Premium Social Bookmarking

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   Twenty One Daysposted 12 years ago

   Not to stir up a hornets nest, but a friend of mine caught wind of rumor that SB's (Social Bookmark) platforms like delicious, reddit and digg --maybe StumbleUpon as well (?)-- are considering a switch to a premium back linking service. I believe he said it is a noble attempt to rid their system of junk --which amounts to literally multi-millions of links, in exchange for higher notice and better targeted traffic.
   
   I am aware companies like Bookmarking Diva offer a premium service at a meager $0.20 cents a link, where as Ping.fm is free across something like 50 different SB hosts. To me $0.20 cents for a potential $1000 per article is a smart investment...
   
   Would fellow Hubbers consider using a premium ($) service to boost their traffic flow here on HP?
   
   
   
   James.

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      WryLiltposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      About bloody time they got rid of the junk.
      
      Doesn't bother me though - I don't use social bookmarking as the traffic is low quality and doesn't get me money or backlinks.

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   SunSevenposted 12 years ago

   Mr Wong is already doing that.

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   Medical Alarmsposted 12 years ago

   This is an absolutely brilliant question but unfortunately has way too many answers. But it is such a good topic I'm responding for the first in all my years on hubpages.
   
   Although I'm not very popular on hubpages itself, I have enjoyed massive success in the search engines and made thousand of dollars in earning through my hubs.  The recent Panda update has reduced my earnings but that is topic for another time.
   
   With regards to social bookmarking the answer is that it depends. It depends on what you are social bookmarking and why.  Are you trying to get a page indexed? Are you trying to get link juice or are you trying to get traffic?
   
   In many cases getting a lot of traffic from a social bookmarking site like stumble upon can hurt your rankings and rightfully so. As a professional SEO specialist I get to figure out some pretty cool stuff.  One thing I learned a few years back is to remember why you are trying to rank a page.  You want to prove to Google that you are relevant to a subject and authoritative in the matter.  Getting massive traffic from a site or going viral can in some case bury you.  The traffic from social bookmarking sites is very untargeted and you can receive visitors that look unnatural.  So in the case of using stumble as a premium service I would say no.
   
   But if you have developed a list of social bookmarking places that will get your page indexed in google in just a few moments after publishing I would say yes.  But there is probably no need because the good ones don't last long as their members spam them and paying for them can be easily spotted by google should they go looking.
   
   A paid bookmarking service where people do it for you is never a good idea.  They rarely know what they are doing and use the same sites over and over until they are nothing more than puddles of spam which draw attention to the fact that your sites are part of the mess.
   
   The only answer is to roll up your sleeves and get dirty.  There is no alternative to doing the work and giving the control of your site's reputation to someone who does not care about your business as much as you do.  Look what happened when Hubpages had a panic due to the idle threats from Google's Panda Update.  They threw everyone overboard and actually started to sink their own ship. I do not blame them one bit because they were scared but the update was a clear warning shot over the bow of Yahoo because they bought Associated Content which used to rank highly in google.  So google made sure the millions yahoo spent went to waste.  Hubpages was just collateral damage and will make a wonderful comeback if everyone keeps there head.
   
   I would like to point out with regard to social bookmarking services. I often purchase services for test pages so I can receive reports of the so called work these freelancers do and keep my eye on what people in my industry are doing.  It is an expense I feel I must endure in order to keep myself from falling into traps.  I can tell you with authority that the work is done by scraping program and has little or no value other than to show you what not to do.
   
   My rankings are solid but again I hate to inform you that producing good web pages that rank is a lot of hard work.  I also would like to point out that across my Hub accounts google has rewarded my hubs with high rankings (before panda) and high PR such as 3,4 and 5 so I use my hubs for good quality linking instead of revenue for now.
   
   I hope this helps you in some small way and I was very impressed in your question. 
   
   Best,
   Medical Alarms

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      WryLiltposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Well said. Wish more people would realize the harm social bookmarking can do if used indiscriminately.

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