybm
- Gab
- Goldenmidas
- Gpone
- Hotklix
Indofeed- iOrbix
Kippt- Lynkos
- Milocalbuilder
- Murl
- Myhq
- MyLife
- Netvouz
- Ngopost
- Openfaves
- PiPiNews
- Plurk
- Postolia
- Pusha
- Sitebar
- Sitejot
- Skyrock
- Socialadr
- Sociall
- SocioPost
Startaid- Techdirt
Tracky- URL.ORGanizer
- Votetags
- Wirefan
- YouMob
- ZicZac
- Zypid
- BookmarkMaps
AixinDashi- BookmarkingHost.info
- BookmarkTalk.info
- SocialBookmarkNow.info
SocioPost.com- ActiveBookmarks.com
- Onlinewebmarks.com
- GreatestStory.info
- BookmarkDiary.com
- BookmarkURL.com
- BookmarkFollow.com
One thing people don’t always understand about social sites is that you get back what you put into them. If you use them for self promotion other people are less likely to be interested in what you post. I use Twitter to post the odd update, maybe a couple of times a month. The rest of the time I talk to people, answer the odd question floating around or ask one of my own. Conversation works better at getting real attention and interest than self promotion alone.
I use Tumblr and Stumble Upon as bookmarking sites. I don’t think of Facebook or Twitter as bookmarking sites at all. I really like Twitter but I don’t use other sites and services to access it, I just keep it simple. Facebook, I will probably dump that sometime in 2011 when I get fed up enough. It’s just getting to be a giant get rich quick scheme, not social at all. I can’t even find friend feeds for some of my relatives any more, they keep moving them around. The only thing I can find are applications that are more like blood suckers than games at all.
Social bookmarking sites aren’t dying. They have just become a victim to overkill. As soon as any idea starts to do well on the Internet all the marketing get rick quick types have to copy it. When they flood the Internet with too many sites they start to die off. There will be a survivor, eventually. It will be the one that sticks around and changes with the tide.
I will stick with Twitter, StumbleUpon and Tumblr unless they change for the worse in a big way. I try new sites as they come along but I prefer sites that have passed the test of time and proven they can adapt and keep growing in good ways.
First off, Daniel, I think these type of posts are the best. For me, they explain trends that the medium is going through. After reading blogs on blogging for over two years now, I get tired of reading the same advice (headlines! Pictures! Sub-headers!) over and over. Stuff like this, news like this, is so much better. It’s why i check Daily Blog tips of Problogger now, if I’m short of time.
My take on social networks: yeah, they are dying. When I started blogging, I focused on twitter and facebook, and I’ve never regretted it. I thought I might, but they have only gone down in importance. Digg especially has had a bunch of issues.
For gathering links to post on my blog, (which I do almost every week,) I used delicious until yahoo decided they might like to shut it down. I now use something different, but I still use social bookmarking and probably will as long as I keep doing weekly links. Not only do I use it to save the links, I use it to find stuff to link to.
facebook is taking because this one have vast user base from school students to business people.
But in twittwer you wont see such kind of people variations.
But however i do feel that twitter is best for business and if you have celebrity or fun site than go after facebook.
I get decent traffic from StumbleUpon, but low return from Twitter given how many times articles, posts, etc are Tweeted. IMHO Twitter is also losing ground, with Facebook taking over.
It might have something to do with the dregs of humanity posting all kinds of vile opinions and/or insults anonymously in the comment sections of these bookmarking sites.
That anonymity has become an excuse for treating total strangers like crap just because they don’t happen to share your opinion.
I’ll take Facebook and Twitter where I know my “friends and followers” and can have a civil discussion even when we don’t see eye to eye.
I use Facebook,twitter, Stumbleupon,Digg and Delicious.But i got many traffic from twitter and Stumbleupon.
I don’t know how to respond to this post. Because it’ really alarming 🙁 Once upon a time biggies like Digg and Stumble upon now no more attractive to users. At the same I am happy that I am getting awesome response from facebook 🙂
I feel that because Twitter and Facebook have jumped into the mainstream so strongly, that people are putting their eggs in those two baskets, without realizing that the other sites do add value for different reasons.
I personally have a feeling – why do we need so many Social bookmarking websites? is it for:
1. Link juice : No – there are better ways
2. Exposure – Yes but mind you there are almost the same people active on almost all the top SN websites.
3. Unique Marketing – Exactly
The third point is what i feel is important. The most unique way of viral marketing is Twitter and i feel we should stick on to Twitter for long. And Facebook due to the max exposure it gives. Then i would say Technorati authority is important if you are a blogger.
all others are just another source of traffic without juice. You think now!!
warm regards
Josh
you forget to mention about propeller.
But serious net users are still using it and enjoying the benefit of it.
But yes twitter and facebook are largely responsible for this.
I never did learn to use Delicious or Stumbleupon to its greatest potential. I just bookmarked sites but never really used it to find things. I like Twitter because it is quick and easy. I also like that my posts can automatically link to Facebook and Twitter.
Surprised that Reddit isn’t there. Anyway, it’s probably good news to not have loads of sites that effectively do the same thing. Competition is good, saturation is not so good. There are fewer sites to sign into (whether you’re a writer or a sharer) and fewer places for people to post comments on the same story. I always prefer to see comments on the blog post itself and only votes/referrals from bookmarking sites.
