Is There a Down Side to Social Bookmarking?

If there is an up-side, you can bet there is always a down-side for anything and everything and social bookmarking is not the exception to that rule.

The very fact that social bookmarking is user driven is one of the potential down sides of it. Users are not professionals. Users are just people and the ability to use social bookmarking sites for fun as well as for profit does not require a great deal of technical knowledge.

As a matter of fact, it requires almost none. And because users are ‘amateurs’ (for lack of a better word), key words used in tags are not consistent. The information is sometimes scattered and key words that seem logical to amateurs don’t necessarily lead to related topics.

Yet another potential down-side and one that is happening more and more frequently is that users are abusing the system. Since it is a user driven system it is more susceptible to abuse and misuse.

There are spammers out there that are bookmarking the same site multiple times.

The idea, of course, is that the more times the link appears the better the search engine spiders like it and the more apt the link is to be clicked on and the more apt it is that the site will be visited.

More visitors always equal more sales of products and services.

What is The Bottom Line of Social Bookmarking?

The bottom line is that social bookmarking is here and it is here to stay. People are using social bookmarking sites to make social connections as well as to form communities.

From the internet marketing point of view, social bookmarking is a tool that can be used to increase search engine optimization, the number of website visitors and ultimately increase sales but there is also the possibility of the system being abused.

Like everything else…the more social bookmarking is abused, the less effective it will become.

Internet marketers are learning that they can have a lot of fun by using sites like MySpace, FaceBook and Friendster and social bookmarking sites and make a lot of money in the process. It’s what is known as a win/win situation and one that internet marketers are flocking to in droves.

Tags: Bookmarking, Social Bookmarking