Getting listed in social sites or “folksonomies” like digg, Netscape, Reddit and Fanpop, may help generate links and improve your search engine ranking.

Web 2.0 is a buzzword for the increasing importance of social sites, i.e. websites where the readers contribute more to the content of the site than the owners themselves.

There are especially three types of Web 2.0 sites that are of importance for search engine marketers: bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, blog trackers and search engines like Technorati, and article recommendation sites like digg.

Social bookmarking

The main function of bookmarking sites is to help people gather their bookmarks or favorite sites online, making them accessible on any computer.

However, these sites will also generate list of popular web sites and pages, generating traffic. And who knows, a good headline may also attract bloggers, leading to more inbound links.

See popurls for a list of articles that are hot at the bookmarking sites right now.

Moreover, there is reason to believe that some search engines may bookmarking part of their search algorithm, interpreting a large number of bookmarks as a sign of quality. del.icio.us is, for instance, owned by Yahoo!

Because of this it is a good idea to make use of the most important ones.

Blog search engines

Needless to say, this systems rewards sites with a large number of fresh articles. So do the blog search engines. Many bloggers use these services to track articles within their field of interest.

Make sure your articles are available. Add your RSS feed to all of the blog search engines found at Pandia Powersearch.

If you do not have an RSS feed, get one! The only sites that can live without a web feed these days, are those that do not publish new articles regularly. Note however, that these sites are less likely to succeed in the search engine race, as fresh content is the key to link building nowadays.

Social search sites

Finally, there are sites like digg, Netscape and Reddit, where users suggest and vote for interesting articles.

If you can get your article on the front page of digg, your servers will have a tough time handling all the traffic. And again, many of the users of digg are bloggers and journalists, and may write about your article.

A word of warning: If you make use of these services, do more than propose your own articles. Furthermore: make sure your articles are newsworthy and useful to the readers. The most active contributors know how to spot a spammer.

You may also get some of your friends to suggest and vote for some of your articles, but it should look natural. As general rule any contribution that will help the community is considered OK, spamming is definitely not.

See also: Pandia’s interview with Fanpop, one of the new social search sites.
Pandia’s list of social search sites (including social bookmarking)
The Pandia Search Engine Marketing Tutorial
Wikipedia on folksonomies and social bookmarking.
Chris Sherman: Who’s Who in Social Search