Link building has always been associated with link exchanges, link request emails, link buying etc. Not any more. They’re all old-school stuff people try and waste their time on. Now since the social media revolution, there’s a whole new array of sites available that allows SEOs and webmasters to get some link juice from them for free. Now, these features will be taken for a ride, if given out freely, and they know. For the same reason, many of the sites have converted from “dofollow” to “nofollow“.
Social Media sites are basically communities where like minded guys gather up and share stuff. Be it SU, or Digg, there’s a community within. And universally, SEOs and Webmasters are looked upon with a raised eyebrow because these guys (you and me) tend to manipulate the system, and benefit from it. So let me warn you, what I’m going to tell you is of course a part of SEO, but this does not mean we have flock to all of them and start building links from day one.
Social media sites are seen generally as traffic generation machines. Be it Digg or SU, people see it as a medium to get the extra ordinary visibility for their websites, and take advantage of the large communities there. This is something that’s open to discussion. Whether to use social media sites for link building or to leave them off as communities and let them exist for what they are.
Now, here are the social media sites that are known (as of today) to pass link juice apart from teh community benefits. Some of them give huge traffic, some does not, but give you good healthy, relevant google juice.
Digg - Digg gives link juice from all the stories submitted. If you are on a top page, you have higher PR link juice, if you are on the upcoming page, lesser.
Mixx - Mixx does pass link juice and it’s easy to use it to rank high on SERPs as of now. But it’s a growing community, so it may not be easier later. Bit right now, it’s a good tool.
Hugg - Hugg is almost like digg with focus on environmental issues. Links are crawlable and passes juice.
Linkinn - Linkinn has some offbeat categories that you won’t find in the mainstream, popular social media site. A PR 6 site it features videos and pictures. Links are indexed and pass juice.
Reddit - One of the most popular guys around, reddit still have it’s links dofollowed so if you make it to the top pages, you’re lucky.
Indian Pad - Audience that’s Indian targeted, this guy is the only most popular social media site in India. Links are crawlable and indexed, and does pass on Google juice. The most popular categories are Tech and News
Backflip - Social bookmarking site with PR 6. Links are crawlable and passes on link juice.
Mister Wong - One of my favorites, Wong is a PR 6 social bookmarking site that allows dofollow links.
Mylink Vault - This guy gives you PR 5 backlinks, clean interface, good tool.
Swik - A clean social bookmarking site that gives you PR 6 backlinks. The community id for developers and open source enthusiasts.
That’s it for now. There are quite a number of other niche social media sites that help you with link juice and targeting niche communities. A healthy participation in these communities respecting the members and the laws can ensure you long lasting help with link building and traffic.
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Great list of social media sites to build links. It does not mention http://del.icio.us/. Is it less beneficial for passing link benefit ?
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Mani Karthik Replied:
Atul, delicious has nofollow links.
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social networking web design Replied:
also, do you have a list of up and coming social networks that do pass on the good stuff?
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Thank you for a great post. Social media sites are a good and easy means to build links. Plus, they allow building deep links that are important too. I have many buttons to social media sites for each post on my own blog.
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There is another point to consider - if you get on the front page, many people will write about that page on their blogs.
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Link building is great way to optimize your site in terms of search engine marketing. To track your progress, you could use any site explorer to see the changes in inlinks.
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Thanks for the list.
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Useful List.
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Mani,
I had been used Social Poster to bookmark my posts. This has a good list of dofollow SN sites. Easy interface, quick implementation.
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This is a fantastic list…. a few of them I use or have already heard of, but there were a few I had never seen before! Definitely a great list nonetheless.
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I’m just aware of digg. guess i should sign up to at least 3 of them? what do you think mani!?
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Mani Karthik Replied:
Yea Ryan, there are more out there
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Using social media to link is a mysth as many of them have now become nofollow. The list of dofollow is great and informative.
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