12 Reasons Why StumbleUpon is Dead
Dead End is a Creative Commons image by Benny Lin
StumbleUpon is dead. Read my story first and then the 12 reasons.
It was long ago, probably a year or more, that I have stopped recommending StumbleUpon for business users or "getting traffic", at least when using means actively participating on the site and using the toolbar. It doesn't work that way if it ever has.
Unlike on Twitter neither self submission nor friends' votes count on SU so it's even better not to join or to engage with others on the site in order not to render your and their votes worthless.
StumbleUpon only sends stumblers your way when a random complete stranger having no connection to you whatsoever votes for you.
This is how the system works.
Now I'm a man of habit. I just get used to things. Also I like sharing so I still used StumbleUpon privately for discovering and sharing things. I liked the idea of being able to share environmental, artistic or self improvement finds with a lot of subscribers (I have over 800 of them) plus automatically with the followers of my followers. At least this is the way StumbleUpon was meant to work. It doesn't.
After the new design has been introduced SU started to display how many views your stumbles get. I noticed that most of my discoveries get only one view, yes, that's a "1". That made me kind of sad as I discover stuff quite often and I wanted to make it known and support the respective activists, artists or bloggers. Instead I basically sabotaged their sites as they never got any visitors from SU after I discovered them.
At first I assumed that I did something wrong, like writing not enough reviews or not including images or discovering the wrong content or topics. I changed everything in trial and error and even tried some highly popular stuff from elsewhere, to no avail. Most of my submissions get just 1 view.
Why should I waste my time submitting stuff to a site that does not send any of the stuff to my followers at the same time penalizing webmasters for being submitted to it?
Then I suspected a penalty on my profile due to being a writer for a SEO blog as the topic SEO is still considered "evil" on StumbleUpon even after the introduction of an SEO category earlier this year. Everybody writing about SEO is a suspected spammer according to this misguided opinion. Also I have been very vocal in the fight against the omnipresent content theft on StumbleUpon. SU is full of stolen images, indeed stolen images tend to be the most popular discoveries on SU. Maybe the many content thieves I thumbed down and gave a bad review flagged me or something?
So I kept checking other people's profiles and looking at how many views their discoveries get. I was surprised to find out that most people who have many views on their discoveries rarely discover anything. The more you discover the less visitors your discoveries get it seems. Plus the number of stumbles or friends has no positive impact on the power to reach people. I have 17k stumbles and 800+ subscribers but nobody ever sees my dsicoveries. It's the other way around, the more friends you got the less other non-related strangers are there to push your discovery. In some niches there aren't many at all so subscribing to most of them means Stumble suicide.
- Most discoveries get buried by the system and won't get seen anybody beside yourself - "1 View" phenomenon
- In a bizarre logic the more friends you have the less traffic your discoveries get, only votes by strangers count
- Content theft abounds and gets most popular while the sites of the original artists or photographers get no credit or traffic
- Business usage is officially banned in the TOS, as a business owner you are only allowed to advertise not
- Sites you like the most get the least traction as submitting the same source more than once gets your vote devalued
- You actually hurt people by discovering their sites or blogs as they can't get any traffic in most cases
- For inspiration there are far better sites like image bookmarking services FFFOUND! and Dropular
- For business use and to spread the message Twitter is by far the better choice for sharing Tumblr is far better than SU
- Old, completely outdated posts often get pushed by the SU system while new ones get ignored, hoaxes from 2003 for example
- You can't block the infamous StumbleUpon trolls via htaccess anymore as everybody uses the same home URL now
- You can't browser stumbles by categories anymore, I used to browse the architecture stumbles but now I can't even find them
- The SU categories are broken. A wrong categorization means in most cases the death of a submission though
This is not a post to whine about StumbleUpon treating me bad or something. It's just a post that warns you not to follow my advice from 2007 and early 2008 when I hailed SU as the new messiah of the Web.
In 2009 Twitter has become both the most important social sites and source of traffic, StumbleUpon is a dinosaur.
SU hates busiess users and has an algorithm that effectively stifles both sharing and socializing. StumbleUpon is dead and I personally switched to Twitter for business usage more than a year ago while I switched last week to Tumblr for
- inspiration
- community
- social discovery
- and sharing.
I won't make the same mistake again using Tumblr for business so that my account there will remain completely private.
