Ever Stumbled Your Own Post?
Posted by Patrick on November 9th, 2007
Can I stumble my own post, you say?
I first experienced the StumbleUpon effect when someone submitted my post What’s Your Blogger Timesheet part I on October 20th. In a few hours this post received more traffic than all other articles combined together. I couldn’t believe my stats the next morning. Shortly after that, Mark Herpel’s 9 Popular Digital Currency Myths published on Oct 23rd, and Tracey Sands’ Ways to Make Money Online that went out the next day were both stumbled too.
The Temptation To Stumble Your Post
Intrigued by the success of these posts, I started looking around for information on the legitimacy of stumbling your own material. So I went to stumbleupon.com and read the – very borring – Toolbar License & Terms of Service. Obviously, attorney’s clauses aren’t easy to understand and often leave room for interpretation. But there’s nothing’s clearly saying that you are not allowed to submit your own posts/sites. Unless, your primary intention is to promote a product or a service, in this case clause 1.4 stipulates that:
“Accounts created with the primary intention to promote a product or service are considered “SPAM” and subject to termination unless expressly authorized in advance in writing by StumbleUpon.”
But still, I wasn’t sure about the idea, and I didn’t want to get into trouble so I tried their FAQ, but couldn’t find anything either. So I went to Google to see what’s published on the subject. Not very helpful, there are opinions in both camps. On blog.seoptimise.com, the blogger states:
“Once I have created a new blog post for example I will submit the URL to StumbleUpon using the toolbar, it is perfectly fine to promote your own website providing you don’t overdo it. This will help to increase the amount of my webpages I have present in the StumbleUpon database and improve the likelihood of my site being ’stumbled upon’.”
However, just below his post, one commented:
“I know somebody who did this and, after a while, he was no longer able to submit posts from his site to Stumbleupon.”
Submitting every single of your post to StumbleUpon is a dumb idea. If that’s what the commenter’s friend did, I can understand why he got banned. But where do you draw the line? What’s acceptable and what’s not? Yet not satisfied, I went back to Larry Page and this time googled “Can I get banned for submitting my posts to StumbleUpon?” I have to say, I found a very good article from Dosh Dosh titled A Comprehensive Guide to StumbleUpon: How to Build Massive Traffic to Your Website that I highly recommend reading. But still, no answer to my question 
What can I conclude? I can’t really take position because there are too many different opinions on the subject, and no clear policy. And I hate that. I like when things are clear. But on the flip side, I can understand why StumbleUpon does not specifically answer the question. Saying “sure… go ahead and stumble your own site” would turn their service into a giant bowl of spam. And saying “NO, don’t do it!” could upset too many people and hurt their business. Bottom line, I assume they intentionally leave the policy unanswered and they react when one pushes his luck to the limit.
What’s your opinion on the subject? Have you ever stumbled your own posts? Let’s pursue the discussion further through the comments.
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November 9th, 2007 at 6:03 am
This is a great post,it certainly makes good point, really i appreciate this.
November 9th, 2007 at 8:27 am
DO NOT STUMBLE ALL YOUR POSTS DUDE…NEVER!!
I used to do that and did get blocked from SU. But then I started stumbling other articles regularly and the ban was removed. It is all automatic. Maintain the 15:1 ratio. Better stumble 15 other articles before stumbling your own.
They do not like spamming and this way you won’t be spamming. I will suggest daily using the SU toolbar for around 30 minutes. That way in 30 mins you will easily stumble more than 15 posts and will be ready to stumble your own post
November 9th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Yes, I have, but I only do it occasionally. It’s better to concentrate on stumbling others’ posts. However, once someone has stumbled your post once, you can give it new life by stumbling it yourself - the key is not to overdo it.
November 9th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Hi CompuWorld,
Thank you for the information. I was not considering stumbling all posts from PBP. But your idea sounds good to me: use stumble on a daily basis, stumble stuff, and stumble your stuff occasionally. I like that. And when you think about it, if you have material that has a very high potential, somehow they want it. So if you’re the one passing the puck… at least you’re helping them to get the story ahead of Digg, or other social media sites. But will be very careful.
Thanks again.
Pat
November 13th, 2007 at 7:35 am
I’ve stumbled a few of my pages (like 10 or so - am relatively new), but only those I’ve thought would be of interest to others. I have stumbled others, but will definitely do more given what I’ve just read.
I am now having difficulty as I don’t seem to be getting any traffic, or very little, from StumbleUpon. Anyone run into this?
To me, the policy was not clear from the get-go…
November 20th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
My experience is that stumble traffic is fleeting and non-sticky. it doesn’t even generate much increase in ad revenue.
have you had the same experience?
