What's The Best Social Bookmarking Strategy?

[jhiggins]

I've searched around the forum and haven't been able to find a definitive bookmarking strategy. Advice seems to be scattered and contradictory. I'm hoping you all can share, in some detail, what you believe is an effective bookmarking strategy.

I have what I think is a good strategy, but it seems a little time consuming even though I'm using a powerful bookmarking automation tool. Here's what I've come up with.

For each of my sites, I should have a set up bookmarking accounts at various BM sites. So, if I have 10 websites I'm promoting, I should have 10 different sets of BM accounts. Perhaps 10 sets of 50 accounts, 500 accounts in all.

Then bookmark each site 2 or 3 times a day. Each time you BM your own site, BM 3 or 4 other sites to hide your self-promotion.

NEVER BM your site A with the accounts you use for your site B, C, D and so on. I'm thinking once you cross bookmark, then engines can identify the pattern and punish you. (Am I being over paranoid here?)

That's it! If I run out because I've used all the accounts for a specific site to bookmark the site's urls, then I just start creating more accounts for that set.

Does any of this make sense? Is it a good strategy? Are you having success with a less complicated and less paranoid approach?

Thanks for your help!!

Jonathan

[Dexx]

Originally Posted by NPmaster

My best strategy for this month has been "don't
do it at all"

Why?

I got sandboxed deindexed and lost front page rankings
all because of bookmarking too much.

Bookmarking too much? As in you kept bookmarking the same site over and over?

[GavinStephenson]

hey buddy I use BooKmarking Demon. I don't bookmark the same link over and over. But everytime I put out new content I bookmark,

Could be a video, article, press release, blog post. I was bookmarket the direct link to that specific piece of content. Bookmarking demon has a rss feature so that it doesnt look like spamming..

You really want to be careful bookmarking the same link especially if your using the same email for each account and same IP address. The other option is to outsource.

How this helps

[JamesMSpacey]

I'd avoid bookmarking everything that you post and concentrate on buzzing your best stuff only. This will keep you out of the sandbox and save you a lot of time. The real benefit from bookmarking is getting bloggers/webmasters to link to you, not from the bookmarking in and of itself.

[jhiggins]

Thanks to all who have contributed so far. Here is a summary of BM best practices so far, including my original input.

Please feel free to correct and modify. My main goal is to identify a strategy that doesn't sandbox, or worse ban me from the Big G.

1- Don't BM one of your sites from more than one BM account.
2- Don't BM ALL your pages.
3- BM 2 or 3 URLs not your own for every one of your own you BM.

Anymore? Any corrections?

Jonathan

[Traffic-Bug]

You want to use multiple accounts for social bookmarks at all the major sites. You only want to do a few pages. Yu can check out my service - link is in the sig

[jhiggins]

Originally Posted by Traffic-Bug

You want to use multiple accounts for social bookmarks at all the major sites. You only want to do a few pages. Yu can check out my service - link is in the sig

Traffic Bug, what you are saying here is one of the things that is not clear to me. I also feel that this could be potentially dangerous.

What do you mean by multiple accounts? How do you use multiple accounts? Here is the danger I see.

Let's say I have 100 accounts at 30 different BM sites. Let's say I have 10 sites I'm promoting? Let's say all 100 BM accounts are linking to various URLs at my 10 sites. Let's also assume that I've BMed other sites not my own for a little protection.

Is this not a HUGE fricking footprint? What's natural about 100 BM accounts linking to the same 10 sites?

Now, I'm not saying that your advice above is bad. Don't get me wrong. I'm merely asking you to clarify why you say you need multiple accounts AND HOW you use the multiple accounts.

It's vague advice like yours (don't be offended. I know it sounds like criticism. It's not) that is going to get me and others in the sandbox.

Jonathan

[James Schramko]

The best social strategy is to be 'real' and put useful content. People will click through to get more of that stuff.

[jhiggins]

Originally Posted by James Schramko

The best social strategy is to be 'real' and put useful content. People will click through to get more of that stuff.

Thanks James, but this is vague. I have no idea about what you are trying to say. I've just purchased a powerful bookmarking program and I'm trying to find a safe way to use it. This doesn't really help me.

Jonathan

[Corwinnx]

Hey Traffic Bug,

I just checked out your sig file link. That looks impressive. Is there a limit to how many sites we can submit using your service? Thanks.

