It’s a Trap! The Big Bad Bookmarking Scam
I have received many emails like this:
We’ll submit your website to 100 social bookmarking websites for just $35. That’s right, 100 valuable, permanent one-way links on high PR authority websites for just $35!
Where do I start to pull this apart? Perhaps the fact that one does not submit a “website” to social bookmarking websites. One submits a URL that represents a specific piece of content. This more than just technically misleading. This is spamming. Yes, you would be hiring a spammer.
Of the 100 social bookmarking websites, many are niche-specific. As the founder of Zoomit Canada, I can tell you that I see every day websites submitted related to Castle Hill, Sydney and other places outside Canada. Delete account. Delete account. Delete account. It’s nice to pay for links that are deleted as quickly as they are submitted.
I see many of the same websites often submitted at Tipd and BizSugar. Hesham at MMO Social Network sees many of the same websites submitted. Delete account. Delete account. Delete account.
Or maybe I should point out that most social bookmarking websites give NoFollow links to every submission until they get promoted to the home page. And let me assure you, 10 out of 10 of these guys do nothing to promote the submission. They do hit-and-run submissions. Your link will be buried under the pile of thousands of submissions that never see the light of day, and to add insult to injury, the link will often be NoFollow.
It might also be worth pointing out that it is not just your website that they submit to 100 social bookmarking website. Every day, they submit several home pages…then run. So the members and the admin would not take to kindly to these cheap submissions showing up.
Perhaps this would be a good moment to note a false advertising alert: at most social bookmarking websites, there is nothing “permanent” about such a link. It lasts only as long as the submitting account lasts. And spammer accounts don’t last all that long. I should know, I delete several of them every day. I know that Tamar at Tipd bans dozens of offenders every day, too.
By way of illustration, here is a flow chart of the process…
- Pay spammer to submit your “site” (generally your home page or product page, instead of your content)
- Many suckers pay the same spammer to submit their “sites”, too.
- Spammer submits lots of irrelevant business home pages and product pages, including many that are not even in the language of the social bookmarking site.
- Social bookmarking sites terminate the spammer’s account – again!
Your link… *POOF!* …disappears.
-So…what did you pay for again?
These spammers don’t just submit to inconsequential websites either. They promise to submit to Digg and Reddit and other major places where they can get your domain banned for you. Ahhh, so that’s what you paid for.
You see, social bookmarking is not just bookmarking; it’s also social. And $35 won’t buy you much social.
David Leonhardt is an SEO consultant in Ottawa, Canada. When not guest blogging he occasionally finds the time to post to his own SEO marketing blog (It’s OK to subscribe; he doesn’t find the time that often).
31 Responses to “It’s a Trap! The Big Bad Bookmarking Scam”
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Thanks for the heads up! We all hate to think we can be fooled,
but it happens. The information you provide here really helps.
Cheers.
David Leonhardt Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 10:05 pm
I would put this in the same bin as those 3-way link emails (Yes, I’ve ranted about those before, too!)
Thank David for the nice post,
I finally decided to close the MMO Social Network 2 weeks ago, I am activating members only after contacting them a few times through email and have some trust on them, I need to know that they are real people who want to share and promoting good and useful stuff with the community, not doing work for their clients and while earning money they spam our sites with links that has nothing to do with us!
Thank you for the good read, I would love to see more of this in the future!
David Leonhardt Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Ah….membership has its privileges. Make them jump a few hoops and they will value it more and participate, and those not interested will go somewhere else.
Interesting post.. Just another way for spammers to steal you hard earned money.. unbelievable.
This type of link building is worth less and chances to banned your site in some bookmarking site. I don’t prefer it.
febri Reply:
June 21st, 2010 at 3:30 am
google sandbox if you use this way
While I understand your general argument here, I think you’ve made this issue far more black and white than it really is…. Let me pose this question to you:
Is it EVERY okay to pay someone to put *something* into a social bookmarking website?