Now you might say: I still get traffic from SU by the thousands. Me too, but it doesn't have anything to do with me. Just last week I got 1k visitors to a post with just 2 thumbs up by complete strangers. On the other hand most of my friends waste their time and votes when they vote for me on SU.
This post is not a pull a Calacanis type of linkbait. Who am I baiting, Stumblers? LOL. It's just a warning to my readers and followers. Also I ask you to follow me elsewhere:
- FriendFeed
- Delicious
- Browzmi
You still want the social browsing experience with me? Use Browzmi! It has been largely deserted but it still gets your more views than the "1" from SU. Btw. I could have come up with more than 12 reasons to abandon StumbleUpon but I don't want waste any more time with it.
Read my other posts on the broken categories on StumbleUpon which still haven't been fixed, content theft and other SU annoyances. Also make sure you know how to use Twitter instead.
Does SU still work you for business or private use? In case you aren't in the most awesomely amazing creative content theft business tell me how you do use it.
Many other former fellow stumblers and other long time users tend to agree with me:
- Has StumbleUpon Jumped the Shark?
- StumbleUpon Can Kiss My Ass
- StumbleUpon Sucks
- i hate stumbleupon right now
- StumbleUpon - The Art of Alienating Users
Last but not least: I apologize all the green activists, bloggers, artist and designers for discovering their stuff and basically banning these pages on SU. Mea culpa! StumbleUpon is dead. In short: I'm simply sick and tired of all tha content theft crap and discovering stuff nobody ever sees.
Oh, I could add so many other reasons why they are dead on this list. For example Katie Sween who sent me a personal email after I published the article you mentioned in the list. She basically said: “I’d like to talk through the changes, and most importantly better understand what we can do better.” – I replied, offering my help, complimentary of course. She never got back. Have you experienced such lack of courtesy with Google for example? Now those are big, important, powerful and they wouldn’t need to reply to us, yet they still do. And this is what SU will never understand: if you don’t respect your users, you end up as a second class entity.
They will never be able to fix the bugs and the issue with content theft. They have to address the trolling issues as well, but they still ignore this. Heck, some of their “top stumblers” are trolls. LOL
I will bookmark this article for a closer study, but I can understand your thinking.
SU can be a royal pain, but I haven’t figured out a way to keep up with followers besides using Twitter.
Regarding, Facebook — that site is just as annoying.
I got stumbled yesterday for the first time in years. It sent me about 70 visitors overall, and 3 of them “converted” (i.e. they subscribed to my email newsletter).
I think this is the exception as opposed to the rule. Looking at the site & the person who stumbled me he was a bit of a spammer (he broke my commenting rules, but I let it slide as it was a great comment). I wrote a post about the comment linking to him, who basically socially bookmarked my stuff, to get more links to that page, which had a link to his site – at least that’s my thoughts anyway.
People seem to use it quite a lot with su.pr, rather than the toolbar. Any thoughts on that? Personally, for a usability perspective, su.pr is absolutely terrible (breaking on mobile phones), not used it for my stuff…yet.
Yeah Mihaela, there are plenty of disgruntled SU users on the Web for a myriad of reasons. I just linked 5 “hate SU” posts in order not to depress my readers too much.
I ignored the 12 of trolls that stalked me and banned them via htaccess and the problem was solved but lately with the new system even the same trolls come back to this blog.
In the Twitter era StumbleUpon is just doomed. I just had to publish this post to undo all the advice I have given 2 years ago.
Matt: Yeah, I’m still not on Facebook but I love Twitter. Works just fine for me. For inspiration Tumblr, it even has a TumblUpon feature. No joke!
Rhys: I get stumbled from time to time. Most votes don’t count unless somebody visits and votes who has never been here before it seems but it’s completely random. It mostly hits old, sometimes outdated posts.
su.pr sucks as it frames content just like the Diggbar did. Some poeple like it though. It basically breaches their own TOS though saying “promote your site”. I wonder if they ever read or update their TOS.
Tad,
I totally agree with all your points. With the new StumbleUpon, it is getting tougher and tougher to get any visitors at all.
I don’t think even a stranger giving a thumbs up for a new site has great effect compared to what it used to be before.
I find completely new site, stumble it, review it and when I see the next day, it has 10 views at the maximum.
