StumbleUpon is a social media and networking site that allows members to thumb up or down webpages, pictures, and videos. StumbleUpon also allows members to write reviews and place tags on their thumbed content.
StumbleUpon Traffic
Almost all pages stumbled receive some form of traffic, but well stumbled content receive tens-of-thousands of visitors. How well a page does depends on how many thumbs up the page gets compared to thumbs down plus how many friends and fans each stumbler has.
What does the StumbleUpon referral look like?
There are four different URLs that StumbleUpon refers from:
- http://stumbleupon.com/refer.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fcategory%2Fpage.htm - This is the referral from the toolbar.
- http://buzz.stumbleupon.com/tag/ - The referral from the buzz page.
- http://stumbleupon.com/url/http://example.com/category/page.htm - The referral from the pages profile.
- http://stumbleupon.com/demo/?review=1 - Referral from someone using StumbleUpon who doesn’t have the toolbar installed.
What does well on StumbleUpon?
StumbleUpon is used by people from all walks of life. Anything from recipes to the latest gadget to world news and comics. StumbleUpon also allows rated X material which always does quite well.
What is the break-down for each category?
You can see a tag cloud on StumbleUpon’s buzz page.
Most popular:
- business
- home
- humor
- photos
- politics
- science
- technology
- videos
Still popular:
- bizarre
- blogs
- design
- health
- living
- society
- sports
Less, but still popular:
- arts
- books
- computers
- food
- games
- history
- internet
- linux
- mac
- movies
- music
- shopping
- stumblers
- windows
Generally speaking, most categories do well.
How does a page become popular?
When a page is submitted to StumbleUpon it is put into a queue of pages to be shown to others. Generally, the page is first seen by your friends. Depending on how they vote the page (thumbs up if they like it, thumbs down if not, or no action) it is then either shown to their friends or stopped in its tracks. If a friend thumbs up the page, it is then put in queue for their friends and so on and so forth. If the page is disliked by a percent of stumblers, it is removed from all current queues.
No response to a page is seen neither as positive nor negative. However, their friends will not see the page unless another one of their contacts stumbles the page.
How does a page get buzzed?
Buzzed is StumbleUpon’s equivelant to Reddit’s ‘hot’ page.
Pages are listed on StumbleUpon’s buzz when they have received the most thumbs up over a period of time, generally between 24 and 48 hours.
What should you Stumble?
Stumble anything you like. The great thing about StumbleUpon is its diversity. The only request from StumbleUpon’s staff is to tag the content appropriately and put it within its correct category. If the content contains nudity or adult content be sure to mark it as such when submitting.
How you give a page the best chance of buzzing
The most important aspect of giving a page the best chance at becoming popular is the page must be interesting. Don’t submit a page that says ‘yuck’ all over it. With that being said, here are other ways to give the page the best chance at becoming buzzed:
- Submit the page to the correct category.
- Give the page descriptive and popular tags, such as the ones listed at the top of this article.
- Give the page a descriptive and helpful review.
- Send the page to friends with the same interests as the page’s content.
For a page to become popular, you don’t need many friends. All it takes is for the page to be interesting and have the appropriate category and tags set.
Written: Aug 13, 2008
Tags: profiles, social media, social voting, stumbleupon
Jason Boom
August 13, 2008 @ 7:51 pm
I thought I read or heard somewhere recently that the SU algorithm considers no vote and a quick exit to be a soft thumbs down. Have you heard that?
Gary R. Hess
August 13, 2008 @ 9:10 pm
It is something like that. In the illustration you can see that a no vote acts like a down vote in the affect of not continuing the page onto his or her followers. However, it isn’t the same as a downvote as the downvote almost negates an entire thumbs up vote.
They are similar in another way. Say there are two pages almost exactly the same. Page A is shown 100 times with 6 thumbs up and 1 downvote. Page B is also shown 100 times but has just 5 thumbs ups and 1 downvote. Obviously, Page A is going to be shown more because of the additional thumbs up. So you can say a novote is harmful in the fact that it doesn’t carry the page on to their own followers.
BUT, there are so many no votes (if you advertise with them you see your stats for the page) they can’t possibly make it negative other than the fact that the followers don’t see it at as high of a ratio.
Jason Boom
August 14, 2008 @ 6:37 pm
Ahhh, I see. So it definitely hurts from the lack of showing to friends, but not a real ration killer. I see. Thanks for the explanation, Gary. Good article.
Gary R. Hess
August 14, 2008 @ 6:47 pm
Yeah, it hurts to some extent. That’s why I recommend sending the page to your friends using the “Send to” feature so will definitely see it and hopefully vote if you ask (although many still won’t, but the chances are better).
katinka - spirituality
August 15, 2008 @ 2:54 am
Pages don’t only get sent to your friends. It also gets sent to people with interests similar to yours - or with an interest in the tags you put in. Their votes (up or down) will matter as much as votes by friends.
I think the ‘friends’ feature on squidoo is greatly over estimated.
Gary R. Hess
August 15, 2008 @ 3:16 am
Exactly. That is what the article says, “When a page is submitted to StumbleUpon it is put into a queue of pages to be shown to others. Generally, the page is first seen by your friends.”
That does not mean it is only sent to friends, just that is where it is sent to “first”.
And the friends is not overestimated. The more friends you have, the more people see the page plain and simple (that is, if they are active).
goofblogger makes money online
August 15, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
I was wondering why some pages get mega traffic when stumbled. I had no idea that the amount of friends affects the outcome. I guess that I should add more friends. I currently only have one