For example, what if they were promoting a story or blog post, and not the home page? Is that okay to pay for? It’s hard for me to understand why not because the intention and mechanics are just the same as doing it yourself — You want to create buzz — It’s a real story of interest on a legitimate topic….. If you answer no to this, which I think you kinda have to, then question #2:
I assume you would think it is okay for an employee of a company who has been tasked to create buzz to post a story in a social bookmarking site. And that company pays that employee… So what is the real difference between paying someone in another country and having an employee of your own company do it? No much. Companies outsource all sorts of activities to places where labor is cheaper – and it is viewed as positive (unless quality slips)….
So – Again… I understand your point. I run many real-content sites and I am overrun by the relentless submissions of low-quality work. Yes, I delete accounts every day too. But I really don’t think a broad brush label it okay here. I know many of my good submissions come from people who were paid to submit – and that’s fine with me…
David Leonhardt Reply:
June 17th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Hello Adam.
Sounds to me like we are in complete agreement on the major points here.
Please note that I did not say it is morally or ethically wrong to pay someone to submit content to a social bookmarking website. I simply said that this type of offer is a scam, because these are essentially spam operations.
I can speak only for the site I run when I say that I delete only those which are absolutely spam – i.e.:, they fail to meet one of the five definitions of Canadian content specified on the submission form. Home page or interior page, makes no difference to me…but I have yet to see a home page voted up to “published” status (so it makes a difference to the “victim” of these operations. And even if it was a blog post submitted, if the same account also submitted three off-topic pages, it would still be deleted when the account gets banned.
I’d love to write a more detailed rebuttle to this but I’m on my phone atm.
Social submit services can be benefitial and are a useful tool when used properly as part of an overall link building strategy.
Dont submit your primary domain or website. Instead submit 2nd or 3rd degree blogs or content sites. Also don’t submit just the domain for the frontpage, direct to an optimized sub page that has effective links to your primary site or other 2nd 3rd degree sites.
Obviously submitting a product page is pointless, but that goes for most any form of marketing or development. You might as well submit your privacy page or shopping cart for that matter. Make sure you use decent optimized content and your links are more likely to stick.
Again bookmark submits are not some magical silver bullet and they are sadly over hyped as such by those that sell it, but I fear your argument comes from the standpoint of a site owner who has to deal with the hassle and inconvenience of policing (and I sympathize with you) but is ignoring the reality that these tactics are effective to a degree.
This is very valid issue and point raised. Its surprising to see many SEO’s still offer packages like – 500 article submissions, 1000 web directory submissions, 200 social bookmarking submisisons, 2 Squidoo lense, 10 Forums posting, etc. I am the last one to place a link in the comments field but I felt this would be relevant to the post http://www.zenofseo.org/2010/04/why-80-per-cent-of-links-your-have.html
I agree this type of advertisement in which people offering submit all bookmark at once is consider as a spam because it is spam.
Thanks for your response and clarification David. I must have not fully gotten that on the first read, or read something into it that you had not intended (it happens
I think we are in agreement…
I also agree with the later comments:
Don’t submit your home page, that’s not what SBM sites are for.
Don’t submit product pages, again – that’s not what these are for.
Awww man, you mean we actually have to do work to get our content accepted socially. I thought $35 spam artists were well received in the social graph!
Nothing beats hard work and good content. Getting the word out is always a challenge and it brings out the “creativeness” in people wanting to make a buck off marketers. Most (all) of these services can not come close to being any service because their bookmarking is not as diverse as the WWW.
I hear the word spam alot. But it can be a fine line, is blasting your videos all over spam or good marketing? Is article spinning and mass submitting good marketing, getting the word out or is it just spam? It works.If you can afford to buy backlinks rather than have them placed there because it fits the page and offers a service to the visitor, isn’t that spam? If you are not willing to get your content exosed online, you will never be seen.
As for bookmarking, there are more of these services cropping up. And it is just not worth it, time, money or in practice.
Bruce
At some where some thing leading me to not agree with you…I am handling many SEO projects and social bookmarking is part of our link building strategy.
