Advantages of Using Online Bookmarking
Bookmarking services such as delicious came along very early before the surge of services of the social media revolution. They could now even be considered the start of it, although at the beginning bookmarking was probably considered more of an online service than a sharing activity. The popularity of social bookmarking rating sites such as Digg and Stumbleupon and Reddit left ordinary bookmarking in the shadow.
However interesting, popular and up to date the content on the rating sites may be, they are not as useful for reference or research purposes as the bookmarking sites. I see two three main reasons for this.
Because our digging and stumbling is "social" we add sites that our friends favor or those that we want to get noticed, for ourselves or for others. What reaches the top is often more about how many contacts the originator of the bookmark has rather than the quality of the content. I will digg and stumble all sorts of topics which, although they may interest me, I will never look for again. I regularly refer to my diigo bookmarks.
Secondly, despite the availability of tagging, tags are either not totally relevant to the content, or they are tagged inappropriately, on rating sites. Digg’s range of categories reflect its News and Video purpose but not the broad range of topics it is actually used for. Stumbleupon allows more flexibility, but it is unusual to see full advantage being taken of this, meaning a search for a topic of a given tag brings unsatisfactory results. Lately I have noticed an increase in mis-tagged articles either: through mistake or mischief. I have never done a search on these sites, whereas I regularly do so on diigo and delicious. The social features of the latter also allow me to add contacts who bookmark topics I am interested in and whose tags I can refer to.
Finally, although the delicious type bookmarking sites may not be not used to their best advantage, as far as tag applying is concerned, it is still far easier to find relevant information on a given topic and information does not get so easily lost over time. The rating sites are all about what is new. This is fine if you are looking for breaking news or for such things as the latest happenings in the entertainment industry or the latest scientific findings. They are not the place to go for research on factual and non changing information. On the plain old bookmarking sites people add articles that may be years old but still of value. The best of these are bookmarked the most bringing the most valuable information to the fore.
My personal favorite bookmarking site is diigo because it has more advanced features than others and it also automatically posts all my bookmarks to Delicious which, after using for years, I was loath to let go of completely. Today I discovered an excellent reason for using the diigo/delicious combination for duplication. Ma.gnolia, one of the main bookmarking sites, lost all their bookmarks! Their database is unretrievable.
The tagging, relevance and searchability of the bookmarking sites make them a valuable tool for research and for bloggers they can be a useful resource for your readers too. I add bookmarks to sites I believe you will find of use on diigo and therefore also on delicious.
79 Comments
Thanks, Sue. Now find me on Diigo. I’m totally lost! I don’t know how to save my bookmarks in html. I’ve tried all that I know and none of it works. Ackkkkkk!
[If I only had a brain....]
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The whole business of bookmarking is mysterious. As you rightly say, quite what benefit one derives from it is suspect. If you see most blogs, say with digg button, the number of diggs is pathetically low.
AS Mary Ann says, it is also virtually impossible for non tech bloggers to get their sites bookmarked or even book mark other sites.
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I haven’t really looked in to bookmarking yet. I may have to check this out as I am writing a research paper and nobody can do research anymore with out working online and finding resources online!
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If you have a lot of bookmarks and want to find them again easily this is the way to go. Ideal for research purposes. You are able to download bookmarks to your pc and import into your browser bookmarks if you work offline. Delicious has FF extensions which make your bookmarks available from your browser too.
I have heard of a lot of bookmarking services but not Diigo – I must check them out.
Do you prefer these services better than Foxmarks which syncs you browsers bookmarks to an online one?
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I use Foxmarks too as I have a lot of browser bookmarks that I would hate to lose. Foxmarks is more of a backup service and does not have the tagging features of the social bookmarking services. It tends to be very sluggish too.
I think one of the best things about these sites is that your bookmarks will still be there when you forget to back them up when your re-install your OS. D’oh!
I almost always forget to backup the bookmarks. Last time round I forgot my MySQL databases
Lost days of work.
Yes it is an extra precaution although I also make sure I take regular backups to an external drive – daily for some folders – using Goodsync.
Good points… I think i agree with you. I’m actually not much into taking many bookmarks – I think maybe I have twenty that I return to on a regular basis. When I first came online in a big way back in 1998, I would bookmark so many things it became crazy, and I’ve really not kept up that practice since.
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Probably not too useful for you then unless you find the diigo social networking aspects useful. I do not use them to their best advantage but there are only so many SN sites you can spend time on – it already takes up a disproportionate amount of my time.