November 20th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Hi Living Off Dividends
I would say you are 95% right. I’m keeping a small 5% for once in a while new readers that would discover your blog via a stumbled post… I have found some blogs via StumbleUpon where I later became an RSS subscriber. So I presume others would stick to PiggyBankPie after reading a Stumbled Post. Would that be your case? If so, welcome to PiggyBankPie my friend.
Thanks for stopping by.
Pat
November 28th, 2007 at 1:59 am
I found your blog on Stumbleupon, via somebody else’s review! To me this shows that good content will rise to the top anyway, and that continually submitting one’s own site only hurts their own credibility.
Doing it occasionally probably wouldn’t hurt, but I guess that it all comes down to balance!
I’d agree that ‘Living Off Dividends’ is about 90 - 95% right about return traffic, but having content that brings people back is a key there too!
Stumbleupon is all about social networking, so quality content that matches that theme should bring results!
Cheers
Allan
November 29th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
I’m still learning how to “Stumble” so my experience may be limited. I’ve stumbled some of my own material without a huge response. I’ve had other people stumble it for me with much better response.
Still trying to assess the value of stumbling beyond the short term, but it’s definitely worth trying.
And, to your point, I’m definitely not going to stumble all of my material. In fact, I’d rather bury some of it..
November 29th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Hi Ozego, you are 100% right, content is king and everyone’s saying it. Stumbling your own low quality stuff would not do good because when you stumble such a post, it will be voted down rapidly and therefore get off the Stumble engine. Ok, you will maybe get 200 visitors out of it, 1 or 2 clicks on your ads, but that’s not the goal. The goal is to produce quality content and get thousands of stumblers rushing to your site, and the only way you can get that is if your submitted content is voted positively, then the stumble engine starts pushing it to more and more users. I have submitted a post that made the buzz.stumbleupon.com page and today, one month later, I still get between 150-300 stumblers coming here for this post. That proves me that the stumble engine does quite a good job at promoting or stopping quality content.
Thanks for dropping by.
Patrick
November 29th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Hi Mark, I think my answer to Ozego addresses some of your points. Thanks for stopping by,
Patrick
December 1st, 2007 at 4:22 am
I wish I had read this ad before I went overboard stumbling my own stuff. Being relatively new to blogging, I couldn’t even conceive of how it could be a negative…put your stuff out there and if it is good…it will stick….and it does give a pretty good spike. I think my content has improved, and now I wish I had used it more sparingly…always pays to do your homework!
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:24 am
[…] In addition, here’s another one about Stumbling your own posts which was very interesting. This one’s at Piggybank Pie. […]
December 4th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
I Stumbled my post on Miss World 2007 a few days ago and I got 57 visits from Stumbleupon. That was the first time I did that and yeah, it did wonders to the number of visitors to my site
I’d do it again but it depends on the post.
December 5th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
I actually do stumble all of my own posts, but it’s a very small fraction of what I stumble. The reason I stumble my own posts is that it can really kill the article’s potential if it’s put into the wrong category.
And it doesn’t hurt, as long as it’s not too high a percentage… even with someone else’s site, if you vote for them too high a percentage, your vote will cease to count.
PS - If you think it does hurt, I stumbled my post yesterday at about 10 AM Pacific time, and I’ve currently received 10,064 page views for it.
December 17th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
You wouldn’t like someone stumbling drunk into your house party, would you?
I just threw that sentence out there to force your mental image of StumbleUpon to reboot.
Every time I visit a social site, I notice that the top participants adhere to one golden rule: give a lot.
These folks “get it”. The social networks are all about sharing, rather than dominating.
Of course, we all experiment to see what works and what doesn’t. My experience has been that stumbling my own posts usually doesn’t result in major traffic spikes.
Having said that, a little self-promotion is not verboten.
After all, if you just closed a major deal at work, wouldn’t you want your friends at the party to know?
What you don’t do, however, is stand on the diningroom table, tapping on a glass of champgne, to announce the fact to everyone in attendance.
December 22nd, 2007 at 3:29 pm
[…] Submitting your articles to Social Media sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Del.icio.us could get you banned, and some services clearly states the policy in their Terms of Service. […]
December 27th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
[…] Finally, if you need proof that submitting your own content could get you banned, I recommend reading the following article: Ever Stumbled Your Own Post? […]
December 27th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
At first, I stumbled a lot of my own stuff (but not everything). While I did that, I networked with other bloggers and started stumbling their stuff. It’s just one of those things you can endlessly pay forward and it’s always the right thing. Stumbling for others, and adding them as friends is an act of kindness that benefits both the giver and the receivers, so it’s always good. It comes back to you. Now I don’t have to stumble my own stuff. As much.