Gone are the days when a couple of stumbles could get you 3 figures of traffic.
I guess the introduction of Su.Pr has a significant effect on this too.
When someone posts a su.pr link in twitter, they are likely to get a lot of thumbs (Or SU thinks so). So they might have set a high threshold for starting to send huge traffic.
A superb post. This is a sad story actually. SU had the most potential of all the social media sites at a point. We are now in preparation to delete our accounts as a sort of protest, as well as a time savings measure. How these things get convoluted is beyond me.
Always,
Phil
SU is good for traffic. It will get you lotsa visitors for short time. But if you are a businessman you want loyal visitors even if the quantity is less. That is why I like twitter.
I nearly clicked the “Like” button on my SU toolbar, but I decided against it. Great post, as much as it pains me to say it. I sorta informally gave up on StumbleUpon a while back. I never was really too committed to it, but recently I’ve become disenchanted, having noticed that the articles I stumble rarely gain much further exposure. Laziness comes into play, too. I’ve just found Twitter more engaging.
Hey Tad,
Wow, somehow this is the first I’ve ever read about this. I’m not very much into social media in general, but I was under the impression that SU was a very powerful traffic-building device. Guess I’m a bit behind the times, here.
I also had no idea about how the system works. With friend’s votes not counting, it’s just really absurd and pointless.
Thanks for posting this.
Cheers,
Shane
Yeah, I have read lots of this and not surprised anymore. I love using twitter and will of course follow you :)
I noticed for the business point of view is not that good. I used it in the past for backlinks so I get indexed faster, not for any page rank.
Good post, but sad i used to use SU for traffic
I was under the impression that SU was a very powerful traffic-building device. Guess I’m a bit behind the times, here. If you are a businessman you want loyal visitors even if the quantity is less. I think the information presented will be useful to many people a lot.
Benny,
I have been going in circles trying to sort out this mess that is called StumbleUpon. Now I am going in a straight line directly to Twitter!
Thanks for clearing up so much of my confusion about SU, I really thought it was just me and I hadn’t figured it out how to use it properly yet.
I’ll admit I have grown attached to using su.pr in the last few weeks, but could not understand why some posts would do so well and others would tank. This post was a real eye-opener for me. Thanks.
@Ileane
Thanks very much for the insightful article. I’m a newbie to SEO and will certainly be placing less focus on SU moving forward (I really do hate that phrase!).
Thanks,
Hugh
Thanks for the insightful post. Twitter definately has the edge in terms of business use.
i got frustrated by stumbleupon’s seemingly randomness and gave up on it
I agree, SU is too hard to understand and be comfortable with. I use it rarely to browse for inspiration but it seams like it is the same articles and posts I run into every time… On the other hand not being too happy as a user I have to admit that SU is one of my best traffic source. I hit popularity a few times a month and receive several thousands hits in a few hours. Over time SU have provided 123.415 visitors and I’m kind of thankful for that…
Well I don’t think stumbleupon is dead, it’s just a matter of time, the concept is still fresh, stumbleupon is always a great way and we think that there will be a time when people will love rated content.
[...] interaction with other users to get the most value out of them while it seems like other sites like Stumble Upon works best when you just do your own thing and hope the quality of your content helps you build [...]
Now I see why StumbleUpon don’t worth these days. I would rather post links to these fine blogs and websites that has DoFollow values.
I stopped using stumble upon months ago I just couldn’t be bothered with it and rarely use it to find good articles since everyone just posts re writes of the same articles again and again. I much prefer to read something recommend by someone I follow on Twitter – such as this!
I tried several times over the last couple years to get in to SU.. It never struck me as having all that much community to it.. I understand that a lot of people only look at things from a marketing or hat can it do for me perspective, but I’ve always thought that is you don’t have community you don’t have a site.. And SU never seemed to get that community to me..
Its even more interesting to see that they may actually be punishing communities and groups..
I absolutely agree with your list of reasons, especially number 9 – can’t agree with you more! I don’t think SU ever managed to be a successful, friendly online community. While I did find new sites and blogs (like this one) while our account lasted (unreasonably suspended us) it was always about reading news, and passing on interesting links but never did it manage to become a “warm” online community where people can just chat.
