Advice needed in regard to Stumbleupon

[Swerve1000]

I've been swapping 'Stumbles' with a lot of people today and getting stumbled back in return.

I doubt any of my 2 sites have been stumbled before up to this point.

Am I putting myself at any risk in doing this?

By going from 0 stumbles to say 20 in one single day (me giving out 20 and perhaps receiving 20 as well).

Kinda new to this kind of promotion, so don't want to make any mistakes.

Thanks.

[Peggy]

uummmm... what is Stumbleupon?

[Big Dan]

uummmm... what is Stumbleupon?

http://www.stumbleupon.com/about.html

It's a pretty neat concept, I like the idea and even used it for a while but my browser only has room for so many toolbars. :)

[Peggy]

Thanks Dan. Well hmmmm... isn't that interesting.

[John]

I had a look at this site yesterday and happeed to stumble across dozens of excellent and interesting sites. I won't be putting anything in my browser bar, but I have bookmarked the site for future reference...

[nymyth]

yeah I came across the a few weeks back and have seen some people coming our via it....its a nifty little site

[Peggy]

I bookmarked it. I can't stand extra toolbars crowding my browser.

[Caddyman]

very cool site, i use it, find all kind of neat stuff there.......i have a writeup kinda on social bookmarking here

http://www.talkdelaware.com/anyone-social-bookmark-t2059.html?t=2059&highlight=bookmarking

found this site with stumbleupon, genius
http://www.dontclick.it/

[qryztufre]

I think it's worth the added effort... and stumbling can actually be fun. I have the google bar & the stumble bar, and that's it.

I encourage my members to stumble any pages that they like, as that brings in potentially new members, and we all need that :D

The down side to stumble can be bandwidth & HORRIBLE CTR on ads. The plus side is getting the word out about a new site...though, you better be thumbing up GOOD threads or it does little or nothing.

My advice is to start a HUMOR thread on whatever your forum is about and exchange stumbles with that. Fun and funny sites tend to have better "liked it" clicks and as such have a better chance at going viral.

Another method, which has actually brought in more members then funny threads has been to give a thumbs up to threads that deal with very specific categories within my Niche. My site is on the occult, and I have a thread that translated a few spells in the Necronomicon, and that has actually generated two new members from stumble (and one from Google).

I have found that stumbling just my main index or my portal index results in maybe 10 or 15 hits from stumble then it just dies off.

_____________________

Indirectly promote your site with STUMBLE!

In awstats, or analytics, or whatever, find pages that link to your site, and stumble them! This works best if you can find a thread linking to your site, or a page with some type of content. I have a feeling that when you stumble too many pages from one site stumble starts to down grade your stumble power. By giving a bigger range of stumbles it would counter that on some level, and may result in helping you our more then you know.

This idea is based partly on LZZR linking techniques, though I came up with it before I had a name for it. *shrug*

[Big Dan]

I just removed Google's toolbar, I may have to get stumble.

[Caddyman]

i have google and stumble at home, stumble is cool, you can find really cool sites with it....sometimes.

[qryztufre]

i have google and stumble at home, stumble is cool, you can find really cool sites with it....sometimes.


I know I just posted, but I thought something needed to be stressed in your post so I'll say it again a bit louder ;)

...sometimes.

:D

I've found some AWESOME sites via stumble, I've also stumbled over some spam...but then I guess I blame myself partly for that via a few stumble exchanges *innocent whistle* overall though, yes, some fantastic pages can be found.

[Big Dan]

How long until it becomes ruined by our fellow webmasters?


Let me explain, more than a few sites have been ruined by webmasters trying to game them to gain back links or traffic. Look at MySpace, every profile editor and little "awesome" thing for your profile includes a link back to the site. The webmaster is attempting to game the system with backlinks. You average MySpacer don't know how to remove the crap, they just blindly copy/paste the code.

Del.icio.us also has many webmasters with accounts just for linkage purposes -- Some webmasters are brazen enough to post for link exchanges on forums and sell accounts. :eek:

Digg: Unless you're one of the in crowd or your site is submitted by one of the in crowd people you're not making it any where near the front page.

Sorry to sound so negative; I'm all for webmasters promoting their sites in a respectable manner but gaming the system is wrong.

[qryztufre]

Digg runs algorithms to find Digg exchanges, so those don't count all that much.

Craig's List shuns most spammers as scammers.

Myspace & Wiki have both gone NOFOLLOW

And if I am not mistaken, a verified stumble from an honest to goodness stumbler will get you 400 hits where as a stumble exchange will maybe get you 40. At least when I stumbled my own page I saw a spike of 40 new impressions. Another page got stumbled naturally and gove close to 500 impressions.

I hope upon hope that was some how planned and not just some random thing. Thier FAQ does say it has some built in protections against webmasters promoting their own sites. Though I assume that this is partly gotten around via the exchanges...but I do think they are keeping it in mind.