December 27th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
I see what everyone is saying. I have stumbles about 780 pages, and 22 were my own. So I think the give and take is great on SU. I get most of my traffic from loyal SU friends.
December 28th, 2007 at 9:53 am
My site is still very new and I average only 5 visitors a day. I’m so tempted to stumble just one image just to see if it does anything, but I’m going to hold off and just pray to the Google Gods and the Stumble Saints.
January 1st, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Well that’s very clear that submitting your own content oftenly will get yourself spammed and banned from website … this is what happened with me … i learned it the hard way of losing one of my potential blog being submitted on digg… as was new and in my learning process… never mind.. but as with stumble upon i gain quite a bit of control by favouring other’s to favour me and its always better to get the post submitted by other rather than yourself.. I have noticed the amount of rise in traffic when someone who is not your friend and if he submits your post on stumble upon compare to the one’s submitted by friends though still studying the same process will keep updated when i see more changes.
January 6th, 2008 at 10:52 am
It is perfectly ok to stumble your own posts if you also stumble plenty of other valuable articles. By contributing, you always earn the right to do something for yourself too.
January 6th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Don’t overdo it is the key. Stumbleupon has a built in filter that will prevent you from submitting more than 1 or 2 of the same domain on one blog page. I usually like to keep it at a 1/10 ration. This seems to be a good Mixx.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:53 am
hey great job! thanks I stumbled you!
January 30th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
[…] Do not submit your own stories at social media communities unless they really condone it and you are a well known and/or respected community member there. […]
January 30th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
I don’t Stumble my own posts directly. Instead, I submit my articles to a Stumble happy community such as Sphinn and allow the Stumbles to occur naturally as a result.
I’m not sure if this is hurting my Sphinn reputation, but I do try to compensate by Sphinning other articles regularly and leaving comments on other stories.
January 31st, 2008 at 8:28 pm
[…] Cakes makes me wary of self promotion via Sphinn. And articles from respected commetators Tad and Patrick advise against social self […]
February 14th, 2008 at 9:32 am
[…] the Bonsai and got banned, this means you neither read the sites’ TOS nor this article titled Ever Stumbled Your Own Post? Nothing I can do to help, maybe you could try emailing kevin.rose [AT] digg [DOT] com. You Might […]
February 14th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Personally, after having problems like this myself, I think it’s a percentage thing, or maybe it has a time limit. For a while in January I couldn’t submit my own posts anymore, then I cut back and started stumbling a lot more and submitting posts from other places that I liked. After a while, it started letting me submit again. So my guess is it’s either:
- Only a certain percentage of your stumbles or submissions can be from the same site
- There’s a set limit going back a few days (IE only 12 submissions every 30 days)
- It gets renewed every month
It would be interesting to investigate further. For now, I’ve been doing what you’re doing not only to escape the wrath of the system but to build a list of only really good stumbles
February 21st, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Very very interesting article. Thanks for the heads up.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:21 pm
@ Troy: Thanks for sharing this information Troy, very useful. I doubt we will demystify the algorithm but sharing this helps us prove the point of the article.
@ Dan: Thanks for the kind words.
Patrick
February 27th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I stumble my own posts routinely, and haven’t run into any problems. I suppose it helps that I have always tried to give myself some street cred as a stumbler. Here is how I do it:
In looking for posting fodder, I routinely cast my net far by way of my del.icio.us subscriptions. If you can forgive the linkbait, I describe what I do in detail in my post “Get Out of the Blog Echo Chamber — Del.icio.us Finds You Interesting Things on the Web Before Others Find Them” (http://www.spicejar.org/asiplease/archives/000544.html). I wind up picking out and tagging five to ten items each day, and maybe blogging one of them. What I don’t say in that post is that I *also* stumble my picks.
And, nowadays, I don’t stumble all of my own posts. Check out Skellie’s post on ProBlogger, “How to Write Posts That Set StumbleUpon on Fire” (http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/02/14/how-to-write-posts-that-set-stumbleupon-on-fire/). She talks about how to “StumbleUpon Optimize” a blog post. I try to do this, but not every post of mine is suitable — StumbleUpon works much better for timeless content than timely content, and so I leave out the posts I see as tightly time bound.