We found it very potential after Directory submission to give initial boost up in SERP. Social Bookmarking is still hot in SEO industries and people buy the services yet.
It is depends on your prospective how you take it as. Along with client website I am running my own websites and applying same strategy and getting my keywords 1st page recently.
I never felt it as spam, that is what my prospective
David Leonhardt Reply:
June 20th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Social bookmarking can indeed be a very powerful part of a linking strategy. But the value lies in the promotion not in the submission. This type of social bookmarking “offer” is a lot like those we’ll-submit-your-website-to-hundreds-of-search-engines scams. Who cares if you’re indexed, if you rank on page 573? Or the we’ll-guarantee-you-#1-rankings scams, where you pay to rank #1 for several never-searched terms, such as your business name.
Actually, it really depends on whom you’re dealing with. I’ve had good results with some people whom I hired for social bookmarking.
Also, David, how can one go about “promoting a submission”? The only way I see promotion coming into play is by commenting on other submissions etc. Plus, good content seldom requires promotion on social bookmarking sites besides the fact that I still don’t understand what promotion is.
David Leonhardt Reply:
June 21st, 2010 at 2:33 am
“good content seldom requires promotion” – nothing could be farther from the truth. If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? Social bookmarking sites, like the Internet itself, are hugs forests, and trees are constantly falling without anyone ever knowing (except the chopper).
Promotion means getting the submissions seen. If you just submit something, most people will never see it. Like anything social, promotion means networking. It means working long and hard to build contacts and make friends. It means sharing your submissions with friends who are active on the site. If you don’t drive traffic to your submission, nobody will see it and nobody will vote for it and the short 24-hour period lapses and your submission is “archived”.
Once your submission has enough votes to actually be seen by the average user, then the content has to carry itself…or fail to carry itself with the 24-hour voting period.
These are not the kind of things these scammers tell clients – chances are, they don’t even know how sites like Reddit and Digg and Mixx and Newsvine work.
Lokesh Reply:
June 21st, 2010 at 3:18 am
Good point David, and very well said.
Thanks.
their offers are always very appealing, and the promises are incredible. thanks for the heads up!
This is a good read. To be frank, I was once tempted to pay such services after seeing testimonials of how effective such services can be.
But end of the day, the risk is just too great even if you have $35 in your budget to spare. Being branded as a spammer and having your domain banned defeats the purpose of trying to build a brand.
There are lots of package available on the net, choose the best which don’t follow the blachhat tactics and affect your site.
Thanks for sharing such a informative post & This post is well written.I am interested very much in the subject matter of your blog.It’s my first visit.First time I have seen your blog and what a great post that was!Thank you so much.Keep blogging.
Yeas you are right, when people say that pay for some bugs , and they will be submitting your website on social networking websites, then you are actually hiring a spammer. Social bookmarking and social networking websites are a great boost, but when they are niche and place oriented. Submitting website to a website, which is neither niche oriented nor place oriented, it does’t make any scene, rather by this way only spam will be increased…
Thanks
Thanks Mr. David Leonhardt for posting this one.
I never thought about this actually, I was shocked when I read your post.
I never thought this is possible. We should all be careful about this.
“safety first” right?
This is a trap! Some people really hate something. However, sometimes you just endured.
Huh,never trusts those overhyped programs& service
well i wanted to know if i shud use tools like socialmarkr .i mean automatic social book marking…..that will save time …is it right using this ?
Though I have not been in the online game for long it didn’t take but a few months for me to tire of seeing such spam all over the web make me sick to my stomach. I started my own Pligg website and within a week knew that would never work as there are way too many links flooding in to deal with properly. My solution I changed that website to the WordPress Platform and have no way to submit except to email me the information for your link through my contact page. In this manner I can go through the links submitted at my own leisure and make sure nothing but legitimate material gets posted.
Thanks for the post David.
Interesting post. Some people like things easy and that is why they think they can buy almost everything. Nothing comes easily and to promote your site you have to work hard at it. Not just sit around.