OMFG, yet another post on Sphinn? Yup. I tell you why gaming Sphinn is counter productive, because I just don’t want to read another whiny rant in the lines of “why do you ignore my stuff whilst A listers [whatever this undefined term means] get their crap sphunn hot in no time”. Also, discussions assuming that success equals bad behavior like this or this one aren’t exactly funny nor useful. As for the whiners: Grow the fuck up and produce outstanding content, then network politely but not obtrusive to promote it. As for the gamers: Think before you ruin your reputation!
What motivates a wannabe Internet marketer to game Sphinn?
Traffic of course, but that’s a myth. Sphinn sends very targeted traffic but also very few visitors (see my stats below).
Free uncondomized links. Ok, that works, one can gain enough link love to get a page indexed by the search engines, but for this purpose it’s not necessary to push the submission to the home page.
Attention is up next. Yep, Sphinn is an eldorado for attention whores, but not everybody is an experienced high-class call girl. Most are amateurs giving it a (first) try, or wrecked hookers pushing too hard to attract positive attention.
The keyword is positive attention. Sphinners are smart, they know every trick in the book. Many of them make a living with gaming creative use of social media. Cheating professional gamblers is a waste of time, and will not produce positive attention. Even worse, the shit sticks at the handle of the unsuccessful cheater (and in many cases the real name). So if you want to burn your reputation, go found a voting club to feed your crap.
Fortunately, getting caught for artificial voting at Sphinn comes with devalued links too. The submitted stories are taken off the list, that means no single link at Sphinn (besides profile pages) feeds them any more, hence search engines forget them. Instead of a good link from an unpopular submission you get zilch when you try to cheat your way to the popular links pages.
Although Sphinn doesn’t send shitloads of traffic, this traffic is extremely valuable. Many spinners operate or control blogs and tend to link to outstanding articles they found at Sphinn. Many sphinners have accounts on other SM sites too, and bookmark/cross-submit good content. It’s not unusual that 10 visits from Sphinn result in hundreds or even thousands of hits from StumbleUpon & Co. — but spinners don’t bookmark/blog/cross-submit/stumble crap.
So either write great content and play by the rules, or get nowhere with your crappy submission. The first “10 reasons why 10 tricks posts about 10 great tips to write 10 numbered lists” submission was fun. The 10,000 plagiarisms following were just boring noise. Nobody except your buddies or vote bots sphinn crap like that, so don’t bother to provide the community with footprints of your lousy gaming.
If you’re playing number games, here is why ruining a reputation by gaming Sphinn is not worth it. Look at my visitor stats from July to today. I got 3.6k referrers in 4 months from Sphinn because a few of my posts went hot. When a post sticks with 1-5 votes, you won’t attract much more click throughs than from those 1-5 folks who sphunn it (that would give 100-200 hits or so with the same amount of submissions). When you cheat, the story gets buried and you get nothing but flames. Think about that. Thanks.
Rank |
Last Date/Time |
Referral Site |
Count |
1 |
Oct 09, 2007 @ 23:29 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 1622 |
504 |
2 |
Oct 23, 2007 @ 14:53 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 2764 |
419 |
3 |
Nov 01, 2007 @ 03:42 |
http: / / sphinn.com |
293 |
4 |
Oct 08, 2007 @ 04:21 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 5469 |
288 |
5 |
Nov 02, 2007 @ 13:35 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 8883 |
192 |
6 |
Oct 09, 2007 @ 23:38 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 4335 |
185 |
7 |
Oct 22, 2007 @ 23:55 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 5362 |
139 |
8 |
Oct 29, 2007 @ 15:02 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ upcoming |
131 |
9 |
Nov 02, 2007 @ 13:34 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 7170 |
131 |
10 |
Sep 10, 2007 @ 09:09 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 1976 |
116 |
11 |
Oct 15, 2007 @ 22:40 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 6122 |
113 |
12 |
Sep 22, 2007 @ 13:39 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 3593 |
90 |
13 |
Oct 05, 2007 @ 21:56 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 5648 |
87 |
14 |
Sep 22, 2007 @ 13:25 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 4072 |
80 |
15 |
Oct 14, 2007 @ 17:24 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 5973 |
77 |
16 |
Aug 30, 2007 @ 04:17 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 1796 |
72 |
17 |
Oct 16, 2007 @ 05:46 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 6761 |
61 |
18 |
Oct 11, 2007 @ 05:56 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 1447 |
60 |
19 |
