StumbleUpon Kills Direct Links, iFrames Everything

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 installed.

Here is a video StumbleUpon released about the new changes:

One particular change that really surprised me was the removal of all direct links pointing back to the content sources from within StumbleUpon.

Instead on all content pages within StumbleUpon, you have a single button saying ‘Stumble This’, which when clicked takes you to an iframed version of the content.

Not only are they now iframing all content from the site, but if your logged into StumbleUpon, they are not even offering a way to remove the iframed toolbar, leaving you in stuck in the iframed version of the site. If you are not logged in, then there is an option to click X in the right side of the toolbar to remove it.

What is even more surprising is the lack of uprise from the tech industry and marketers on this recent change. When Digg did the same thing by launching their DiggBar, the tech industry was up in arms and the DiggBar even had an option to close, which StumbleUpon’s version does not.

Additionally not a week or two before the change, a StumbleUpon employee discussed with me how happy they were that StumbleUpon pages had so much SEO value for the content owners… well not anymore.

Maybe the iframe concerns people had a few years ago are just a thing of the past, as even Digg re-launched their DiggBar once they saw StumbleUpon get away with it. I for one find it annoying and unnecessary, especially without the ability to remove the toolbar.