I’ve recently started using a social bookmarking service & judging by the number of Google Link Alerts I’ve started receiving, it looks like the inbound links are already building rapidly!

Rather than spending ages bookmarking key pages in maybe 10 to 20 social bookmarking sites (& spending hours on it), this service promises to do it quickly & easily, on over 300 social bookmarking sites and at a very low cost! At just 19 cents a submission, with a compensation system built in for submission failures!

It’s a simple 1 minute process; all you need to do after signing up is login to your account and enter the url of the webpage you wish to submit; their system then automatically fetches the required data from the said page (or you can enter the information yourself) and you just need to choose your submission options and make a payment. It’s that simple!

Benefits of Social Bookmarking

• Increased Traffic – As more and more people read your bookmarked blog post/web article and vote for it, the more popular it becomes & the traffic to your site increases.

• Increased Visibility & Branding – Submitting to Social Bookmarking Sites puts your blog/website out there in front of millions of people, increasing your visibility ten notches and getting you more branding.

• Get more Links – Each of these Popular Social Bookmarking Sites see tremendous volumes of traffic on a daily basis, if your blog/website has good content on it, chances are that several of these users will link to your content, thus getting you relevant links which will ultimately lead to an increase in your Rankings in the Search Engines.

Some of the Exciting Features

• Save your Precious Time – Social Bookmarking can really be a time-consuming process with you being required to create an account in each site before submitting your page to them manually. We have made things easy for you, just sign up, enter the page you wish to submit and we do the rest for you, saving you plenty of time in the process.

• Flexible ordering options:

- Submit to the entire list
- Submit to a specific number of sites
- Submit to your saved favourites

• Live Reports to help you track what exactly is being done. The report includes the links to the exact page on the site where you can find your listing.

• Place orders from as little as $5

• Tremendous value for money, at just 19 cents a submission combined with our rewards program, we not only are the cheapest in the business, we also offer you tremendous value for your money.

1. What is Social Bookmarking?

Social bookmarking can very simply be explained as a method where internet users can store, organize and manage their bookmarks (sites of their interest) on a public bookmarking site instead of their computers. Not only that, they can also share their bookmarks with their friends or a network of people. Social bookmarking makes the task of saving sites for future reference much easier and more accessible.

2. Advantages of Social Bookmarking

The main advantage of bookmarking a site is the Increase in Traffic. Social Bookmarking sites are used by millions of people around the world and by bookmarking your sites/your blog posts with them, you automatically get access to the large volume of traffic coming to these sites. All you need to do is have your pages bookmarked with the various Social Bookmarking sites and if the content is good then people will surely save and share it with others. As your bookmark is tagged by others or as more people vote, its popularity rises and it moves to the front pages of the category or site. This leads to an increase in traffic.

3. Are these submissions made manually or through an automated process?

All the submissions are made manually by our highly-trained team of submitters. Prior to beginning the order, each site undergoes a review process. In this step our editors check the details of the submitted webpage to make sure they are free from any sort of errors and also write instructions for our submitters to follow while making the submissions to the Bookmarking sites.

4. How do I check where my site has been submitted, do I get a report?

Yes, you are provided with a detailed report on your submissions, which shows you the details of the submissions made along with a link of the final bookmarked url. You are also given an option to download this Report onto an Excel Spreadsheet.

5. How would I know if my bookmark has become popular?

The popularity of a bookmark is determined by the number of users that have bookmarked a link publicly. Next to each bookmark, you will see a number which shows how many people have saved it, shared it or voted for it. If the number is high then it indicates that the your web-page has become popular.

I received an e-mail saying that there will be a new version of phpLinkBid coming out soon, with over 30 promised new features! As my bidding directory is starting to get regular new bids & has recently acquired a Page Rank of 3, after only running for 5 months, I’m looking forward to just some of the enhancements:

