why gaming stumbleupon/ delicio/ Digg won't help your site...

Hi,

Just read this great article on why gaming stumbleupon isn't going to help your site any...

http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=1436

The main thing is: if your content is spam, it won't get ANY links, even if it gets many visitors. And those visitors are very ad-blind anyhow, so you don't get direct cash either. all you get is potential server-problems.

 

I have used stumbleupon for a variety of sites and get a lot of impressions but very few clicks/purchases. THey must be fast surfers.

Debbie

 

They are. If you look at the average visit time for stumbleupon visitors it is usually no more than 10 seconds. Like the article says, something like 10% of visitors explore the site further and that is for Digg users; Stumbleupon number are even smaller in my experience. However, I find that the more people that see your site (assuming that you have good content) the more likely it is to generate returns visits and word-of-mouth buzz. I do agree that submitting spam content to any of these services only lowers their value.

 

They are fast surfers. The benefit for legitimate sites is mind-share (in other words: marketing), people bookmarking your site, and people thumbing up other pages on your site (happens to my site frequently). All of this is marketing. Increased mind-share means a higher likelihood of 'natural' links to your site. Another thing noticed on these forums is the benefit of getting associated with the right keywords. One example was a humor site without that word in its pages (for whatever reason). It got found in google more often after getting stumbled.
But since the links DO NOT count towards PR or google-trust, a site with no google trust won't benefit from this at all.

None of the above mentioned benefits work for spammy sites at all. Which is why gaming the system is not going to work (as opposed to just submitting your best pages, which does work).

 

Well, social sites result in backlinks. Even then if you do not receive any visitors, you are not earning either.

So you have nothing to lost I guess.

 

Well yes, you loose time better spent on creating great content. Look around these forums for people trying to game stumbleupon (they call it 'get stumbleupon visitors', but it's gaming pure and simple). There is even a website being promoted on here which helps in this. The article explains why such efforts are a waste of energy.
Anyhow - just to be clear: links on these programs have a rel-no-follow attribute, so they do NOT count as a link for the search engines.

 

It seems sometimes we forget that we are creating sites for people, not search engines. For those who use Digg and Stumbleupon legitimately the payback on a link is worth it for the visitors. Obviously those who spend their time gaming the system find that it isn't worth it as they are only concerned with links and seo.

But, if you are interested in creating quality sites the potential for bookmarks and consistent readers makes a random link from one of these sites worth it. Plus, if you are focused on your readers they might just do the submitting work for you and you are out nothing.

For myself. I have visited many links through these services and it is true that they are fast visitors. However, I (as I am sure many others) tend to bookmark interesting sites to go back and read articles at my leisure.

 

True. I think most users are quick visitors but for sure if the article is interesting and useful for them, they will bookmark it. I did that myself too.

 

I didn't read past this.

If your content is spam, get the hell off the Internet.

Too many lazy site owners, unwilling to engage in the process of creating / attracting quality content.

 

If you have useful content, many users will bookmark it, review it and return to your website.

 

Yeah, that's true. How do you promote something then?

Just good content with relevent in context links.

The trick is to do that and make it interesting and non-spammy as well. It's very challenging but that's the nature of the biz...

 

trying cant harm