Very rarely people use social networking or bookmarking sites to share useful links, except its a funny video or something like that.
Bookmarking sites are not heavily used nowadays, since your browser can do the most of the basic stuff.
In my opinion, social networking and book marking sites are dying for bloggers. We do not get traffic like earlier or how we expect.
Thanks for your thoughts Daniel.
I am still getting some traffic from Stumble Upon but most of my traffic is from facebook and other related websites in my niches. I probably get around 1 hit a month total from other social bookmarking sites so I would have to agree that these sites are dying down.
The question is what is going to replace them??
Simon
It’s just evolution in action, the best rise to the top. It makes things simple for everyone. Now we only have to bother with Facebook and Twitter, the rest are literally a waste of time.
I was actually thinking about this the other day when I got an order for my social bookmarking service. Propeller has been shut down and Yahoo might shut down Delicious, too. Some of the sites in Social Marker’s list are not working at all. It does seem that these sites are dying…
I never liked social bookmark sites. I do love Facebook though. For sharing my blog I use Facebook and Twitter on a regular basis. Especially Facebook is giving me good traffic. A sporadic Diggit gives me some traffic but I don’t think many of them will become regular readers. I’d rather focus on getting regular readers.
I noticed that you only have Twitter and Facebook sharing buttons on your blog posts, Daniel.
Did you ever have a “Share This” button or something similar?
In addition to my “Tweet” and “Facebook” buttons, I also have a button with multiple sharing sites on it, but the only one that really gets used is “Share via Email.”
Interesting article, Thanks!
I never used those “Share” buttons exactly because 90% of the options they had for sharing were never used by anyone.
but however you will see them all around the globe.
I think common people and visitors who do not understand this use them too often.
I think it all depends on your target niche. Digg has been “going down” according to many people, but I have seen an increase amount of traffic from Digg (this may be due to less people competing for the spotlight, but regardless I am getting more traffic to my client’s websites than ever before, and not just a small boost – a good heap of traffic!)
Reddit is similar, some of my clients get more traffic from Reddit than Facebook or Twitter, again it really comes down to your target audience.
Facebook seems to be the main site that sends referrals my way. I haven’t seen a stumble in a really long time.
Delicious is dead. I’ve switched over to Diigo but I doubt it will be effective at sending traffic. I just use it to keep all my bookmarks that I want to refer back to.
didn’t know much but they are great. but for me they are working fine and offering great traffic.
new look of digg sometimes irritates, hope things will change in 2011
I never used bookmarting sites and didn’t understand why they are better than browser bookmarking. Though I don’t bookmark much either.
I found that it is a lot easier to get your content read in Facebook and Twitter than some of these social bookmarking sites.
Now, the beauty of using social bookmarking site it allows you to create social backlinks.
yes people started to use it as to get backlinks.
There are still many websites which is providing do follow links.
I have found that SU doesn’t work like it once did.
Now, under its new algorithim, even a few stumbles won’t send an article out.
It used to be, that a single discovery on SU would send an article out to hundreds of people.
That said, if you look at sites like ‘the oatmeal’ they’re still getting massive hits from SU. I would guess that with a humor site such as that, enough people give thumbs up to make it so that SU actually sends it out to its users.
I have no idea why SU changed its system, seemingly for the worst!
Yeah I also noticed some sites still get good traffic from SU, but very few of them as you mentioned.
The average joe used to be able to play in SU too, but not anymore apparently.
Yes, I think all the social bookmarking sites are dying, and only Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and some other social networking sites will survive in the future, since the internet is nearly same as the real world where people make friends and do business one to one, face to face.
Agree with that and say that LinkedIn is really underreated re lead generation and brand development.
@ivanwalsh
I do think Social Media sites like Twitter/Facebook are going to be primary sources for information while social bookmarking sites decrease, they are just too static and impersonal in most cases. I still see lots of life in StumbleUpon however and some new ones rising for niche blog categories that help smaller blogs who still measure visitors in a few thousand visits per month instead of tens of thousands.
Social bookmarking sites have a certain period and like craze when everyones on them, general public, business, celebrities, but after a while they get bored, or something new comes up, thats the main reason why the social bookmakring site are slowly dyeing, but on the other hand, bookmarking sites are also introducing new features and trends every other month, which is keeping users locked in.
I think that it true that people really can’t be in all those places at one time, so I suggest that you post some solid tips of how to gain trafic from Twitter and Facebook, I put all my posts on Twitter and Facebook but I have very poor trafic from them!
I never used these sites to bookmark something for later, I’ve used them to simply share links with my contact list. And nowadays, mostly all people you want to share links to are on Facebook and Twitter. These two websites are way more social and that’s why people are using them.
I’m actually happy with it, traffic from Twitter and Facebook is great for me.
Reddit is awesome website for sharing stuff, very active, not sure how much it’s useful for bloggers though…
Good point.
another website which is coming under limelight is blogengage or similar to that.
Quite good one if you are blogger.
“Despite that users are moving on to new and different things.” What are the new and different things they are moving on to?
I think it is pretty obvious what is going on. The sites like Digg allow me to rank a site for the world (strangers) to see. Twitter and FB allow me to share a site directly with people I know and want to influence. Telling friends a story beats telling strangers a story nearly every time.
I think because Facebook and Twitter are better than all other.
Digg,Stumble is also good but i dont use :D.