I am the owner of Voltier Creative, a search marketing agency located in South Florida. In my opinion, I agree that stumbleupons popularity is overshadowed by the traffic, links and exposure gained by digg.com, reddit etc… I wouldn’t write it off completely- I would just keep it way out to the side as an ancillary promotional method! = ) BTW- this article had 8 stumbles when I started this comment…
Hi, yours is not the first post I have read about SU unfriendliness and little worth. I guess I’ll check it out of my social bookmarking list.
If I not read this reason I’m not believe that rumor is true…
I won’t say it’s dead, but SU has definitely become less valuable. How much time does it take to Stumble a site though? Like 20 seconds. Not a huge investment in time – and I DO still get traffic via SU. So it’s got some real value. The tip about image bookmarking sites is great…for an image-intensive site or post.
StumbleUpon is a mystery, I thought I knew how it work since I’m a longtime user, only to find out that I really have not a clue. I agree with your post, never understanding about the 1 part, for a while I thought the content I submitted suck, well it probably did suck, any how I appreciate the time you took to write this great article to enlighten some of us on the mystery of SU.
i use su.pr at the moment it does send traffic my way consistantly now not much between 20-50 a day on my blog i found since i changed my blog there doesnt seem to be as many stumbles as i got before i changed it i am registered on alot of social sights and i can see why people are starting to favour twitter over than say SU but i dont like to put all my eggs in 1 basket so im spread out over alot of them good post.
This was always a battle to keep stumple upon being used for what it was actually set out for, social bookmarking, most of these sites disapear into a mountain of spam sites and viagra rubbish, I used to love stumble upon and it was very good when it frist started, i remember getting 400 hits the first time i tryed it, but now I dont get any hits, so therefore most people just submit their sites and then just leave the site, a shame but probably the destiny of most social bookmarking sites !
Woc
your blog has actually made me realise why i couldn’t really get results for my webcast through stumble and it showed only 1 view! Also i find it slighlty complicated.
Stumble upon is facing disaster due to many reasons but the main reason is social networking sites with multiple features at a single place…
The content theft complaint is a load of bull. Stumbleupon is a social network online desktop. There is no difference between downloading images to photoblog at home to friends (who might actually be viewing them via (horrors!) Terminal Server, (the fiends!) Network Neighborhood, or (have they no shame!) on a WordPress site. No difference other than the missing bandwidth.
People used stumbleupon to build photostreams like lifestreaming. As for not seeing additional site content due to photoblogging, I wasn’t going to pay attention to the ads anyway and certainly don’t need a bloody soap opera of widgets to show things that I’ve singled out.
The only real issue is the bandwidth abuse.
What I find odd is the refusal of web creators to continue pushing the edge.
“Anti Vigilante”: Either you don’t understand because you don’t or you refuse do understand.
I’m not referring the to content theft when people take images or snippets and post them on their SU blog. That’s wrong as well in many cases but I’m referring to the people who take 20 images by artists without their permission and get ten thousands of visitors to their blogs to earn ad revenue.
Stupid SU users thumb it all up without caring who the artist is or that the work has been stolen. They just don’t care the ignorant idiots.
I agree with the points you’re making in the post.
I don’t personally use StumbleUpon (never quite understood the appeal), but it has sent me major spurts of traffic recently so I feel like it is still relevant and still has value.
[...] and think that less people are stumbling upon his work via Google. (Which reminds me, StumbleUpon died last year, evidently. I guess no one told the site’s 11 million [...]
nowadays twitter really dominate the net especially in micro blogging.
I believe StumbleUpon had its heydays. Besides, it never managed to be more social friendly and less complicated.
There has been a good phase for all of these social bookmarking type sites but hardly anyone has been able to maintain all that with the time and stumble upon is also one of them. Nice post mate :)
No surprising. I never thought StubleUpon was a flawlessly democratic system. What with tens of thousands of sites in the SU database, I always got pointed to the same few to the point that I got bored and stopped using the service.
I have noticed a bit of inconsistency with StumbleUpon. I have one article with over 18k stumbles and growing, a few with a several hundred and the rest sitting at the infamous 1 lonely stumble. It’s very hit or miss, which is why I am on this article in the first place haha. Good insight.
I was trying to use SU for getting traffic to a new site, and noticed that I only have 1 view as well. Now I know why.
I am new to all this, now going to look into Twitter and Tumblr. There does seem to be a catch 22 situation when you have a brand new website, and no existing web presence.