Turns out, StumbleUpon is getting regular requests each week from people asking for it to remove links to their sites, people who are worried that being linked to from a popular and long-standing social media sharing site is somehow hurting them with Google. The linksanity sadly continues. Every since Google stepped up its attack on bad links last year, in particular with its Penguin Update, there's been panic in some quarters about getting links removed. But it's not about removing all links. It's about removing bad links, and I wouldn't count StumbleUpon as one of the sites you should wor [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Disavow Links Tool | Google: Penguin Update | StumbleUpon | Top News

On Wednesday, Feb 1, 2012, we published an article discussing some changes StumbleUpon made during their recent redesign which removed source links from their content pages and forced all users to view content from the site through an iframed toolbar, which they could not close if they were logged in. One of the things I have always really loved about StumbleUpon is that unlike many social communities, they listen to their users and always try to move the site forward based on user feedback and testing. After publishing the story, StumbleUpon reached out to me in an effort to explai [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Search Headlines | StumbleUpon

Story Update: February 3, 2012 - StumbleUpon Responds To Concerns About Links & Iframing StumbleUpon, who happens to be one of the more popular and successful social media sites with over 20 million users (doubling from 10 million in about a year and a half), recently launched one of the biggest redesigns I can remember… basically changing everything about the site as a whole. Having recently removed blogs, themes, and groups off the site, the new changes continue to move away from any focus on the site and more towards getting users back into the toolbar, whether iframed or i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Search Headlines | StumbleUpon

Social discovery service StumbleUpon has released a new infographic looking at the "half-life" of content shared via its service versus Twitter and Facebook. Rather than being visible for only a few hours, StumbleUpon's chart argues that content shared on its network gets attention for days. While the infographic comes from StumbleUpon, and so you'd expect it to be favorable to the company, the longevity of content being shared on the service is well known. Below, the half-life stats and related information: Want the infographic for yourself? You'll find it here: Life Cycle Of A Web [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Infographics | StumbleUpon

Paid Discovery campaigns on StumbleUpon will be getting smarter as of today.  StumbleUpon has announced the addition of something called "interest optimization" that will help advertisers reach relevant audiences.  Previously advertisers had the option to choose categories manually, or set up automatic campaigns (where StumbleUpon would choose set categories for you.)  With 'interest optimization' campaigns won't be stuck to just the categories that are chosen.  Optimization will occur to find other relevant categories that may have been missed by advertisers. For example, if we submit [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Social Media Marketing | StumbleUpon

Social search and discovery site StumbleUpon has announced a new milestone: The site recently surpassed 20 million users. The company's announcement is filled with some interesting stats that show its growth since launching as a Firefox add-on back in 2002: StumbleUpon now serves as many "stumbles" in one hour as it did during its first year. At peak activity, there are more than 1,000 stumbles per second. The user base has doubled from 10 million members in May 2010 to today's announcement of 20 million members. There's also a chart showing many of the site's milestones over th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Stats: General | Stats: Size | StumbleUpon

After about a month of testing with a select group of users, StumbleUpon today has rolled out its Explore Box -- a new tool that adds a search layer to the site's popular, but sometimes quite random, content discovery. It can be accessed at www.stumbleupon.com/explore or, if you're logged in, at the StumbleUpon home page. The Explore Box takes StumbleUpon's existing list of about 500 pre-selected content topics and essentially throws it out the window -- almost any keyword can now be stumbled/explored as if it were a topic. As an example, I'm a U2 fan, and under the existing Topics/In [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | StumbleUpon | Top News

Some StumbleUpon users have been opted in to a new feature that seems to be aimed at helping them search and find interesting web pages more easily. StumbleUpon calls it their "Explore Box" and, if you're part of the test, it can be accessed at www.stumbleupon.com/explore. The page, shown above, is currently very Googley with its spartan layout that only includes the StumbleUpon logo and a search box. It functions similarly to the search/explore box that can be enabled on the StumbleUpon toolbar, with one noticeable difference. The Explore search box shows suggested topics as you t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | StumbleUpon

The mystery of how and where articles, information, graphics, and more are shared online has been something to plague both marketers and content creators alike. Catering your information towards your target audience and where they share it most is crucial to producing content that spreads like wildfire online. Linkbait tactics would be without effectiveness if it wasn’t for the social media networks that make it irresistible to share. Even though some linkbait-crafted content spreads fast without preference to a certain social network, it is a fairly common fact that different social [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Search & Social | StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon has just launched a new ad platform that it's targeting toward brand advertisers. It's called StumbleUpon Paid Discovery and it offers additional features and analytics, along with a higher cost than the existing StumbleUpon ad program. Paid Discovery has two price options: 10 cents or 25 cents per visitor, compared to five cents under the existing ad offering. But the extra cost includes priority ad serving -- campaigns at the higher price levels that have deadlines will be served before other sponsored content. Another difference with Paid Discovery is the ability to show ads [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Search Marketing: General | StumbleUpon

