Comments on: Analysis of StumbleUpon’s Top 50 Stumblers

By: Brian

Brian — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 00:13:37 +0000

Does being a top stumbler have any bearing on how that site shows up?

By: @balootisme.com

@balootisme.com — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 05:21:16 +0000

i become a stumbler to increase traffic and ranking in search engine.

i actually thumbs up my own blog page. and that will increase traffic on those blog; immediately.

digg is also good to increase traffic to blog immediately.

By: Jana

Jana — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 23:43:21 +0000

I became a top stumbler quite by accident some time ago, and I have remained there not because I am trying to be a top stumbler but rather because I’m just surfing like I normally do… that is, 1. finding content that is interesting to me, 2. being the FIRST one to discover it and thumb it up, and then 3. other people also in turn view it and give it a thumbs up too. (#3. is key in the whole thing.) The more sites YOU discover and other people thumb up = higher rankings on Stumble. But the key is that you can’t just discover any old thing, it has to be stuff people would actually give a thumbs up to. So that is why I only thumb up things I personally like!

As for extra pull, other people here haven’t noticed any – and neither have I, except I have my avatar on the “TOP STUMBLER” page – IF that is a perk. The only change as Chris said, is people emailing you asking you to thumb up their their sites, and in my case I got a lot more email in general from creepy guys wanting to hook up me. But that is a universal problem for all women I think! :)

By: Singh

Singh — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 03:43:06 +0000

I agree with you Brown,, but do they really stumble for those people? And yeah, before when I used to stumble I would see interesting sites on most of my stumbles, but now I’m getting very few good results.

By: Brown Baron

Brown Baron — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 17:12:15 +0000

I guess the biggest drawback to being a top stumbler is that you get a lot of people asking you to stumble their sites. Great job Glen.

By: Hans

Hans — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 10:57:49 +0000

Ah – the dark side of the blogosphere. We’re running a real risk of spoiling a good tool (Stumbleupon). It’s a great tool for exploring the web – ‘we only know what we know’.

Recently, I seem to observe a relative decline in the quality of stumbles. Where one could have been amazed before with every second or third stumble, this is no longer the case.

Incidentally, some mainstream bloggers have ‘discovered’ stumble, and advocate its use as a site promotion tool.

I wonder whether above 2 developments are related.

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 06:09:50 +0000

It’s even worth the time the time doing that? That is just way too much if you ask me.

By: vargas

vargas — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 05:59:27 +0000

I don’t like this idea of paying a lot of attention to Top anything unless there’s something substantial to it. What really matter in my mind is how you cultivate and take care of your own site. I use StumbleUpon and I like it but I find it more helpful to my own blogs to find interesting sites there to showcase and blog about. Every now and then I look for bloggers and website owners I stumble across who might be interested in exchanging links.

It can be very easy to just waste a lot of time at sites like that. And I agree with Brad V. A lot of these sites eventually develop a small group at the top that wield a lot of influence.

By: Mike Goad

Mike Goad — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 04:09:53 +0000

About 2 1/2 years ago, I was one of the “top stumblers.” I spent a lot of time stumbling and finding new websites to share when I should have been doing something else. When I stopped spending so much time at it, it wasn’t long before I dropped out of that “elite” group.

I’m still active at StumbleUpon and I spend some time there on occasion looking at other peoples’ stumble blogs and doing a little stumbling of my own.

Having been there and done that, I don’t place a lot of importance in the top stumbler rankings.

My stumble pages are at http://skedaddle.stumbleupon.com/

By: Brad V.

Brad V. — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 02:44:02 +0000

Interesting post. I like what Chris said in the first comment though, about not being sure what being a “top stumbler” really means. Does it just mean you spend a lot of time surfing the web?

From the little I know about “Stumble Upon”, it sounds like if you are a top stumbler, you just get lots of requests to visit certain websites (also as Chris pointed out).

But I’m wary of such sites. I tried playing around with Digg for a while and quickly became bored with it. These sites appear to be designed in a way so just a few people hold the most influence. But I could be wrong.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 02:07:32 +0000

The term fans is a little misleading IME. Sometimes people will add you because they like the pages you stumble, but mostly it seems to be the equivalent of a ‘friend’ on any other site. People message you and ask to be their friend, etc.

If you’re proactive about making friends, you’ll get a lot of ‘fans’, otherwise you just have to wait for people to come to you.

By: Blain Reinkensmeyer

Blain Reinkensmeyer — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 23:19:31 +0000

Darren, found the average fans per Top 50 SU user. Emailed you the numbers.

By: Terra Andersen

Terra Andersen — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 22:26:42 +0000

A friend of mine is a top stumbler as well, and she also says it has little power attached to it.

She was thinking of a way to devise a charging system for stumbling and liking sites!

While it sounds difficult, I’m sure it could be done.

By: ihavewebfeet

ihavewebfeet — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 21:45:56 +0000

I’ve clicked on many the ‘top stumblers’ and found that a few have been inactive for a while, not a stumbler for long, few reviews, or a seemingly small amount of stumbles.
I’ve been curious about what kind of formula determines ‘top’ ranking? 12,000 pages? 1100 Photos? 500 videos? That’s a LOT of thumbs-up!!

By: YouNeed2See

YouNeed2See — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 21:21:52 +0000

I definitely don’t have those stats but I’m trying to get more and more into the habit of “uping” the pages I find from other places, because I appreciate people doing the same on my website ;)

By: Darren Rowse

Darren Rowse — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 21:03:06 +0000

thanks for the analysis Glen. I’m surprised that fans don’t seem to impact it that much. It’d be fascinating to see how much impact all the different elements have on their algorithm.

By: Glen Allsopp

Glen Allsopp — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:59:44 +0000

haha Carl don’t worry, I will never become famous. I just want to help people understand Social Media / SEO and share what I learn on the way!

By: Carl Coddington

Carl Coddington — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:54:25 +0000

I hope you don’t forget about me when you become famous :) Congratulations on making it to problogger.

By: Glen Allsopp

Glen Allsopp — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:53:58 +0000

Someone else mentioned the fans factor, I guess it should have been something I considered and something I will add in a revision at a later date

Thanks for the link Darren :)

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:44:25 +0000

I’m one of the Top Stumblers and the third fastest to reach that status (5 months, around 1500 Thumbs Up). Glenn chatted to me briefly about it.

I’m not sure how some people see Top Stumblers, but I’ve found the position to have very little influence. It certainly doesn’t send my own site mountains of traffic. I don’t even have more than 30 fans. I’m not even sure how I became a Top Stumbler so quickly…

The only real change I’ve noticed is more messages from people asking me to ‘Like’ their site.