A Comprehensible Approach to Social Bookmarking Networks

To Digg or Not To Digg

With a Google PageRank 8/10 digg.com is one of the hottest social bookmarking spots on the Web. Its history leaves more room for controversy than any other site of the kind. Once you made it to the front page you feel like king for a day. The traffic boosts, the conversions skyrocket (that’s if you really have something to offer to the diggers and you should know your audience if you want to harvest the benefits).

What Are the Benefits?

It’s pretty clear that getting digg traffic is the major benefit, but how many of you know that a digg listing bears high SEO value too? Its huge PR and the fact the Google scans it at least once a day are the two major arguments that make the first page of digg.com such a desired destination.

Who Are the Diggers?

The diggers are some picky users. They are not easily fooled and they are not afraid of speaking up for what they believe in either. They are mainly young people with a geeky orientation who enjoy the latest tech trends, cool gadgets and fresh ideas. If you read the stories on the first page of digg you’ll notice a “WOW” factor in each and every one of them.

The diggers have a harsh attitude towards SEOs – for good reason if we consider how many so-called SEOs abused digg for their own benefit. The diggers will also bury a lame story in the twinkling of an eye, as fast as they’d push a good story up to the most wanted digg spot.

Yummy… del.icio.us

It has a Google PageRank 8/10 too, but and it is the second “most important” bookmarking site you should be familiar with. It’s part of the Yahoo! family and if we compare it to digg we’ll notice a simpler layout, better navigability and definitely more serious topics. The del.icio.us users are quite geek-o-centric too, but the difference is that here you can also find serious articles about other topics of interest. For example, some of the most popular titles at del.icio.us today include “Use text instead of graphics on your website” and “A List Apart: Articles: Educate Your Stakeholders.”

Who Are the del.icio.us Users?

The del.icio.us users are more sophisticated than the diggers. They are tech savvy people who know their stuff. Their comments are generally competent, so to have your site on the first page at del.icio.us means more than just a link on a high traffic, high PR bookmarking site.

Roll, Wrap,,, Furl

With a Google PageRank 8/10 LookSmart’s Furl is one of the authority social bookmarking sites on the Web. It’s interface is not as user friendly as the ones provided by digg and del.icio.us. despite this shortage, Furl is one of the oldest social bookmarking sites and it’s also one of the most advanced. Many librarians and students us furl, particularly for its feature that exports bookmarks in ALA and MLA bibliographic format and for the quality of the bookmarks. The system is far from being extraordinary and it certainly doesn’t have the popularity of a digg or del.icio.us, but it has its value and its faithful system users. I always say it is wise to use all possible online channels to promote your business effectively, so it might be a good idea not to ignore this tool.

Let’s Stumble!

Popular. That’s the word to define StumbleUpon. With Google PageRank 8/10 after Google’s latest PR update. The main advantage in using this social bookmarking platform comes with the increase of traffic. More traffic means higher revenue. But the most important aspect is that at StumbleUpon the ones bookmarking your site or blog entries are really interested in your niche. Personally I find the search feature really poor: it doesn’t allow a deep search (providing just 10 related results). But when it comes to boosting your traffic, StumbleUpon can really do the trick.

1,2,3 Simpy

A Google PageRank 7/10 and an interface very similar to del.icio.us. The only difference is that Simpy appears to be the Babel of social bookmarking sites. As this site as not so many users as other social bookmarking sites, they even try to pay users to use and promote their services. As a matter of fact, they are not really paying users, but allow users to display Google ads on their pages and keep 100% of the earnings. This is how a Simpy page looks like (mine). What is really funny is that, although Simpy is a del.icio.us competitor, they do import data from del.icio.us and rawsugar. Yet, Simpy is better because you are actually able to find anything in your bookmarks. With del.icio.us this is not so easy. Simpy provides full text search which means you can type into the search box anything you like and find the most relevant bookmark. You can read more about Simpy’s advantages over del.icio.us here.

Beauty and Social Bookmarking: ma.gnolia

There’s no fight for the first page at ma.gnolia. This is the site where among the featured linkers you can read names like Jeffrey Zeldman and Tara Hunt. ma.gnolia looks to me more serious than other similar websites and the main advantage lays in the fact that it was created for a general audience and not for geek-o-centrist. It has good features and it makes bookmarking easy and fun, especially since it has one of the most appealing designs I’ve ever seen at a social bookmarking websites. Google PageRank 7/10 The only minus point is that you have to guess where to click to see the most recent bookmarks. But once you are over this point. The fun can begin.

Other Social Bookmarking Sites:

http://www.backflip.com/
http://www.blinklist.com/
http://bluedot.us/
http://de.lirio.us/bookmarks/
http://www.diigo.com/user/
http://www.shadows.com/
http://www.markaboo.com/
http://netvouz.com/
http://www.mister-wong.de/
http://www.spurl.net/
http://www.rawsugar.com/
http://www.blogmarks.net/
http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/
http://www.taggly.com/
http://www.lookmarks.com/

Prose from the Pros:

Prior to developing web site and opting for any web design, one should have a definite idea about its concept as well as web site design perks. For this one needs to know web design tips. The site needs to be light enough to easily load up on broadband users as well. Then comes the stage of choosing the webhosting domain that should offer backup as well as cheap web hosting. Not all webhosting companies offer a cheap hosting site with other benefits.