Creating a Social Network for Links (oh, and networking)

MySpace. Facebook. LinkedIn.

Yesterday's news from an SEO point of view.

The use of redirection, no html in posting, nofollow, or whatever other methods that these and similar social networks are using is making them less valid for search engine optimization. They still draw some traffic depending on what you're using it for, but in reality, they don't help making your own websites rise in the rankings.

Social bookmarks are still currently strong, but it's time to to hedge bets and go somewhere between the blogs and the social bookmarking sites. It's time for personal social networks.

What is it? A personal social network is one that is created by an individual or company using Ning, Goingon, or one of the many emerging websites that offer the service. You create a site, formatting it as a blog, an RSS site, a commenting or forum site, or just about whatever you want from it.

You invite people or get found on its own merits. People can join, post photos, videos, articles, or whatever you want your people to be able to post.

I will show you Ning in this post. I created a few myself, but my focus is on Automotive Network. Searches for "Car Dealer Social Network" or "Auto Dealers Social Network" on Google will show that it is currently #1 as of the time of this post. The site itself has only been up for a couple of months.

Through the blog posts, through the editable text boxes, a good SEO can really create some strong, relevant links on a separate server that are under the website owner's control. It's a brilliant method from the perspective that it serves two purposes -- you can create the links with ideal anchor text and you can find like-minded people who can become partners, collaborators, contributors, or even customers.

Car dealers like Toyota Portland and Glendale Nissan will be able to connect with their customers and connections in return by building their own social networks.

Any business, automotive or not, will be able to have their own website that can rank well for their brand name (if optimized) and push down any negative blogs or reviews that also show up for the company name.

Of course, there is a cost. Time. From a financial perspective, it's perfect. It's free.




SEO with Social Media

Social Bookmarking Profile: Shadows

What is it?

Social bookmarking community, with the last word stressed. It does't have nearly the benefits that can be achieved through Digg or some of the others, but it is more enjoyable and the conversations are engrossing.

Strengths

It is extremely well organized. The pages, groups, and profiles are interesting. There are 4 links that can be placed on the profile, plus more links can be added into the biography itself. The profile page can be made into a strong linking page with enough room for lots of content.

Weaknesses

It takes a while to get indexed often and even longer to get the links page itself indexed. You can put a ton of links on the link pages, but the ones on the profile, if it is updated regularly, are the ones that can have the most effect because the profile will be indexed more often and can gain a stronger relevance through content.

Nofollow

No nofollow yet. Until the spammers find it, it should stay that way for a while.

Conclusions

Shadow takes the mundane out of social bookmarking. There is a strong sense of internet community here, so there can be real fun in doing it. I suspect it also throws some small measure of traffic towards its sites, though nothing like going popular on Digg.

Here is my Shadow Profile.





Social Bookmarking for SEO

An Outside View -- Social Bookmarking Sites Rated

In my attempts to rate and classify the best bookmarking sites and ability to be used in search engine optimization, I was searching to see how my blog was ranking on the subject when I found another site that was similar.

Mine (of course) ranked higher for the term that I searched, but this is more of a generic, loosely focused site that delves in depth with one article on the ideas and concepts presented on this blog.

While I want to be known as the expert on the topic and a pioneer in the field, it never hurts to give credit to those who have also worked hard to determine the validity of this before it becomes more of a trend.

So, I will submit my first external link to a site with which I am in mild competition. Those versed in SEO will balk at this, as there are many reasons to now want to link to a "competitor", but after reading this article and others on the site, I felt it was definitely a resource for readers of this blog.

There is no shame in accepting that someone else is also doing a good job.

To read their article, please click HERE.

Social Bookmarking SEO

Social Bookmarking Profile: Digg

Digg is changing the world of news as we know it. If anyone is ever interested in what's hot in the world at that particular moment, just check out Digg. It's topics are wide ranging and they vary in scope from the war on terror to tips for cooking on the grill.

What is it?

Digg is the grandpappy of the social bookmarking sites. Started by Kevin Rose, it allows people to submit stories from pages on the internet. These submissions are placed in a constantly updated pool of stories for others to "Digg" (vote up) or "Sink" (vote down).

An algorithm looks at the Diggs and decides which ones are to go "Popular", or be placed on the coveted 1st page. Many servers have crashed by the exponential increase in traffic from making it to the front page of Digg.

Strengths

No other site has the instantaneous effect that Digg can have on a popular story. From a SMO point of view, it is the light at the end of the tunnel, as traffic is guaranteed. From an SEO point of view, the links can be strong when a Digg from a high PR/TR user is indexed at the right moment.

Getting Dugg well is a guarantee for indexing.

Weaknesses

It takes a lot of effort, Digging other people's stories, making friends, and luck to go popular. Above all else, it takes interesting stories, videos, or articles. Still, having the best written piece ever is no guarantee without some help from friends. If a story doesn't get Dugg quickly by a few people, within the first hour or so, it is doomed to sink to obscurity.

Some Diggers have a strong enough base of friends and reputation to post articles on about C-Span and go popular. This is a flaw in the system, but it also helps. It is possible for someone to go on, post a single story, and have it go popular. I've seen it happen. I've also heard about people winning the lottery, though I never seem to get close.

Nofollow

Digg has held strong and not adopted the dreaded nofollow attribute.

Conclusions

Anyone who wants to get into SMO must get into Digg. It's the Google of social bookmarking.

More about SEO can be found on Automotive SEO, a specialized blog about search engine optimization for car dealers.




Social Bookmarking

Power to the Diggers: How Nofollow Hurts Social Bookmarkers

In an effort to fight comment spam -- a tactic used by Search Engine Optimizers to build link popularity for their websites -- Google established the "nofollow" tag. It eliminates the "juice" that a link gives to its website. Spammers can post hundreds of comments on dozens of websites and receive no benefit for its search rankings.

Over the last several months, several social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us and reddit have adopted this same technique in an effort to keep spammers from populating their website with a ton of junk. The thought is that SEOs will stop using the service and that only those who really want to post interesting things that they "found" will be able to have an impact.

It doesn't work and here's why:

1) The social media optimization boom has made spamming even more useful than it ever was for straight SEO. The services normally offer easy to install and use buttons, so there is no wasting time.

2) Many SEOs don't even check for nofollow, either because they believe what many of the forums are saying about how nofollow is a myth, or out of sheer ignorance.

3) SEO spammers need multiple sites from which to link, not multiple links on a site. Once they have placed their link, they move on to the next website. Eliminating the occasional 1 tag is nowhere near the epidemic of social media optimization, where build a friends network and creating multiple accounts has SMOs systematically tagging each page of their sites over a long period of time and voting for their friends in hopes of a recipricol vote on their own.

Now, this all seems fine, but why would a standard non-SEO, non-SMO care about any of this? They do not care about placement, though most like to see their stories make it to the front page of their favorite bookmarking site.

The dilemma lies in credit. Many people find something interesting and want to share it. If they share something that others like, it goes popular.

Everyone has heard of the tremendous instant boost in website traffic when it makes it to the front page. Wouldn't it be nice to also bestow some of this "glory" for future people to see through the search engines? Once a website leaves the front page, things go back to normal for its traffic. If the link juice were also applied, as it is with Digg, Furl, and Listible, then people's vote would be more than just on that website. It would count across the net through its effects on search engines.

I am a fan of nofollow. True SEOs don't need to spam forums and blog comments to get their websites ranked. Still, I do believe that all social bookmarking sites should remove nofollow and keep up with the times.




Social Optimization