-Marcus

[James Schramko]

Originally Posted by jhiggins

Thanks James, but this is vague. I have no idea about what you are trying to say. I've just purchased a powerful bookmarking program and I'm trying to find a safe way to use it. This doesn't really help me.

Jonathan

I'm saying only bookmark when you have something useful to bookmark. Add valuable content to your site / blog / social site - then bookmark it.

Avoid multiple bookmarking for the same content.

Also - the other point is - if you make great content other people will bookmark it for you and you will not need to manipulate and pollute bookmarking sites with spam after all.

[Colin Evans]

Originally Posted by James Schramko

if you make great content other people will bookmark it for you and you will not need to manipulate and pollute bookmarking sites with spam after all.

Good advice - to which I want to add this: make it easy for readers to bookmark your content.

[James Schramko]

Originally Posted by Colin Evans

Good advice - to which I want to add this: make it easy for readers to bookmark your content.

yes a nice widget can help in the right place!

[jhiggins]

Originally Posted by James Schramko

I'm saying only bookmark when you have something useful to bookmark. Add valuable content to your site / blog / social site - then bookmark it.

Avoid multiple bookmarking for the same content.

Also - the other point is - if you make great content other people will bookmark it for you and you will not need to manipulate and pollute bookmarking sites with spam after all.

That's better! Thanks! I especially like the part about avoiding multiple bookmarking of the same content. Let me rephrase this to see if I understand what you are saying:

If I make a killer blog post, I should bookmark it only once, NOT several times from various bookmarking accounts. Do I have this right?

This is how I see Bookmarking Demon being used. You set up a bunch of accounts and then bookmark the same URL from several different accounts. This seems really risky to me.

Others?

Jonathan

[Steve Sanchez]

There are some nice plugins for wordpress that will get your posts linked to twitter etc. If you have a lot of followers tweeting you this can be annoying on your blog but it is great for sending out your posts.

[jhiggins]

Originally Posted by Corwinnx

Hey Traffic Bug,

I just checked out your sig file link. That looks impressive. Is there a limit to how many sites we can submit using your service? Thanks.

-Marcus

I just saw this too. But, it looks like this software is just going to get you banned. 200 BM backlinks to a single URL? Am I the only one that sees dozens of red flags going up? Sandbox here we come.

Please explain.

Jonathan

[Droopy Dawg]

Hey Jonathan here's a pretty good traffic tip from Jeff Johnson that involves BM'ing... check it out...

Traffic Getting Jumpstart

Originally Posted by jhiggins

Thanks to all who have contributed so far. Here is a summary of BM best practices so far, including my original input.

Please feel free to correct and modify. My main goal is to identify a strategy that doesn't sandbox, or worse ban me from the Big G.

1- Don't BM one of your sites from more than one BM account.
2- Don't BM ALL your pages.
3- BM 2 or 3 URLs not your own for every one of your own you BM.

Anymore? Any corrections?

Jonathan

[jhiggins]

Originally Posted by Droopy Dawg

Hey Jonathan here's a pretty good traffic tip from Jeff Johnson that involves BM'ing... check it out...

Traffic Getting Jumpstart

Droopy Dawg,

This is pretty sweet! Thanks a lot for sharing that.

Jonathan

[James Schramko]

Originally Posted by jhiggins

That's better! Thanks! I especially like the part about avoiding multiple bookmarking of the same content. Let me rephrase this to see if I understand what you are saying:

If I make a killer blog post, I should bookmark it only once, NOT several times from various bookmarking accounts. Do I have this right?

This is how I see Bookmarking Demon being used. You set up a bunch of accounts and then bookmark the same URL from several different accounts. This seems really risky to me.

Others?

Jonathan

With BMD only use a random few of the bookmark sites for each new bit of content and also use lots of different profiles.

Use multiple submission methods and sources if your resources extend to that.

avoid patterns at all costs

[mogili]

Lots of ideas to think about. I would love to try them in the near future.

[JohnMcCabe]

One thing I haven't noticed anyone mention here...

No one has mentioned the time factor. Which seems more natural?

> Article published. Same day, 100 links from BM sites.

> Article published. Same day, 2-3 links. 100 more links over the next several months.