In short, I stumble most but not all of my own posts, and I stumble a bunch of other things that interest me to buoy my reputation as a stumbler. I don’t explicitly try to divine StumbleUpon’s algorithm and game it; I just do what I do. After about ten months of stumbling as I blog, I haven’t run into any problems.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
[…] from the content of your pages to submission guidelines but he doesn’t raise the question of whether or not to submit your own pages to the StumbleUpon network. Later in the book a formula is suggested for limiting your own […]
March 6th, 2008 at 2:43 am
I have done both. I stumbled my own pages until I found that the traffic was slowly getting smaller and smaller with each “discovery” of my own stuff. I have found that if you find other SU users like you who like the same type of blogs and sites, make them your friend. And not just a friend in name only but communicate with them and build an actual friendship. Then when you have something of note that is worth stumbling (sorry, but not everything you post is worth it) have them “discover” it for you. Then after a day or two of getting reviews and thumbs from others who have come across your content, then go in and give it a thumb and a review yourself. Very effective for me and my blog.
March 6th, 2008 at 6:28 am
I was wondering the same question when I first registered with SU so I asked the support department if submitting some of my own posts would be considered as spam: they replied with an email and said that I could submit my blog’s home page but not my own posts. I still do it sometimes (about 3 times in 5 months) but I would not recommend doing it too often; if you do it, make sure that you only submit your best posts only!
March 27th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Yes, StumbleUpon works on a ration system. I also fell foul of no longer being able to submit my own posts and my traffic dropped right down as a result. I sent an enquiry to SU to find out why the submit link wasn’t working but got no reply. It was only after days of clicking around the site that I found a buried FAQ that mentioned the ratio of submits from one site to general submits.If the ratio is out of whack, you are unable to submit that site again. It goes on to say that you cannot remove this restriction. (So I don’t know whether stumbling a lot of other sites will help).
I started stumbling my own posts because, as a new blog struggling to get a few subscribers, I was incredibly lucky if a registered stumbler came across me by accident and spent the few seconds required. There is a polite request for stumbles in my sidebar, but I am still trying to build my traffic back up from the dip caused by not being able to submit my own.
I’m trying to work on concepts that give readers an incentive to submit the page to Digg, SU, etc so that I never have to submit my own stuff. Providing the buttons just doesn’t seem to be enough anymore, even though once submitted, they do get more votes. People don;t mind voting, but are less likely to fill out the details to submit in the first place.
I also find that blogging from Australia is a handicap as if I submit something, it is no longer a fresh submission by the time the US and UK is awake and checking the latest posts. Unless I stay awake til 2am to submit to Digg or Sphinn, my submissions end up buried on page 2 or 3 by the time the largest audience is looking.
Do me a favour - follow my link and stumble me today. You’ll make an Aussie blogger very happy!
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:05 pm
[…] post on your blog, you can easily expect hundreds of unique visitors in a day. Now the question is, can you stumble your own post? Yes you can, just don’t overdo it. By using SU on a daily basis, you will vote sites and […]
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:35 am
This is an interesting read with lots of great minds exchanging opinions. My take is this: As with every good traffic strategy on the net, any abuse is dangerous. It can backfire and will not leave a good mark to the spammer.
So I agree that stumbling and digging your own post is not a good idea especially if you overdo it.
May 21st, 2008 at 6:39 am
I do Stumble my own posts from time to time, but, as you say, overdoing it is probably not a great idea.
Self-Stumbling sort of goes against the whole purpose of StumbleUpon anyway, in my view. Abusing the system will just reduce its validity and people will just not use Stumble any more if they think its just self-promotion.
Anyhow, StumbleUpon does allow you to run your own paid (from 5 cents a visitor) targeted campaigns, which means you can encourage people to Stumble upon your site.
These campaigns will probably mean that self-Stumblers may also be penalized because they may be reducing Stumble’s campaign income.
Nice post!
Alex
January 4th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Yeah, i do stumble my own post occasionally.. It’s a good way to bring in traffic. The rule of thumb is always don’t over do it.. As long as you stumbled your homepage, it should be fine.
Finally i found a post on what i was initially worried about… Great info!
February 12th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Super information, I am just not sure that if its still valid today. Can i Stumble my own or not? Today being that this article is 2 years old I am not sure if their plicy has changed yet.
Thanks,
Vrbo
April 11th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Indeed anything overdone is wrong. Like the first comment, if the ratio is good, then it would not hurt someone’s account. This is a very well researched and presented information.
May 1st, 2009 at 8:33 pm
I actually found this article Googling this idea because I had recently just stumbled a few of my own posts. I know how amazing stumble upon can be for websites so I figured I’d kick start some posts by doing it. I was curious about if it was allowed too. This was only after I did it though :P. This is really interesting. I suppose it’s okay once in awhile but not to just go straight through. I suppose that after the ones I did today I should probably fall back on it for a good while.
Thanks for posting on this, and for the linkage to that Dosh Dosh post. Keep up the good work!
May 6th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Stumble your really good posts you think people coming upon your website will like. I’ve heard that if you stumble a lot of things from one domain, the power of your stumble lessens