Is it ethical to use multiple social bookmarking sites for SEO?

Ummm… where's the article?

Hey,

I don't know if it is totally ethical,

but it should help to be page 1 on google

at record time…period

Dan

Hello Rick,

I don't see how the practice of using multiple social bookmarking sites could be in any way considered unethical. Supposedly, you're just posting an informative article or your personal opinion on a particular subject. How could that be considered wrong by anyone?

What about people that are in to article marketing? They write articles and then post them to many of the popular article directories. Many of those articles, at least the good ones, are then republished on other people's websites for content. I don't think anyone would consider that practice to be unethical, do you?

To me, unethical means that you're doing something to cheat or deceive people. Like telling someone they can get a free trial for Internet service, but once the free trial is over, start charging them monthly and make it nearly impossible for them to cancel the service. I think AOL did a lot of this sort of thing and I consider that unethical.

Carson Danfield

I didn't give MY opinion on the matter in this article.

(for the guy who asked where the article is you have to click MORE for the full thing - but then if you are reading this you are here anyway… sigh…)

I want to see what my readers' opinons are on this as it was stated on another site NOT to do this but to put your efforts into getting ONE social bookmarking site to rank for your terms.

I promise to let you know my 2 cents worth about Conversation Domination soon, don't I always?

Rick Butts

Hey Rick!

You know what I think would be even more valuable than Howie showing us how he got those top spots on google? It would be seeing what all that adds up to in hits and traffic.

More importantly, where the hits actually come from - because according to my own work and secondary research…Google just isn't delivering the traffic anymore.

The reason why is in the following surfer analysis…(excerpted from Strategic Social Marketing, 2007)

The Online Publishers Association Internet Activity Index (2007), classifies and documents web surfer activity. At the time of writing, here is the average time surfers gave to each of these four activities:

1. Searching for information 5%

2. Commerce (shopping) 16.1%

3. Content (news, information, and entertainment) 45.5%

4. Communications (engaging in communication) 33.7%

Don't miss the way OPAI describes these activities or you'll find yourself thinking that your one way content delivery is still a viable way to attract and hold eyeballs on your website…

Content – Sites that provide news, information and entertainment (given the entertainment qualification of this category and based on comScore's research above, most of this percentage could in fact be Web 2.0).

Communications – Sites that facilitate the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information directly between individuals or groups of individuals. (definitely web 2.0)

Commerce - Sites that are designed for shopping online. (some of both)

Search - Sites that provide prioritized results based on user-generated requests.

—- end of excerpt —-

I think Web 2.0 does FAR more than get good Google results - it's actually delivering the traffic from the sites your target market are already frequenting.

Cheers, Laura

Rick,

I watched Howie's video on Oct. 9 and thought it was very interesting. So I decided to conduct an experiment. I signed up for new accounts on 3 of the sites he used in his example. I configured the accounts and posted a couple of times in each, then I waited.

Ten days later and I have one top ten listing in Google, one top twenty in Yahoo, and one top twenty in MSN. And, all 3 sites are not fully indexed yet.

What's funny is that my main site that is over 3 months old (and more than 150 incoming links according to Yahoo) doesn't have rankings this high.

Bottom line is, IT WORKS (… and I didn't even buy into the program, I'm just guessing at what to do).

As far as the ethical dilemma, I agree with Carson. It is much akin to article marketing. Nothing wrong with it. However, just like any form of SEO, it can be abused.

My personal preference (and what I am attempting to do with my new found knowledge) is to post different articles on each site so they are not mere clones. In doing so maybe they would be of some use instead of just being a waste of time to any potential visitor.

Derrick Walker

Hey Derrick -

Thanks for dropping by and leaving your experimental data.

The information you used to get these great results is just the tip of the iceberg of what Howie knows and teaches - how can you resist signing up to get access to it all?

Thanks!
Rick Butts