I tried both digg and stumbleupon for about a month, but the best search matches I came up with were for specific products and models involving wireless routers, the rest like you mentioned with tagging were very bad match ups for what I had in mind.
For the most part I stick strictly with either Googling or similiar search engine use myself ‘on the fly’ as needed. Bookmarks I keep to simple ‘online tools’ since I either have links for them on my own sites and am VERY prone to OS failure as well as not being able to keep backups.
I relay on set and forget automatic backups otherwise I would forget to do it or put it off.
Most people lump these two services together. Sue, you did a nice job of explaining how the services are different and why it matters.
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Thanks Aaron. They are indeed very different types of services
I really did not know the difference between the two and I am grateful to you for having clarified this.
Personally, I do not find much advantage in linking up to digg, etc. May be it is just the niche that I am in, but there it is.
You raise a good point: some topics don’t do well on Digg. It will be interesting to see if mini-Digg sites emerge for various topic areas. Pligg is a useful free script to create your own Digg-like site.
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I’ve always felt the same about Digg. I mean, its great for a quick boost in traffic, but it doesn’t always equate to success in the long-term. I just don’t see the craze in linking up to them either.
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eat a D if you know what I mean
And for Hip Hop Videos well, you know too.
I have just checked out diigo which itself sounds very much like digg! Seems quite a nice place to park my posts. Let me see.
Hope you like diigo. That is an advantage of bookmarking sites too – you can post all of your own posts there, whereas digging or stumbling your own is frowned upon.
I am not a big Digg user either – prefer Stumbleupon as it is more social.
Need to stop put off book marking myself, this was helpful.
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Diigo? The first I’ve heard of the site Sue. I’ll check it out. ~ Colleen
Yes it has not become as well known as I thought. As a regular delicious user I appreciated diigos extra features immediately and did not hesitate swapping over.
Diigo? The first I’ve heard of the site Sue. I’ll check it out. ~ Colleen
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I usually use OYAX but never tried DIIGO. I will try it so I could see it for myself. Thanks for the suggestion.
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I never tried OYAX but am about to go check it out. Thank you for your suggestion.
I’ve never considered using Digg for bookmarking. I just use it to check out what is new & interesting on the web.
Ha-ha
I still save my bookmarks in my browser.
I still have masses of browser bookmarks – sites I visit regularly, sites I have joined (otherwise I lose track), personal bookmarks and utilities such as time and unit conversions. Diigo is mainly for research and learning purposes and I bookmark sites I find useful and those I think my readers would like to read too.
There are lots of bookmarking sites out there? And I don’t know what to use as my primary online bookmark. Thanks for this one, it gives idea, but still, it depends on the person (who will bookmark their fav site or article) agenda.
Part of the process is finding a bookmark site that works well for you. Each has its own features and stylistic differences.
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I have tried social bookmarking in the past but I really feel that I got nothing from it especially for the time that I had to invest in it.
If anyone here has had success with these I would be interested in how they made it work.
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If your goal is to use social bookmarking sites as online bookmarking services where you can store the sites you want to find later, these services work very well. If your goal is to promote your site by bookmarking as many of your pages as possible for SEO benefit, then you may find that social bookmarking sites are not a good investment of your time.
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Very interesting and readable and like always; I really learn something new and useful when reading your blog!
I was familiar with delicious, but never heard of Diigo. I can see I have way to go, but following you, I can always pick up new things.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experiences and have a great end to your week
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Social bookmarking is always a good way to promote sites. Usually not much direct traffic is coming from them. But there is always one advantage of doing bookmarking. It will give a good and quality backlink to your site. Specially Digg. I love working with Digg than other SB sites. It is really helpful to get inner pages of your site with higher PR.
Hi Sue,
So even if a bookmarked site is rubbish, but the bookmarker has loads of contacts then they will be top??? Sorry to ask a stupid question..
Andy
The problem with social bookmarking sites is that most users care more about getting their stories to the first page than about the quality of those stories. At this point it’s mostly based on building a large group of friends and not neccesary finding interesting content.
I haven’t heard of Diigo. Digg is my favourite. Many people are using social bookmarking sites for getting traffic.
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About Social bookmark I use delicious so far,I found this bookmarking at most forum where I work for.so after make a post all you have to do just click that out and bingo,all my post is posted at bookmark for better Visibility
So even if a bookmarked site is rubbish, but the bookmarker has loads of contacts then they will be top??? Sorry to ask a stupid question..