Sep 13, 2007 @ 12:27 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 4548 |
54 |
20 |
Nov 02, 2007 @ 22:14 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 11547 |
53 |
21 |
Sep 03, 2007 @ 09:34 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 4068 |
44 |
22 |
Oct 09, 2007 @ 23:40 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 5093 |
42 |
23 |
Nov 02, 2007 @ 01:46 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 248 |
41 |
24 |
Sep 14, 2007 @ 05:58 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 2287 |
36 |
25 |
Oct 31, 2007 @ 06:17 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 11205 |
35 |
26 |
Oct 07, 2007 @ 12:07 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 6124 |
25 |
27 |
Nov 01, 2007 @ 09:41 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ user/ view/ profile/ Sebastian |
22 |
28 |
Aug 08, 2007 @ 10:52 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 245 |
21 |
29 |
Sep 02, 2007 @ 19:17 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 3877 |
17 |
30 |
Sep 22, 2007 @ 00:42 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 4968 |
17 |
31 |
Oct 01, 2007 @ 12:49 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 5310 |
17 |
32 |
Aug 30, 2007 @ 08:20 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 4143 |
14 |
33 |
Sep 11, 2007 @ 21:38 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 3783 |
13 |
34 |
Nov 01, 2007 @ 15:50 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ published/ page/ 2 |
11 |
35 |
Sep 01, 2007 @ 23:03 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 597 |
10 |
36 |
Oct 24, 2007 @ 18:17 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 1767 |
10 |
37 |
Sep 15, 2007 @ 08:26 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 5469 |
8 |
38 |
Oct 30, 2007 @ 09:42 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ upcoming/ mostpopular |
7 |
39 |
Oct 24, 2007 @ 18:38 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 10881 |
7 |
40 |
Oct 30, 2007 @ 01:19 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ upcoming/ page/ 2 |
6 |
41 |
Sep 20, 2007 @ 07:09 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ user/ view/ profile/ login/ Sebastian |
5 |
42 |
Jul 22, 2007 @ 09:39 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 1017 |
5 |
43 |
Oct 13, 2007 @ 08:34 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ published/ week |
5 |
44 |
Sep 08, 2007 @ 04:17 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 4653 |
5 |
45 |
Oct 31, 2007 @ 06:55 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 11614 |
5 |
46 |
Aug 13, 2007 @ 03:06 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 2764/ editcomment/ 4018 |
4 |
47 |
Aug 23, 2007 @ 07:52 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 3593 |
4 |
48 |
Sep 20, 2007 @ 06:21 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ published/ page/ 1 |
4 |
49 |
Oct 23, 2007 @ 15:01 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 748 |
3 |
50 |
Jul 29, 2007 @ 10:47 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ title/ Google- launched- a- free- ranking- checker |
3 |
51 |
Sep 30, 2007 @ 21:13 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ category/ Google/ parent_ name/ Google |
3 |
52 |
Aug 25, 2007 @ 04:47 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 3735 |
3 |
53 |
Sep 15, 2007 @ 11:28 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 5648 |
3 |
54 |
Sep 29, 2007 @ 01:35 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 7058 |
3 |
55 |
Oct 28, 2007 @ 22:56 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ greatesthits |
3 |
56 |
Oct 23, 2007 @ 04:44 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 10380 |
3 |
57 |
Oct 27, 2007 @ 04:10 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 11233 |
3 |
58 |
Jul 13, 2007 @ 04:23 |
Google Search: http: / / sphinn.com |
2 |
59 |
Jul 21, 2007 @ 03:19 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 849 |
2 |
60 |
Jul 27, 2007 @ 10:06 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 1447 |
2 |
61 |
Jul 30, 2007 @ 20:09 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 1796 |
2 |
62 |
Aug 07, 2007 @ 10:01 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ published/ page/ 3 |
2 |
63 |
Aug 13, 2007 @ 11:20 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 2764 |
2 |
64 |
Sep 05, 2007 @ 05:23 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 3735 |
2 |
65 |
Aug 28, 2007 @ 01:56 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 3877 |
2 |
66 |
Aug 27, 2007 @ 10:01 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ submit.php? url= http: / / sebastians- pamphlets.com/ links/ categories |
2 |
67 |
Aug 31, 2007 @ 14:13 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 4335 |
2 |
68 |
Sep 02, 2007 @ 14:29 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 1622 |
2 |
69 |
Sep 08, 2007 @ 19:48 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 4548 |
2 |
70 |
Sep 05, 2007 @ 01:07 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ submit.php? url= http: / / sebastians- pamphlets.com/ why- ebay- and- wikipedia- rule- googles- serps |
