Social bookmarking is the habit or practice of saving bookmarks to a web site and “tagging”. Social bookmarking sites are a popular way to store, classify, share and search links. Social bookmarking started as a method for Internet users to keep bookmarks that can easily be accessed online and shared with other users in the Web. These bookmarks are given tags to label as well as organize them and the tags illustrate a glimpse of the main content for easier access.

In a social bookmarking system, internet users save links to web pages that they would like to remember and/or share. These social bookmarks are normally public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. Only the allowed people can view these social bookmarks sequentially, by category or tags, or via a search engine.

But don’t let the use of NoFollow fool you, the search engines are looking beyond the incoming links from social bookmarking sites to gauge their value to their search indexes. The external metadata compiled via user generated descriptions, tags, titles and classification is incredibly valued by the search engines, as in the same philosophy as anchored backlinks, descriptive content about a web site defined by the users of that site who are not associated with the marketing or coding of that site, can be extremely powerful in judging the importance and relevance of the content and tags which are used on that site.

Social bookmarking brings to the equation something that search engines can’t compete with the human touch. Just as the internet has millions of pages, so it also has millions of users, and if even a fraction of those users share the sites they’ve found interesting, useful or just plain bizarre with each other, there is suddenly a vast resource for anyone searching the web to tap into.

Social bookmarking allows you to share your bookmarks with other Internet users in a collaborative sort of way. Normally, social bookmarking takes place on sites where the users can create an account to add their bookmarks to. It’s also helpful to do it on sites that allow you to insert keywords for the types of bookmarks you add. That way, they all can be organized and set into categories that other users can easily search through.

Social bookmarking is a grassroots process that allows users to establish the value of a specific web page, article, podcast, or video. By bookmarking an item, individuals are casting a vote to endorse that specific resource. The idea is that social bookmarking gives a resource credibility; the more users who bookmark a specific item, the more valuable the resource is considered to be. Social bookmarking is all about the collective voice. Most of the social bookmarking networks increase the profile of items that receive a lot of bookmarks. It probably won’t be long before the major search engines begin to include social bookmarks as a part of their ranking algorithms.

Once you become a part of a social bookmarking site, you become a member of that community. You and all the other users are there for the same thing and you can help each other out in finding sites that will benefit all of you. It also makes searching the Web so much easier and quicker. Another great thing is that once you’re part of a site, you can access it from any computer and any browser. That way, you’re never limited in seeing the social bookmarks you’ve been waiting for.

So, the question, “Should you give any attention to social bookmarking?” And the answer is, make your site worthy of bookmarking. Bookmarks appear to web spiders as links to your page, and that makes them very valuable SEO tools. For some search engines, the more bookmarks that lead back to your site, the more “votes” you get! Links which are bookmarked by lots of users on social bookmarking web sites are effectively been “voted for” In fact Google has already started to feature StumbleUpon Reviews in its search results.

On the web-site side, be sure to include the code snippets provided by social bookmarking organizations that allow users to tag your site easily. Then, maintain it all. Don’t just forget your account completely. If you do, eventually it will disappear and all the advantage of having one will go as well. Instead, continue using social bookmarking. Over time, the rewards will be increased traffic to your web site.

Social bookmarking sites help you find great content on the internet. These websites allow users to post content that they like. They also allow them to list and share this content with other users. You need to become a member of these sites first. Some of them are very particular about admitting the right people to their sites, but generally it is quite easy to sign up. The best part is that these sites are free for all internet users.

Social bookmarking leverages the popular social software phenomenon of tagging. Users can apply tags, or keywords, to the bookmarks they save. In social bookmarking, tagging creates a grass-roots taxonomy for the shared bookmarks. Users can search by tags to find bookmarks relevant to their interests. Taxonomies created through bookmarking are called “folksonomies.”

The majority of Web users nowadays are familiar with the term bookmarking — formally known as social bookmarking. Every time you save a Web Site to your list of favorites, with the intent of visiting it again in the future, you are actually bookmarking it.

Social bookmarking is also a way of bringing additional traffic to your site as there are many users who look at the ‘what’s new’ page and decide what to click on. An easy way of tackling social bookmarking is to use Onlywire or Diigo, both of which submit to multiple social bookmarking sites. Once you’ve signed up, this will submit to all the sites except reddit and digg.

Social bookmarking is a way for people to store and organize bookmarks of certain web pages on the Internet with help of metadata. Social bookmarking is done by saving your links to particular web pages that you want to remember or perhaps, share with other users. Social bookmarking is an all-out phenomena and is growing at a sonic boom clip. Understanding social bookmarking gives you the ability to reach millions of users you might otherwise miss. Properly utilizing social bookmarking gives you an additional edge in more traditional search engine marketing.



By: Paul Mihai Pavel

 

With the popularity of social networking sites, there has been a surge of social bookmarking sites too. Social networks revolve around the maintenance of relationships between members of the community. Social bookmarking, on the other hand, is responsible for connecting content that are made by its members. Because of its connectivity function, social bookmarking sites provide another business tool for site owners.

It is no longer uncommon to see icons at the bottom of blog posts and articles. When you hover the mouse, website names like Technorati, Digg, Furl or Delicious pop out. These are social bookmarking sites. A social bookmarking site is pretty much the same as an actual bookmark. Bookmarks are made to indicate a page or passage so it will be easy to locate. The same purpose goes for social bookmarking icons. A website can be marked for convenience. Others can also be directed to a site using a social bookmark.

There are many forms of social bookmarking sites. Squidoo deals with creating lenses that highlights a particular niche of the lens owner. Flickr’s specialization is on photos and images. Others deal with movie or music reviews.

For the business owner to utilize social bookmarks there is a need to choose the appropriate site. Always remember that traffic to the business site is the number one purpose. The content or information that is placed on the social bookmarking site should be interesting enough to let readers click on the website URL. The objective is to have the readers mark your page and make comments or inquiries. People will be interested in updates because they are informative and useful.

Content is very important. A business owner can have a following of readers and even have a higher search engine ranking because of the traffic. In order to have good content, visit popular bookmarking sites and observe the most popular sites that are being viewed. Analyze what others are reading and why they find the sites interesting and informative. Visit competitive sites and investigate how they are doing content and presentation. Be observant on what readers are commenting and what type of information that they are asking for.

With the use of social bookmarking sites, a business owner can increase visibility and makes it easy to get prospective clients. By adding social bookmarking icons to blogs or websites, it is an effective way to bring traffic to the business website and a strong possibility that the reader will add the URL to the favorite list on the browser.

 



By: Therese prentice