Social bookmarking is the new way of building up external links to a website. Well, it is not really new, but since Wikipedia is no longer a good source to build incoming links, Search Engine Marketers have switched gears to find the next best thing compared to sliced toast. And social bookmarking it is. One of the top sites currently used by webmasters, SEO’s and SPAMMERS is http://del.icio.us.

How easy is it to use del.icio.us? It is fairly easy if you have only one or two accounts to work with. It becomes more difficult if you start creating more accounts coming from one IP address. The current limit seems to be 10 accounts per IP address, but I am not too sure about that as it would really put AOL users into limbo. Well, if somebody is still using AOL I think he or she might deserve to be in limbo. AOL is so 1999. Anyway – several service providers will help you to mass-create accounts on del.icio.us. But the key here is not pure mass usage of accounts, but to strategically use a few accounts. Google and other search engines are smart. 500 incoming links to a website from del.icio.us with similar anchor text will raise warning flags. Google is able to have single pages excluded from providing link juice and a webmaster can be sure that un-natural link schemes will be detected easily. 500 pages or del.icio.us accounts with almost the same links on each account will be very easy to be found and then to be de-valued by Google. Your efforts would go down the drain.

With everything in life – moderation is key. Use a smaller number of accounts with different links. Add links in different order spread out over weeks and months – not days. Do make sure each account carries a different number of links. If all your accounts have 54 links with all the same URLs (even if different order) Google will recognize that and de-value those links (all of them). Create strategies to populate those accounts. Group links by industry or niche market and do not create a wild mix of everything you are trying to promote.

Tagging and social bookmarks at del.icio.us. This is the combination of keywords added to a keyword rich link. Pick good keywords that will be associated with your links. Spend enough time on research because you do not want to go back and re-do all your links.

Conclusion: Del.icio.us is one of the better known social bookmarking websites. Usage is very easy. In regards to SEO a webmaster should try to build up a small “network” of accounts and use them selective ly to link to his or her websites. Moderation is key to success. Too many links in a short time or too many accounts with exactly the same links will raise warning flags and in the end make your work useless, because Google and other search engines will find your links and “take them out” like a sniper with a good rifle.