2 |
71 |
Sep 06, 2007 @ 13:22 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ published/ page/ 4 |
2 |
72 |
Sep 16, 2007 @ 13:30 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 3783 |
2 |
73 |
Sep 18, 2007 @ 11:55 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 5973 |
2 |
74 |
Sep 19, 2007 @ 08:15 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 6122 |
2 |
75 |
Sep 19, 2007 @ 14:37 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 6124 |
2 |
76 |
Oct 23, 2007 @ 00:07 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 10387 |
2 |
77 |
Jul 16, 2007 @ 18:21 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ upcoming/ category/ AllCategories/ parent_ name/ All Categories |
1 |
78 |
Jul 19, 2007 @ 20:19 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 864 |
1 |
79 |
Jul 20, 2007 @ 15:57 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ title/ Buy- Viagra- from- Reddit |
1 |
80 |
Jul 27, 2007 @ 10:48 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ title/ Blogger- to- rule- search- engine- visibility |
1 |
81 |
Jul 31, 2007 @ 06:07 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ title/ The- Unavailable- After- tag- is- totally- and- utterly- useless |
1 |
82 |
Aug 02, 2007 @ 14:45 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ user/ view/ history/ login/ Sebastian |
1 |
83 |
Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:59 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 1976 |
1 |
84 |
Aug 06, 2007 @ 03:59 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ user/ view/ commented/ login/ Sebastian |
1 |
85 |
Aug 15, 2007 @ 08:27 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ category/ LinkBuilding |
1 |
86 |
Aug 15, 2007 @ 14:17 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 2764/ editcomment/ 4362 |
1 |
87 |
Aug 28, 2007 @ 13:42 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 849 |
1 |
88 |
Sep 09, 2007 @ 15:15 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ user/ view/ commented/ login/ flyingrose |
1 |
89 |
Sep 10, 2007 @ 05:15 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ published/ page/ 20 |
1 |
90 |
Sep 10, 2007 @ 05:55 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ published/ page/ 19 |
1 |
91 |
Sep 11, 2007 @ 12:22 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ published/ page/ 8 |
1 |
92 |
Sep 11, 2007 @ 23:13 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ category/ Blogging |
1 |
93 |
Sep 12, 2007 @ 09:04 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 5362 |
1 |
94 |
Sep 13, 2007 @ 06:36 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ category/ GoogleSEO/ parent_ name/ Google |
1 |
95 |
Sep 14, 2007 @ 08:21 |
http: / / hwww.sphinn.com |
1 |
96 |
Sep 16, 2007 @ 14:52 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ GoogleSEO/ Did- Matt- Cutts- by- accident- reveal- a- sure- fire- procedure- to- identify- supplemental- results |
1 |
97 |
Sep 18, 2007 @ 08:05 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 5721 |
1 |
98 |
Sep 18, 2007 @ 09:08 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ title/ If- yoursquore- not- an- Amway- millionaire- avoid- BlogRush- like- the- plague |
1 |
99 |
Sep 18, 2007 @ 10:02 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 5973#wholecomment8559 |
1 |
100 |
Sep 19, 2007 @ 11:48 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ user/ view/ voted/ login/ bhancock |
1 |
101 |
Sep 19, 2007 @ 20:27 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ published/ page/ 5 |
1 |
102 |
Sep 20, 2007 @ 00:39 |
http: / / blogmarks.net/ my/ marks,new? title= How to get the perfect logo for your blog& url= http: / / sebastians- pamphlets.com/ how- to- get- the- perfect- logo- for- your- blog/ & summary= & via= http: / / sphinn.com/ story/ 6122 |
1 |
103 |
Sep 20, 2007 @ 01:34 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ user/ page/ 3/ voted/ Wiep |
1 |
104 |
Sep 24, 2007 @ 15:49 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ greatesthits/ page/ 3 |
1 |
105 |
Sep 24, 2007 @ 19:51 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 6761 |
1 |
106 |
Sep 24, 2007 @ 22:32 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ greatesthits/ page/ 2 |
1 |
107 |
Sep 26, 2007 @ 15:13 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 7170 |
1 |
108 |
Sep 29, 2007 @ 05:27 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ category/ SphinnZone |
1 |
109 |
Oct 09, 2007 @ 11:44 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 8883 |
1 |
110 |
Oct 10, 2007 @ 10:04 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ published/ month |
1 |
111 |
Oct 24, 2007 @ 15:07 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 10881 |
1 |
112 |
Oct 26, 2007 @ 09:53 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ story.php? id= 11205 |
1 |
113 |
Oct 30, 2007 @ 08:58 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ upcoming/ page/ 3 |
1 |
114 |
Oct 30, 2007 @ 12:31 |
http: / / sphinn.com/ upcoming/ most |
1 |
Total |
3,688 |
Your posts are always worth reading.
