Social bookmarks, Digg, Del.icio.us, Stumble and other ways to show your appreciation of web content and values

The world takes it for granted that millions of web publishers create content valued at may be several Trillion US$. Tutorials, recipes, wallpapers, teachings for all needs, howtos of most complex technical nature, open source software or freeware of great benefit for hundreds of Millions of Internet users - all for free. In modern world it is normal that all things of value received are free and all services given bring maximum salary.

However without revenue there is no content. Even Google and all other major search engines enjoyed by Millions each and every day to search AND FIND what we need in our lives need Millions or Billions of $ annual revenue to invest and maintain what we all enjoy.

There are things we publishers can buy with money - there are things no money can buy. Help on the open source developer, bug fix, and software testing scenes for example. But that is for highly qualified professionals only.

But there there also is something of great value every average surfer can do for web sites they love! If you have a few web sites, enjoy and / or use their content of whatever kind. The you can help to create natural true back links for those web sites you enjoy.

Here a few examples that cost zero cents to you, except a very few minutes of your precious time:

1. Social bookmarks is one such method to "vote" for web sites or particular pages you love.
2. Digg is another online service used entirely to vote for popular content
3. Your own web site or blog with links or published comments about particular online pages, information or web sites of your preference
4. Stumble another service used by many

Let's briefly review some of these a.m. "vote" systems for web sites you love:

Social bookmarks is your way to share with the world pages or sites you love. The results of such bookmarks are public and thus the major search engines "see" from the number of people who have a particular website in their social bookmarks how popular a particular page or site is.

Such social bookmarks may already be included in your Google account, myspace, facebook or other social online web sites. If you are just a surfer and have neither a blog, web site nor a social bookmark account, then you may have to actually create an account first before being able / allowed to "vote" for a site. Such registration is most simple and seldom takes more than a minute or two.

3 of the most popular social bookmark sites are

• Del.icio.us ( Yahoo )
• Google
• Digg

While del.icio.us and Google bookmarks just add to the reputation of a web site or web page - Digg actually may bring some real additional traffic and thus a Digg vote may bring additional return value to the site owner. In long terms, over years to come all 3 may be of comparable value. The key benefit may be now or later that sites with high appreciation by surfers = high number of votes from as many as possible real surfers - may rank higher in the major search engine results and thus such sites may receive more or much more generic traffic from search engines!

Have a look at some of a.m. social bookmark and voting services

If you see on top of most my pages, such as here in my blog. The you see below the sponsor advertising unit displayed above the fold on top of the page the following:

Left side a link saying Advertise on this site and to the right of that link you see a small icon - widget - with a small white cross ( swiss flag ) and the word "BOOKMARK" on it. If you move your mouse pointer on top of that "BOOKMARK" icon, then you see a small drop down menu with a number of social bookmark services. Each of the bookmark services displayed is a direct link to "vote for the PAGE" you are currently viewing in your browser!

For example if you click Digg - and that PAGE is already registered with Digg server, then all you have to do is to register/sign up for your Digg account ONCE and then "vote" for that page or any future page. If you have already a Digg account and are logged in, then you simple click ONCE on the small icon "Digg" to add your "vote of appreciation" to the Digg server. Digg server prevents you from voting more than ONCE for one particular page to strictly avoid abuse.

Now that you have already a Digg account, you may also add a social bookmark account. Chose whatever server you prefer or use regularly. Live = Microsoft, Google obviously Google search, and Del.icio.us = Yahoo. So if you already use any of above eMail accounts, then you simply may add a social bookmark account to the server of your own preference. Else chose one of the 2 most popular Del.icio.us or Google or try whatever you love. Of course you may have accounts with all or several bookmark servers listed. But keep in mind that your own time also is precious and focus on your own duty and work above all. to have a Digg account and one social bookmark account normally should be enough for a single person!

One very efficient way to vote using Digg is the Digg Firefox Extension. Once that Digg extension is installed in your Firefox browser, then the Digg menu will appear in the browser's top menu as you see below:

If the page you are currently surfing in Firefox is already registered with Digg, then the Digg Firefox Extension will show the number of Diggs as in the example photo above taken from my Blog's start page.

There are moire addons for Firefox available. May be you take a few minutes to surf and search the 1000+ addons and plugins for my preferred browser.

Besides Alexa Sparky, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, OPML support, Google toolbar for firefox, Wizz RSS news reader, web developer, I also have a number of special search engines - see small right upper search field - installed. Search engines like Webster, translations into various languages, dictionaries from various languages and many more. All add ons that make my life easier by contributing to a more efficient and time consuming professional work.

Major search engines such as Google catch all newly registered bookmarks or Digg entries within a very few days and soon later such new votes and bookmark entries become a valuable asset for your most preferred sites. Needless to say that the very few minutes such an original bookmark/Digg sign-up and the seconds for each additional vote are tiny compared to the thousands of working hours each and every professional web publisher invests ...

An investment for a better future of all mankind by sharing all available information of all kind with all word to make knowledge and expertise freely available to you and all your loved ones and children. To make future incarnations on this planet more successful and more happy for those who love to or need to reincarnate again before returning home to God.

For which pages or sites should you vote ?

Above all - be honest! No spam, no mass-submissions. Be critical and select those sites that really helped you in your job or life. Select entire sites and then vote for the start page if a site is of general value to you. In addition you may also vote for individual pages if a particular page or chapter on a site is of individual value to you. Any site, any page that you truly find valuable and exceptional or simple beautiful and worth to be recommended to others may be added to your social bookmark pages, blog links or web site links or to Digg.

Love and bliss

hans