Do you Stumble-Exchange often?

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Note: This post has been edited from the original, as things have changed quite a bit over the past month.

Some of you may have heard this, others may have been tagged by a group of individuals, but it appears that stumbleupon users are fighting spammers.

Many of these users are trying to crack down on a lot of the spam that are coming from forums and ’stumble exchanges’.

A month Ago:

It started with a single person. “SUhallofshame” (get it, Stumble Upon Hall of Shame). Man, has a lot happened since then. Digital Point stopped allowing stumble exchanges. Half of the sites that have used exchanges are now gone.

He, among others, are giving ‘thumbs down’ on any thread and post that they can find that offers exchanges. A month ago or more, I would have disagreed with this as a lot of quality sites are part of exchanges. However, now, is a different story.

My Confession:

I admit, I exchanged in the past. Quite a bit. I will get flagged as a spammer, so be it. However, after actually stumbling on Stumbleupon for a while, I noticed something unique about the community and what they stand for.

I do not stumble-exchange anymore. I am against it. So do I still get marked as a spammer? Whether I do or not, it does not matter. The idea of stopping certain webmasters from posting spam sites to people is quite noble, in my opinion. I often stumble through websites, looking for something interested, but am often plagued with spam sites or made for adsense sites.

Bias? Maybe. Maybe not.

A lot of webmasters who first start out, try to get a name for themselves by posting to social bookmarking sites, submitting to directories and search engines, etc. I was naive to do this as well when I first started. I wish I could delete every single one of those exchanges, but I cannot.

Back Then, and now:

I took stumbleupon for granted. However, Stumbleupon brings quality traffic to my blog. I visit websites through stumbleupon to find good websites that I can read, or have a good laugh over.

I thank you for that. The reason why I decided to edit it now is because over the last 24 hours I have gotten a lot of bad reviews for this one post, when the original post was against what I believed in.

And… this means?Frankly, if you do not believe me. Its ok. It doesn’t matter. I will continue to stumble to sites and be happy. I lost the trust of stumblers because I exchanged a lot in Stumbleupon.

Despite the rather snarky and rude remarks/comments of the last few people. I do not believe that this site is poor quality just because I need a bit of a boost, thats a rather narrowminded way of looking at things and I think you need a time out ;).

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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20 Responses to “Do you Stumble-Exchange often?”

The Stooge(1 March 2008 at 1:43 am)	1
That bites. I often do stumble-exchanges on Digital Point. (Its actually how I found this blog) and I get a lot of great traffic and readers on my site. I guess though I see your point of view (and his, unfortuntely). It does weed out some of the scammers.

ThinkBlogger(1 March 2008 at 2:01 am)	2
@Stooge: Right on Stooge! Welcome to Thinkblogger, one way or another.

Jakers(1 March 2008 at 3:02 am)	3
That is sad. I am happy that I found this blog. It looks awesome with some great posts on it.

ThinkBlogger(1 March 2008 at 3:18 am)	4
@Jakers: Exactly. Thanks by the way hehe. At least I am not crazy. Stumbleupon Traffic is great

sukosaki(1 March 2008 at 9:09 pm)	5
I stumble quite often and there are a couple of forums that I am a part of that run regular stumble threads. It’s a nice setup they have, especially when you make it to the popular sites page in your category

Shanker Bakshi(3 March 2008 at 1:04 am)	6
Its a bad idea for sure, some smart ass are really hitting Stumbleupon hard, stmble has to decide what they wanna do about these craps. SumbleUpon is a great thing happened to Blogsphere and one can not tolrate someone distryoed and using it like this.

Matt Keegan(5 March 2008 at 1:54 pm)	7
You might want to update this post — DP has since banned all stumble exchanges. Looks like suhallofshame has gotten his way; at least for now.

ThinkBlogger(5 March 2008 at 5:15 pm)	8
Ahhh.. I have been taking a break from DP for the last few days. I was not even aware. Harsh. Thanks Matt!

1 Million in 365 Day(6 March 2008 at 5:22 pm)	9
Well in Entrecard Stumble Exchange you won’t find creeps like that. I really can’t understand why someone would do such a thing…

Aris(7 March 2008 at 12:46 pm)	10
Have you tried StumbleUdon.com ? A stumble exchange website where everything is automated

ThinkBlogger(7 March 2008 at 7:20 pm)	11
@ Aris: Yep, tried it Have it. I just dont like the limit of 15 credits per day.

rj(16 March 2008 at 8:36 pm)	12
It’s worse than that su guy posting all the people’s blogs. He’s generating a lot of traffic and interest by putting their addresses on his blog

rk(19 March 2008 at 11:31 am)

I don’t like this guy. He labeled an autism awareness (http://www.autismspeaks.org/) site as spam, just because it showed up in a known spammer’s comments. So then a bunch of people gave the autism site thumbs-down. This guy doesn’t care that he’s doing harm, he just wants an ego boost. There was a multiple sclerosis website he gave a spam review to as well, but I can’t find that site at the moment

jason n(19 March 2008 at 11:31 am)	14
I found this website through digital point!

Bozz(19 March 2008 at 1:57 pm)

F###TARDS!

The whole idea of StumbleUpon is finding random interesting sites and rate them. By trading stumbles you defeat the purpose of the system: you artificially give the site popularity.

IT DOESN’T MATTER IF THE SITE IS ANY GOOD AT ALL. It’s a bit like saying that it’s OK for a congressman to buy votes because he’s a good person.

And about StumbleUdon.com… well, if you look for other exchange sites on Google and then try to review them, you’ll see that SU has banned them. Which shows what’s SU’s official stand on the subject.

ThinkBlogger(19 March 2008 at 3:03 pm)

@ Rk: Thats pretty bad to hear.
@ Jason N: Right on Good to know that I am still getting traffic from there from time to time.
@ Bozz: Dear Bozz, I censored the profanity, first off. Second off, Stumbleupon was a good tool for webmasters to get their sites out. However, I do agree with cutting spam out of the equation. I do not do stumble exchanges anymore (and stopped doing them prior to the news at DP).

ThinkBlogger(19 March 2008 at 3:04 pm)	17
@ Everyone: To put it bluntly. I stumble my own site. Oops? but you know what, I also consider myself a ‘real’ stumbler I go through sites and if I like them, I hit the thumbs up not because of some exchange, but because I like the site.

annex10(20 March 2008 at 3:29 pm)	18
The world isn’t about making you a happy person, it’s about survival, competing needs and ideals colliding in effort to maintain and command resources. SU is a resource. Spammers and spam haters will collide. Quit acting like it’s your right to exist here unopposed.

ThinkBlogger(20 March 2008 at 5:19 pm)	19
@Annex: I approved your comment because in a way I agree with it, even though you didnt have to be so brash about it. I also e-mailed you.

Jessica(25 March 2008 at 9:20 pm)	20
Sorry to hear about the recent black-listing. Andrew, I know your a genuine stumbler

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