Do bookmarking sites like Digg and Stumbleupon count as inbound links for SEO?
Should I be trying to include them in my promotional strategy for pages and websites?
Dean Richard
[ Editor ]
Every link counts. Some count against you, but they all count. Digg and StumbleUpon have PR 8 & 7, respectively, so Google certainly trust them. They have strong Domain Authority and high traffic, so those links can only help you. Even if a specific link does not give you instant a PR boost, it will get you traffic and possible links form other sites. So you should certainly include them- as well as other social media sites- in your promotional strategy.
Dean Richard
NN comments
Michael Cyger
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@deanfortythree Hi Dean, this is an area that I don’t know much about either. I’ve never used SU or Digg. If I go to SU, I visit a link and it shows up like this: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2lqej3/www.nerdmodo.com/2009/07/10-cool-google-maps-mashups/. If I go to Digg, it looks like the links are true, valid links. Is one better than the other? What does Google see in terms of linking from the two sites? Thanks for the info, Dean!
Dean Richard
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I prefer Digg, but that’s really just because I like the way it is organized and presented, not a hard-and-fast SEO opinion (altho Digg has a higher PR).
If you go onto Digg, you’ll see that individual pages gain quite a bit of PR as they age- usually PR3+, many over 5, so any links in there will be worth the while.
I’ve said it before (and I’ll say it again, because it’s true), if you work at it, it’ll pay off- get people you know to ‘Digg’ your work (whatever it may be), ask your customers/clients/patients/whatever to do the same. If you have a mailing list or emailing service, use it to direct people to Digg (and your other social media). Tweet links to it several times a day, and ask for retweets (I’ll retweet you if you ask-)– do everything you can to make it go viral, and the PR will go up, as will the value of the link, and therefore (if your content is good), so will your conversions.
Michael Cyger
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Thanks, Dean. I’ll have to try it out. If you can believe it, I have never used Digg (for reading or posting). And nobody I know of uses Digg either, so it’s a new experience to me. I’m more of an “old school” SEOer. :) But I’ll give it a try and see what happens. THanks again.
Simon Probert
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I’ve seen some pretty nice spikes when stuff gets digged – but it’s also about knowing your audience a bit. If you have a website about Beekeeping, and most beekeepers rely on google to find their information then something like Digg may not be of that much use – so i would target SEO efforts based on the usage patterns of your demographic