Online social bookmarking sites facilitate content distribution, and the apparent benefit is quick indexing and referral generation. If you save links on a large number of sites you are creating web saturation, and this is certainly helpful when search engines notice your website link on several platforms on the World Wide Web.
Earlier web directory submission helped in web saturation, but this is unacceptable now and is considered spam in most cases. This also applies to article sites, and blogs meant purely for advertisement, these are known as link farms. Social Bookmarking of favorites are also used for later reference by users and are not necessary for any optimization benefit. This is a good way of collecting and sharing published materials online for later use, or pure reading pleasure. Once you save content as favorites you will be able to dig them out when you want before they are lost on the SERP.
How much does social bookmarking help in SEO or search engine optimization?
This is a riddle that has gone unanswered but years of using bookmarks have certainly resulted in projects having immense success on the SERPs. I am sure the link embedded in the content piece is acknowledged by the search engines but most of these links are nofollowed by the hosting sites. Hence the benefit accrued leads to greater information being indexed about the linked page by the search engines and no more. If the bookmark of a favorite is frequently visited it may result in a good chance of referral which is akin to lead generation. Most of the sites provide options to create a good title to enhance the CTR rate. Click-through rate is one of the 200 metrics taken into the account for ranking on SERPs.
While saving the web page or content link one should use the facility to optimize the link by suitably categorizing, and adding descriptions and keywords. Optimizing a bookmark will help immensely in the link being found during the search. For a successful social bookmarking experience a critical mass or a certain threshold is a must, hence saving a lot many favorites pertaining to a niche after they are properly optimized and categorized.
You can also post favorite links to social media networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Wakelet, Tumblr, and Pinterest. In this case, regular posting will lead to reputation building, and exposure to the links and create loads of trust. This is very useful for digital marketing campaigns and the social signals generated by the published content can lead to SEO but these metrics are assumed to be significant. Similar benefits can arise from publishing videos on YouTube, Vimeo, etc You must create a playlist organizing topic-related videos in a playlist. Relevancy is very important in SEO in digital marketing. Search engines are confused in absence of proper categorization of the saved links, and many never respond with placement on the SERP. These sites are useful for content curation as well and content creators refer to them frequently to enrich their blogs and websites. They are also useful for visual contenting by offering the visitors to discover more than just creatives.
Popular Bookmarking Sites
Several sites provide an option for saving favorites but most preferred are the likes of social media especially Pinterest with 85 million users. Important links can be posted to LinkedIn and Facebook for storage under the profile and can be shared or accessed whenever desired.
- Diigo
- Medium
- Blinklist
- Folkd
- Instapaper
- Rainbow
- Paperscan
- Scoop.It
- Slashdot
- Dribble
- Plurk
- Fark
- Bibsonomy
- PearlTrees
Many Social bookmarking sites are hybrids, they provide social networking and content publishing opportunities. These are most suited for content curation and social networking. Many platforms boast of saving links that are “dofollow” but then these are paid. For webmasters, social bookmarking is a must and this practice of saving links should be a regular practice.