As James said, the idea is to avoid patterns. Stretching your link building efforts over time, and keeping the intervals random, will make your efforts look much more natural.

Edit:

Another thing...

If you're creative in your bookmark descriptions, and the list of bookmarks is good content on its own, you could even bookmark a bookmark page...

[jhiggins]

Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

One thing I haven't noticed anyone mention here...

No one has mentioned the time factor. Which seems more natural?

> Article published. Same day, 100 links from BM sites.

> Article published. Same day, 2-3 links. 100 more links over the next several months.

As James said, the idea is to avoid patterns. Stretching your link building efforts over time, and keeping the intervals random, will make your efforts look much more natural.

Edit:

Another thing...

If you're creative in your bookmark descriptions, and the list of bookmarks is good content on its own, you could even bookmark a bookmark page...

Thanks John!!

This would require a plan, perhaps all mapped out in an excel spreadsheet or something. I see a plan coming together in my mind.

Jonathan

As someone that has done well over 300,000 bookmarks I can give you some tips and help... You are bookmarking your pages, you have your friends.. Well let's release a huge bombshell here...

You get 10 friends, you all bookmark each others sites with StumbleUpon. Make sure each of you are subscribed to each others profile and you are added as friends. Make sure each of you comment on the bookmarks, heck start a small discussion on each.

Ok sounds like nothing special, except it will bring in more traffic for all involved but that's only part of the deal here.. Remember now StumbleUpon has RSS feeds (about 5 different ones) for each profile. Ok so now all 11 of you go and slap those RSS feeds into about 20 or 30 RSS directories.

Ok we getting even better traffic results now... let's not stop there though because we are having fun.. So you and your 10 friends go and signup for Delicious & Clipmarks - What are you finding on the web? and create your profiles, now go into clipmarks and choose the setting to add bookmarks automatically to delicious. Next all 11 of your will go and bookmark each others StumbleUpon profile and maybe a few sites while you at it.

When this is done not only are you adding to clipmarks but you are adding to delicious also on auto-pilot. Now each of you run around and "follow" each other and give each other "pops" on the bookmarks and post some comments, heck make a discussion out of it..lol

We are not done yet because this is getting good because guess what ClipMarks will be added in google within hours, yeah all your bookmarks will be indexed. Guess what though ? We still not done yet....

Look at your Clipmarks profile and what do you see ? a nice little orange RSS buton. Well guess what that's for ? You guessed it .. Go submit the RSS feeds of all 11 profiles.

WooHoo!! .. we are having fun and enjoying the traffic now but we are still not done.

Let's give it a little more push just for the heck of it... Go and signup for Mister Wong | Social Bookmarking Tool and login to delicious and export your bookmarks that was added on auto-pilot and then login to misterwong and import your bookmarks, takes 2 minutes...

You should be getting the idea here... Because we just went full circle and had a great time doing it.

Many keep on talking about they want to make it look natural and not get sandboxed.. Ok well unless you are really spamming the heck out of a site there will be no issue. What you seem to forget is that google itself can not possibly be everyplace at all times. Fact is 1 of your friends profiles may get picked up by google today and your profile not picked up until 2 months from now.

There is millions upon millions upon millions of people online.. Do you honestly think you are the only one that bookmarks the latest and greatest video game from microsuck ??? Come on now, let's get real here.. So because 1,000 people bookmarked this new game on microsucks websites, then google will sandbox microsuck ??? NOT!!!

While I agree you should not go overboard and spam every single page on your site, I will disagree with many that talk about this fear of bookmarking. Some may let fear run their business but I sure will not..

Everyone that reads, please do not forget... There is a "thank you" button below this post..

James

[Corwinnx]

James,
I believe I will bookmark your post to save for a day when I have more clarity of mind that I have at 12:30 a.m.
Thanks man.

-Marcus

[billbarrett]

Hi jhiggins, my personal opinion is that if you devote the same time (which you are spending to maintain 500(!) BM accounts) to network and develop just one profile, but making it strong and popular... You will got a better and long lasting results.

Cheating is a short term strategy in a long term perspective... That's what I think.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by Corwinnx

James,
I believe I will bookmark your post to save for a day when I have more clarity of mind that I have at 12:30 a.m.
Thanks man.

-Marcus

Hi Marcus,
Yeah kinda hard to read after a long days work and its getting close to 1am ..lol

James