Facebook and Twitter are getting most of the ink, attention and money of late in the social media world. However StatCounter indicates that the venerable StumbleUpon has now become a larger social media referrer than either Facebook or Twitter. Here's the data, showing StumbleUpon with a 43 percent share of social media referrals, while Facebook has 38 percent according to StatCounter:   Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Social Media Market Share This may be momentary or it may hold up over time. But it's a surprise. Webmasters, agencies/marketers and developers: are you [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Search Engines: Social Search Engines | StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon, the web content discovery site that uses ratings from users to form collaborative opinions on website quality, has improved its video discovery process. Users can now watch, rate and share videos from multiple sites, including YouTube, Hulu, Vimeo, CollegeHumor and TED, as well as discover and watch their friends’ favorite videos and recommend videos. StumbleUpon Video uses dozens of matching techniques to deliver personalized video content. The service is also designed to learn from your activity and get more closely aligned with your preferences over time. Want to know m [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon wants to be a search engine. Kind of. It also wants to be more like Twitter and Facebook. Kind of. Better search and better social elements are the two cornerstones of StumbleUpon's new web site, which was announced this week and will roll out to all during the next month. There's no doubt the site looks better. Beyond the cleaner layout, StumbleUpon says its new features include: search for sites within your own favorites search your friend's favorites improved friend search capabilities improved site navigation improved navigation within user profiles There a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Search Engines: Social Search Engines | StumbleUpon

The DiggBar has been out for about a week now. Since then, there continues to be concerns over twin issues of whether it robs sites of link love and frames their contents in a way that's unfair to publishers. I had a good conversation with Digg cofounder Kevin Rose today about these issues and how Digg is actively looking at ways to solve worries over the tool. For those unfamiliar with the DiggBar, it allows people to create a short URL that's useful in services like Twitter. Anyone clicking on a shortened URL made through Digg gets to a page with a DiggBar at the top. For example, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Facebook | Features: Analysis | Google: Images | Legal: Copyright | Search Engines: Digg | SEO: Redirects & Moving Sites | Social Media Marketing | StumbleUpon | Toolbars & Add-Ons | Top News | Twitter

Like search? Who doesn't -- great traffic, huge brand value and an audience ready to convert. Like social media? What's not to like -- huge growth, tons of buzz and an entire new marketing frontier that is opening up. For the search marketer looking at social media, how does it measure up? Which social media sites are most "search like?" This article looks at the issue and tries to chart it all out for easy comparison. To answer, let's start with some definitions. The terms "social media" and "social media site" are often used to describe web sites and online services that can be radically [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Features: Analysis | How To: SEM | Social Media Marketing | StumbleUpon | Top News

The past few weeks have been busy for the people over at StumbleUpon and its users alike. Just a few weeks ago, StumbleUpon lifted the 200 friend max from its user base and added a subscribe feature. On Wednesday my favorite social community announced that there were yet more changes to their discovery/recommendation engine. This new user experience is being called "beyond the toolbar". Not only do you not need to download a toolbar, but you actually don't even need to be registered with StumbleUpon to stumble anymore. This is really a "new user" experience. Let's check it out. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Features: General | Social Media Marketing | StumbleUpon

The title of this article doesn't mean I'm changing my position on social media as link driver. Yes, it's possible, but for the overwhelming majority of web sites, a widespread and costly social linking strategy is a waste of time and money. Go ahead, call me a heretic, but inside you know I'm right. If the site is this one for adult diapers then really, what's the social media end game? Sure, you could write a blog post or article like "Ten Uses For Adult Diapers you Never Thought Of" or "Five Sexiest Senior Citizens Naked," and sure, it might just make it to the Digg homepage, where not [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Link Building | Link Building: Linkbait | Link Week | SEO: Spamming | Social Media Marketing | StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon Expands Social Search Across the Web from TechCrunch reports StumbleUpon has expanded their toolbar from enhancing Google, Yahoo, or Windows Live search results to now also include AOL, Ask.com, Google News, Yahoo News, Flickr, Wikipedia, and YouTube. That means, if you use the StumbleUpon and search at YouTube, you will see "SearchReviews" with a star ratings feature, friend recommendations, friend reviews and so on. Future integrations include sites such as eBay and Skype. More details at the StumbleUpon Blog. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | StumbleUpon

The closing session for the first day of SMX Social Media is a keynote conversation with Joshua Schachter of del.icio.us & Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon. We're going to learn more about the landscape and future of social networking. More coverage at Search Engine Roundtable and Search Engine Journal. Garrett is up first. He cofounded StumbleUpon six years ago. For the first four years, they were based in Canada, then moved to the company to Silicon Valley. The company was recently bought by eBay. Danny mentioned a NY Times quote that said just because people stop watching TV in favor being on [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Social Media Marketing | StumbleUpon | Yahoo: Delicious

I'm back for more live blogging of SMX Social Media. This session is all about social bookmarking and tagging. You can categorize and share information using things like De.licio.us, StumbleUpon, and Technorati. This panel includes Guillaume Bouchard of NVI, Michael Gray of Atlas Web Services, and Neil Patel of ACS. Coverage is also up at Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Roundtable. Guillaume notes that you can leverage social networks. Once your story is on one, you may be able to use that to get to another. For instance, if your site is submitted to Digg, people might see it and b [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Social Media Marketing | StumbleUpon | Yahoo: Delicious