Social bookmarking has become extremely popular in the last couple of years, and there are newer sites coming in everyday. The idea of having the users select the stories that they wanted to read was considered a novel one when the first site appeared on the scene, and there has been no looking back since then. Some of the bigger social bookmarking sites can send hundreds and thousands of visitors to your site at one go- such is the extent to which these sites have become popular.

If your story hits the Digg frontpage, for example, there is a reasonably good chance of your server crashing and your blog going off line. This has therefore resulted in many people trying to sneak their way into the first page by hook or crook- exchanging Diggs is quite a common practice on several webmaster forums. Now, I won’t comment on whether or not that practice is ethical. Some people might believe that you do not need artificial ways to get to the top, for if you genuinely have good content, you will automatically get recognition. Others believe that you need to lend your site a helping hand so that it can stand on its own two legs. The former is true in most cases, but a few diggs from family and friends will not hurt your site one bit.

Google have spread their net far and wide, and I have to say that their services are pretty good. The services that you get with a Google account are pretty top class, and signing up for a new G-Mail account is probably easier than signing up for another service provider. I love Google documents, but issues like privacy are a cause for worry.

Here is the URL- Most Popular Shared Stuff

Other notable social bookmarking sites ( Digg has already been mentioned in the first paragraph). You would have seen these and others on many wordpress blogs that use the social bookmarking plugin ( sociable is one such plugin)

1.) Del.icio.us

2.) Reddit

3.) Stumbleupon

Other similar sites include Newsvine, Slashdot, Fark etc.

What do you need to have a successful website ?

a.) An effective internet marketing strategy- Yes

b.) Do link Exchange, as well as one way links ( preferably naturally). When all the big sites link to each other, it isn’t manipulative link exchange, do remember that.

c.) Use the services of advertising agencies ? Depends on how big you want your site to be.

d.) Use internet marketers ? Again, a question of your budget.

e.) Use pay per click advertising. Yes, can drive some decent traffic if you invest wisely.