"Social bookmarking" is one of those marketing buzzwords that has been thrown around for over a decade and used in countless different ways online. Let's explore it a bit more in this post.
What are social bookmarks?
The use of a bookmark in physical media also with you surely common practice. You're reading a book, come to a point where you need to stop, so you put a physical object in the book to mark the spot. Sometimes it's a metal bookmark, sometimes it's a piece of paper, and some people even fold the page of the book. Such people are, of course, heathens, but that is beside the point here.
The bookmark for a page on the web is similar if you consider the whole internet as the book. You mark the place with a bookmark. With web browsers, this basically just means bookmarking the URL of the page you are on and save them in a file somewhere. You can see all your bookmarks and related information through your web browser or by exporting the bookmarks file and opening it with a tool like Notepad++. Sometimes it is an HMTL or XML file, sometimes it is a JSON file, it depends on the Browser and the version.
With normal web bookmarking, you can return to the web page you were on at any time, as long as you use the same computer and the same Browser use. When you use the Browser switch without importing or syncing bookmarks, or use a different device, your bookmarks will be left behind.
Bookmarks also work online
Take this one step further and you have a web-based, Cloud-based form of bookmarking. You use a service like Pocket, Evernote, or Google Bookmarks to store all your data. Some have additional features, like how Evernote can record media and notes as well as URLs, or how Google Bookmarks contains saved locations from your Google Maps.
Some of these services stray into social bookmarking territory, and other services are based on the concept but use it differently. Social bookmarking, if you think of the bookmarking idea even further, is setting a list of your bookmarks on the web. It would be like going from Browser-bookmarks would have exported and published here where you could see it. The Evernote service can do this, but other sites are also specifically designed to do this.
I'm sure you've heard of some of the most popular social bookmarking sites. Even Pinterest is social bookmarking at its core, with the visual representation of a pinboard for thematic purposes. Reddit, too, is a social bookmarking site that focuses on building communities around specific interests; anything you post is a "bookmark" that you think others might find interesting. Delicious, StumbleUpon ,and others all offer some variation on the social bookmarking idea.
Examples of social bookmarking sites
Here is a table of some common social bookmarking platforms that have been used for SEO purposes in the past. However, I would like to point out that social bookmarking is no longer considered a modern or effective SEO tactic. However, these platforms can still be useful for sharing content and increasing online presence.
Platform | URL | Special features |
---|---|---|
Delicious | www.delicious.com | Oldest and most popular social bookmarking site |
Digg | www.digg.com | Curated content and bookmark function |
www.reddit.com | User-generated content, subreddits | |
StumbleUpon/Mix | www.mix.com | Discovery platform |
www.pinterest.com | Visual oriented, especially for images | |
Diigo | www.diigo.com | Research oriented, comments possible |
Folkd | www.folkd.com | Social bookmarking with voting system |
Scoop.it | www.scoop.it | Content curation |
Slashdot | www.slashdot.org | Technology and science news |
We Heart It | www.weheartit.com | Images and videos, youth target group |
www.getpocket.com | Reading lists and article storage | |
Fark | www.fark.com | Community-based news sharing |
BizSugar | www.bizsugar.com | Focus on small businesses |
Pearltrees | www.pearltrees.com | Visual collection and sharing of web pages |
Feedly | www.feedly.com | RSS reader and content curation |
Mendeley | www.mendeley.com | Scientific works and studies |
Blinklist | www.blinklist.com | Private and public bookmarks |
Kirtsy | www.kirtsy.com | Women oriented content |
Blogmarks | www.blogmarks.net | Blog focus, public and private options |
Evernote | www.evernote.com | Notes, clipping web pages |
Please note that the effectiveness of these platforms for SEO purposes varies greatly and there is no guarantee that using them will have a positive impact on your rankings. Use should therefore be carefully considered and viewed in the context of a broader SEO strategy.
The potential benefits of social bookmarking
Social bookmarking can have some advantages. For one thing, it is a Link. The quality of the link is important, of course, as is whether or not the link is followed or unfollowed. A link from Reddit can range from worthless to excellent. A link from Folkd will probably be worthless at best.
In addition, social bookmarking can also give you Traffic bring Again, posting in a high-traffic sub on Reddit can get you a lot of clicks on the page. Whether that is more valuable Traffic is or is not, of course, depends on the topic relevance. However, in many cases, social bookmarking sites will not give you a Traffic bring
Another potential benefit may be a faster indexing of your content. This can be especially useful if you are launching a new website or blog. You want Google to find it and index it as quickly as possible. If Google keeps a close eye on the site - as it does on Reddit - that can mean it finds your site almost immediately. Of course, submitting a Sitemap in the Google Search Console have the same effect, so this advantage is questionable.
Good content on a good social bookmarking site also has the potential, viral to go. The term "viral", means more traffic, More distribution and lots of links from people who read your content and decide to share it themselves or link to it from their own sites.
Depending on the location, it may also strong social interaction come. A website like Reddit, Pinterest, or even Twitter to some extent can be considered a form of social bookmarking, and they all have influential users. When you publish content, you have the potential to eventually become one of those influential users, or to network and connect with influencers who can help make your content more popular.
Conclusion
Social bookmarking sites have played an interesting role in the SEO landscape, especially in the early years of the Search engine optimization. At that time they were considered a quick and easy option, Backlinks generate and increase the visibility of a website. However, times have changed. Search engines like Google have refined their algorithms so that the simple construction of Backlinks through social bookmarking no longer has the impact it once had.
However, that doesn't mean that social bookmarking sites don't have Relevance have more. They are still useful for content distribution and can contribute to the Traffic-and branding. For example, specialized platforms such as Mendeley or BizSugar can attract specific target groups and thus provide qualified Traffic generate. They also provide a platform for professionals and interested parties to share expertise and resources, which can indirectly increase the credibility and authority of a website or brand.
However, caution is advised: Mass posting of links on such platforms can be considered spam and even have negative effects on the Ranking have. It is therefore advisable to take a selective and strategic approach. Use social bookmarking as one part of a comprehensive SEO and content marketing plan, not as a quick fix for better rankings.
In conclusion, it can be said that social bookmarking plays a differentiated role in modern SEO strategy. It should be considered as one tool among many in a broad arsenal. The times when simple bookmarking had a great influence are over. But with the right strategy, these platforms can still make a valuable contribution to achieving your overall goals.
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