32 replies to this topic

[qwerty]

I keep seeing a new bookmarking network almost daily and really wonder how the search engines are going to adapt to this medium.

Yup. A new one just began a couple of days ago: Diigo

[sherrillh]

Chris Sherman just did a nice write up about social bookmarking and specifically Diigo http://searchenginew...ml?page=3622969

Edited by sherrillh, 26 July 2006 - 11:20 AM.

[qwerty]

I guess it depends on whether the service uses nofollow on its links. If it doesn't (and it looks like Diigo doesn't) then theoretically, you could subscribe to the feed via My Yahoo, which would give Yahoo access to the links. Then, whenever, you added a bookmark pointing to one of your own sites, I suppose it could potentially count. Sounds pretty easily abused, though.

In my experience, social bookmarking can be very helpful in reaching out to people who'd be interested in your content, and I think that's more important than getting credit for a backlink.

[sherrillh]

I agree about the traffic, unfortunately my department is evaluated on the Search Engine (organic) traffic and I need to find some sort of SEO value.

Personally, I'm loving all these social sites and the spin-offs/improvements that come with them. I even found a tool that searches different tagging sites www.keotag.com, pretty slick. There is also the socializer tool by ekstreme that let's you tag several bookmarking services with one link from your website. Great stuff!

[qwerty]

Yeah, socializer is pretty good. One of my clients has a "socialize this" link on every blog post. Of course, I don't think there's any way of knowing whether people are using it or just tagging a post with their own toolbars or whatever, or if they even understand what "socialize this" might mean.

[Jill]

Like any new thing that might work for awhile in the search engines, this too shall pass...it's simply too easy to spam/scam.

[caseybyshop]

I have actually seen some benefit in setting up my own sb sites and digg style sites at the moment it's pretty easy to get interest in them and traffic.

But as for myspace...urghhhhhhh it reminds me of the sites I used to build 18 years ago..

:-)

[bignm]

Hi Sherrillh,

Here is something you might try to help with your SEO using any bookmarking sites that don't use "rel=nofollow" links...

Get a group of friends who have web sites, and have each one of them add each others' sites to their bookmark list. This would create one-way links from the many bookmarking lists to each site.

This is something a group of friends and I are testing right now, and so far it seems to have positive results.

Hope this helps!

[Jill]

and so far it seems to have positive results.

Give it time...

[sherrillh]

Well, I am currently seeing links in MSN and Yahoo from sites like Wists and Furl. I think beyond the SEO link love it's giving that these bookmarking/networking/tagging sites are a nice "social" way to promote a business.

I've also noticed that advertisers are spending more and more as they see the popularity with MySpace grow. Would be interesting to see if we see new job titles with something along the lines of "Social Networking Director" I would love to have that title.

[MichaelM]

Id say that Jill is right, and that soon enough, the search engines will shift their policies, making sure Social Bookmarking sites don't really enter the equation.

That said, even when that does happen, its still worth having your site in those bookmarking sites. They all offer an internal search through user's bookmarks, so take advantage of that. Consider it another search engine to get yourself listed in.

[storyspinner]

I've actually been doing a lot of research on this topic as of late. I'm right with Jill on the value, there could be a little right now (I've really not seen a heck of a lot), but eventually the search engines will weight all of that into their algos too.

What these are good for is promotion of your blog, or your website. It does help drive traffic there. Since using these networks, I've seen a definite increase in traffic and subscribers.

That said, the traffic could lead to legitimate links into your website/blog, by people reading the bookmarks. That's actually where I can see the SEO value, because actual bloggers or other websites linking in, definitely will way more (if they don't already) than the social tagging/networking/bookmarking sites.

[sherrillh]

storyspinner, shouldn't you be drinking about now? Not in your hotel room posting on forums I'm headed out tomorrow morning, hope to dicuss with you in person more about your research on this subject and maybe have a drink or two with ya;)

[Jill]

I was just sitting in on the social networks session at SES SJ, and was happy to hear all of the panelists making it very clear that you don't want to spam these networks.

In fact, I was kind of shocked and pleasantly surprised that it wasn't a session providing tips on how to do just that. Of course, I think these guys on the panel (yep all guys no gals) may not want it to get ruined by spammers, which is why they are adament about spamming.

However, I am still pretty sure the spammers will win out in the end and people will be sick of those sites within the next few years. Who knows though?

[Scottie]

YOU sat in on a session? A whole session?