Wow – I am a big social media user, but have never heard of Diigo! Will be sure to check it out.
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Wow…I never knew half of the information on here about bookmarking and delicious…Thanks expanding my sense of know how.
I really like Furl; somehow the interface seems really pleasant to use and the groups, categories, and community features are really nice.
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nice information
Good informative post about bookmarking. Recently Furl absorbed by Diigo.
i’ve become a recent convert to social bookmarking over the past month. really started because i wanted to be able to access my bookmarks from multiple computers that i work on. never heard of diigo until i saw that they took over furl. will have to check them out.
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I have to agree with web design Miami: “The problem with social bookmarking sites is that most users care more about getting their stories to the first page than about the quality of those stories. At this point it’s mostly based on building a large group of friends and not necessary finding interesting content.” These sites, services and plugins are good for generating web traffic but there is to much focus on pumping up traffic with tricks than with quality content. As Thomas Paine once wrote, “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.”
?Great Post Thanx.
I’d never thought of trying Diigo and didn’t realise it tied up with Delicious. I have loads of bookmarks on my Delicious site and I’d hate to loose ‘em. Thanks for the info Sue!
You’re like the 4th person who said this. It seems more and more people are leaving delicious to switch to diggo. Now I really have to review both.
I dont use diggo… there are only so many SN sites you can spend time on – it already takes up a disproportionate amount of my time.
I’ve only looked the bookmarking site “Digg” but I’ve heard of delicious. I didn’t realise that these bookmarking sites were so popular?! They seem really useful.. I’ve been missing out
I have used social bookmarking sites like Digg to help get more traffic, and they do work for that. But I have heard, and learned, that they aren’t really good for making sales.
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Thats right i believe the digg like sites only send you unwanted visitors, its hard to get sales from this type visitor category
Thank you for such an informative post. All I have been able to find online about this is junk compared to your posting.
diigo is awesome. use it all the time.
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I’m trying to promote my website by social bookmarking the content on my site? Which social bookmarking site should I spend my time on? And does anyone have any tips on the best practices or strategies for this type of search engine optimization?
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I always forget to do backups, or am I just too lazy, and I postpone it for later….:-(
Don’t wait too long like I did or you may end up losing a whole lot of work. I made a few changes and managed to mess up a couple of my databases, I hadn’t done a back-up in forever and lost about 6 months worth of work! Now I back up every week without fail.
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Yes i agree diigo is awesome. i use it all the time.
I never knew half of the information on here about bookmarking and delicious
do people even still do social bookmarking? i never got into it and havent heard much of it lately o_o
Thanks !! very helpful plugin
I’m totally lost! I don’t know how to save my bookmarks in html. I’ve tried all that I know and none of it works
We can find and add friends in dig and stumble on sites. So that we will get more visitors to communicate. Its really true.
A lot of people are still into social bookmarking sites. Specially those who are tired of the non-relevant search engine results. Aside from that a lot of people were used to it ever since it started.
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Sue Hey, Obrigado por esclarecer isso para mim. Sua explicação é realmente muito bom sobre a diferença relativa a estes serviços.
Thanks for sharing
Oops!!! Sorry,I wrote my comment in Portuguese. I didn’t mean to do it, Here is the comment in english:
Hey Sue, Thanks for clarify this to me. Your explanation is indeed very good on the difference on these services.
Thanks for sharing
i love submitting on socialbookmarking sites it give me good rankings especially on high page rank bookmarks sites. it also gives me huge traffic.
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hi
good sharing
thanks for info
What are the Popular Website Bookmarking, Rating & Ranking Services?
hi
good sharing
all
new year
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Part of the process is finding a bookmark site that works well for you. Each has its own features and stylistic differences.
I relay on set and forget automatic backups otherwise I would forget to do it or put it off.
I thing digg is the best
Thanks for the great share! Much appreciation.
I haven’t try bookmarking pages but as what I have read it sounds like and I think it’s important to have bookmark especially when you are having a research works, etc…
Bookmarking can also help in your ranking.
I do love to learn how to do bookmarkings..
Thanks for the post and thank you for sharing!!!
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That site Ma.gnolia seems they are going threw a relaunch phase or something…
Till then,
Jean
I can say that social bookmartking is the necessary marketing method nowadays – without it it’s impossible to make effective web promotion in the Internet:)
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