Getting Nasty with StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is an internet toolbar that literally allows it's users to 'Stumble Upon' new websites that match their interest. It also allows users to submit new sites they find, to rate sites as either 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' and to submit reviews about the site. Even though StumbleUpon requires users to install a toolbar, and not every internet user has this toolbar, it is still a good method of marketing your web pages, whether they are your AC articles, blog posts, forum topics or other websites.

Many internet marketers use StumbleUpon to generate extra traffic very effectively. However, it is possible to use StumbleUpon for evil instead of good and to reduce the quantity or quality of traffic competitors receive.

The obvious way to damage your competitors' traffic from stumble upon is to give t heir site thumbs down and to write a bad review about them. However, one bad review compared to many good reviews will look out of place and make you less creditable.

A sneakier approach is to mislabel their site using inappropriate tags. Labelling a site as having 'adult content', when it is actually a harmless site about how to make paper aeroplanes (for example) will stop viewers who have content filters from viewing it. It will also prevent it from being labelled as a favourite by people who have their options set to not display their favourite 'adult' content sites. This means that their site will get less traffic, but will also be seem as a favourite site of less people.

Not only that, but when you search for a site using Google, if you are a StumbleUpon user then you can see if the site has reviews on StumbleUpon and what tag it was classified under when it was first discovered. If you were nasty enough to discover your competitors site first and mislabel their site as adult, then the word 'Pornography' will appear next to their website title with the options to read reviews about that site. Seeing the word there is likely to turn a lot of users away when they see it if that isn't what they were hoping to find. If that was what they were hoping to find, then they're going to be disappointed.

The end result is that the competing website misses out on traffic that would have been genuinely interested in the content on their website, and instead receive visitors who are looking for something else entirely.