1. Site Pages – new WYSIWYG page editor and integrated image & file management
2. Administration – improved link & bid management, searching, sorting & interfaces
3. Reports – new charts & reports show directory earnings, growth, and stats
4. Payments – new payment processor support, payments API, and fee tracking
5. User Accounts – users can manage & update links, new admin user manager, change approvals
6. Category Leaders – optional category leader lists for top bids by category
7. Free Links – enable unpaid links listed with $0 minimum bid
8. Search – improved search interface w/ extended options
9. Link Tags – custom tags, tag pages, clouds
10. SEO – sitemaps, improved META tags, proper 404 page not found errors
11. Email Manager – manage subscriptions, custom lists, signatures, segments & HTML emails
12. Bad Word Filter – scan & automatically deny submissions with certain words
13. SPAM Prevention – new image CAPTCHA, custom Q&A verification, IP blocking, link cleanup
14. RSS Feeds – new RSS feed options & custom parameters, tag feeds
15. Themes – faster rendering, easier to customize, 1.4 compatible
16. Addons – less conflicts, easier to install w/ new addon manager
17. Categories – category suggestions, category icons, locked categories, new display options
18. Error Handling – cleaner, more detailed error handling for server & database errors
19. Site API – optionally provide site info, link and/or bid details in public API

I was pleased to see that my link bid directory (FreshBidz) has already achieved a Page Rank of 2, despite only being up since July.

I used the PageRank tool at SEOlogs.com to check the Page Rank of the site, which then allows me to add a button to the site showing that this PR is valid. Hopefully, this will encourage advertisers to add links to the directory & compete for the front page with their bids.

Following rumours that Best of the Web Directory (the internet’s oldest directory) are going to buy DMOZ, which Google uses as its own Directory source, I decided to try & get some of my sites listed.

Also known as the open directory project, DMOZ is probably the most well known free directory online. Like Yahoo and Best of the Web, DMOZ is also known for its very high standards when it comes to website listings in the directory. It is best to submit your site to DMOZ on your own.

Considerable effort needs to be spent on making the right submission, according to the guidelines mentioned. You only get one chance to have your site listed in DMOZ, hence it must be ensured that the submission is made properly.

Best of the Web Directory like Yahoo Directory was established in 1994 and has since maintained one of the strictest editorial review policies, accepting only content-rich, high quality sites. This commitment to quality has made it one of the most highly regarded directories on the web. A link from Best of the Web directory would immensely benefit a site, substantially increasing its search engine rankings. Best of the web directory is a paid directory currently offering two listing options: one for an annual review of the website which costs US$ 99.95 per year and one for a one-time review which costs US$ 249.95.

Because I wasn’t sure that my site would be accepted & the fee is non-refundable, I decided to opt for the annual review option first & see what happened….better to lose $100 than $250!!!

I submitted 2 of my sites to the Directory: Cashback Shopper & My Travel Extras. My concern with Cashback Shopper was that it is a white label site & could possibly be considered as duplicate content. However, I needn’t have worried, within 12 hours I received an e-mail telling me that my submission had been successful & my link would appear on the site within 24 hours! )

My Travel Extras has also been accepted & the good news is that the sites can still be upgraded to the one time review option, albeit at a cost of $239.95…..but at least I know they will be accepted! Because this directory is so well respected, I hope it will add to my tally of backlinks in Google, which are looking pretty threadbare at the moment when compared to those from Yahoo.

I am considering adding other sites to the directory in the future, but at the moment the cost of advertising is too high to add any others. I also want to see if the directory submissions make any difference to my rankings.

Having been using bidding links directories for a while now, to obtain permanent one way links, I decided to start my own web directory!

Using the phpLinkBid script was pretty straightforward & only cost $29.95 for a single site license. I decided to go for the SEO Bundle Site License which also gives two add ons, Advanced Link Stats + PageRank Checker.

phpLinkBid makes it easy to launch a full-featured bid directory with automatic payments using PayPal and powerful administration tools.
phpLinkBid Features

• Fully automated link bidding system
• Unlimited categories & classic letters mode
• Instant payments with PayPal IPN
• Powerful administration control panel
• SEO friendly URLs
• Deep Links
• Email Manager
• Link Approvals
• Link Expirations
• Latest Links
• Linkrolls for your favourite sites
• Custom Language Files
• Multiple Currencies & Currency Manager
• Outbid Notifications
• User friendly pages and fancy error handling
• Built-in Content Management System
• Template support for easy customization

As I say, setting up was pretty straightforward, even if I did make a couple of schoolboy errors & had to re-install the add-ons. The site is configured to use my existing Paypal account & to test, I set up my own websites as the first couple of entries. All works well, the payment is made, credited to my Paypal account & the link goes live automatically.

E-mails were sent to me as the bidder & site owner, so the FreshBidz Bidding Links Directory is live & now I just have to promote & find customers! The same old story lol.