Thread: Just How Effective Is Social Bookmarking?

I'm a HUGE fan of social bookmarking and have done many tests with using only SB on brand new domains to see very big gains in SE rankings for my targeted keywords.

People who say it doesn't work either:
(a) only used nofollow sites
(b) didn't wait long enough for Google (or Yahoo, etc.) to index the pages where their bookmarks appeared, or didn't ping those pages

Plus the new Google Caffeine search algorithm seems to favor social bookmarking even more than the current algorithm. Every one of my niche sites I've checked, which has a lot of social bookmarking backlinks, has jumped in rankings. See for yourself:

Compare Google Caffeine

Originally Posted by kane

(b) didn't wait long enough for Google (or Yahoo, etc.) to index the pages where their bookmarks appeared, or didn't ping those pages

How exactly would we ping those pages? Using a service like http://pingomatic.com/ ??

I use Blog and Ping Tool - Use Pingler.com to Drive Traffic your Blogs and Websites (similar to Pingomatic except you can add your own list of services).

Originally Posted by 5starpix

How exactly would we ping those pages? Using a service like http://pingomatic.com/ ??

Does social bookmarking actually increase your rankings in search results?

Originally Posted by 5starpix

Does social bookmarking actually increase your rankings in search results?

Lately it has helped. The pages that I have bookmarked have ranked well on the targeted keywords. Usually the effects are short lived and the referral tarffic isn;t so good. Another issue is that a bookmarking service could get banned or their account gets slammed out, so you need to take that into consideration.

As I said above, absolutely yes.

Without getting too technical...a backlink is a backlink is a backlink. Social Bookmarking is powerful because a single bookmark creates multiple backlinks (one on your user page, one for each tag, and if your page is bookmarked by many users a lot of services have a "top bookmarks" page with high PR that you could receive a backlink from).

Originally Posted by 5starpix

Does social bookmarking actually increase your rankings in search results?

Originally Posted by kane

...a backlink is a backlink is a backlink.

Sure, unless the backlinks are:

• rel=follow
• redirected
• Javascripted
• On pages that block the search engine spiders

I assumed since the target audience of my post was questioning the effectiveness of social bookmarking in its entirety, they had no knowledge of the PR formula, NoFollows, or robots.txt.

Which is why I said "without getting too technical". Because all other things considered equal, a backlink from social bookmarking is as valid and effective as a backlink from article marketing or a forum signature or a blog post, etc. etc.

Originally Posted by Will.Spencer

Sure, unless the backlinks are:

• rel=follow
• redirected
• Javascripted
• On pages that block the search engine spiders

i love yahoo buzz ......
i have a site with yahoo buzz and it does bring me alot traffic from Yahoo SE then Mr.G ....
Y 55%
G 35%
the rest 10% ...

Originally Posted by Will.Spencer

Sure, unless the backlinks are:

• rel=follow
• redirected
• Javascripted
• On pages that block the search engine spiders

I have seen some links with the following attribute

rel="external "

What does that signify? a NoFollow?