Do you think one can get penalized for social bookmarking?

I was doing some work last month...SEO sort of stuff and used, and not overused mind you (about  6 or so) different social bookmarking sites to bolster up some pages on a site. At first it seemed to work rather well, then after about a week all of the pages I did this for completely vanished from the Google Index.

Now Ive been in this line of work for awhile and have seen many changes. Back in "the day" all one had to do is buy about 20 domains on a subject and crosslink them all to like something akin to a bicycle wheel and BAM! You were in business.

That nolonger works. Spare yourself the pain and don't even try it.

For awhile I could buy single domains and just hook them up to the likes of gotlinks.com and telalinks.com and BAM! I was in business.

That nolonger works. Spare yourself the pain and don't even try it.

Link swapping does not seem to help much either these days as it appears outgoing links cancel out the incoming ones. Three way linking seems to be effective a bit more, but they (the engines) I think can still detect the given pattern or "neighbourhood".

Buying oneway links is a big no-no these days as there has been for several years now a url to Google for example to snitch off people who are buying one way links (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66736 )

Just seems like there is really no "legitimate" way to do SEO and it all pretty much is Black Hat.

What really irks me is when I follow (and I actually do tend to) the guidlines my sites might be indexed well at first...having only "quality" incoming links from article hubs, each with unique content, links back from meaningful posts etc...Well my sites usually get thrown in the back hamper by the engine at some point.

I often ask myself, "I'm I just doing too good of a job, thus manipulating the system?" Hence I "deserve" such?

Then I have to counter that question with "What else am I suppose to do?"

Just submit the url to the engines and try to get listed in DMOZ and just hope the site becomes a viral hit?

C'mon there has to be some middle ground here.

[Just Visit...]

I feel there is a current change in Google's algorithm, and there are now customized results for regions and observance of behaviour of the user machines, the SE automatically adjust to those... Just a feeling I had for the past couple of days...

I noticed a bunch of changes myself.  Some of my Firefox add-ins weren't functioning (specifically last Friday the 22nd) when doing searches, but by the 25th there were patches installed so that the information I was trying to see under Google searches were useful again.  I wonder if this is cause for alarm since I was under the impression that Google was SEO-friendly.  -shrugs-

hmm that's horrible when it happens..

I do not think that this will be penalised in any manner. Many popular and well established websites are doing this and getting very handsome traffic from it. I am also getting good traffic from these social bookmarking and I do not want to lose this piece.

I don't think that you will get penalized, as long as you are following the rules of each social bookmarking websites.

If you work with specific social bookmarking sites, eventually you know what type of information you are able to push through which site.  For example, Netvouz is going through their "overhaul" of information by pushing out users who they deem spammers as well as locking up registering for new users.  Apparently they want to change the way they conduct their network which is fine and dandy, but imagine the loss of traffic on a daily basis.  Yet again, there are the "big" ones like Stumbleupon and Digg who not base the pushing of a specific piece of information, but aid it based on what other people think of it + the amount of users that discovered it on their own.  All in all, it's a give-n-take for me.  Once you know how to tailor the information you want to push to the bookmarking sites, the easier it will be in the long run not to mention more traffic for what you're pushing.

I agree with markbratton...As long as we follow the rule of the social bookmarking they won't penalize us. I don't understand why that could happen.

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