I submit to Sphinn if I think something might appeal to the Sphinn group. But, I also know perfectly well that I am not a professional SEO, and don’t expect many of my articles to go to hit the front page. Still, it’s often worth submitting because those people at Sphinn who do like my articles sometimes Stumble them.
In fact, I end up seeing regulars at Sphinn stumble my article without Sphinning it! It’s all fine with me.
Lucia, you don’t need to be a professional SEO to get your articles sphunn (hot or not). My rant addresses folks submitting crap and then either complaining why it didn’t go hot, or launching vote bots and vote clubs to push their submissions. Keep on submitting your good stuff. If you’re not sure whether it’s sphinn-worthy or not, wait a while giving other sphinners a chance to submit it. Everybody working in IM has a Sphinn account, so chances are good each of your posts is read by a few sphinners. If nobody sphinns it, write it off or revamp and submit it yourself.
Sphinn may not send you tons of traffic, but I wouldn’t assume that applies to all users.
“My rant addresses folks submitting crap…”
Sorry.
M2, I know that really good stuff about other IM topics or breaking news can generate way more Sphinn traffic. Not all sphinners are interested in the dull technical stuff I write about. However, my referrer stats can indicate that Sphinn is not a low quality high traffic machine like Digg. Why don’t you post yours?
I’m happy with fewer visitors who read my pamphlets out of interest. Also, some of them have subscribed to my feed, and I got tons of stumble traffic thanks to sphinners.
My point is that Sphinn sends good traffic to high quality stuff, but it’s worthless to game the system with crap or lame plagiarisms because even crap on the hot list won’t generate as much traffic as good stuff on the new list. Also, the traffic earned with crappy submissions is wasted, because sphinners don’t click on ads and most probably don’t click a link to such a site, or submitted by the same sphinner, again.
Nothing to say against submissions to test the waters, newcomers must have a chance. I’m not complaining about such “noise” (actually, most submissions of not yet known authors are not as noisy as many say). I just don’t read/sphinn it when it doesn’t fit my interest or at least comes with something unique and somewhat attractive in title or description.
Just ranting when rather unknown stuff doesn’t go hot in a minute, or firing up a voting bot to push a submission, will not fly at Sphinn. I thought that posting some traffic figures along with a warning not to burn a reputation for a few useless hits might make sense.
Hey JLH, you didn’t submit crap.
Sebastian,
Nice one. Can everyone just write / find good stuff and stop beating this dead horse already?
“Sphinn is an eldorado for attention whores, but not everybody is an experienced high-class call girl. Most are amateurs giving it a (first) try, or wrecked hookers pushing too hard to attract positive attention.”
There’s something just wrong about a wrecked sphinn hooker
> Can everyone just write / find good stuff and stop beating this dead horse already?
Yep Brian, in an ideal world.
It should be my first and last rant on this topic, now that I’ve a link to drop if necessary.
Its difficult for some to realise that the best way is just write something worthwhile in a blog post, do a few social submissions, and if its any good it’ll be picked-up.
Trying to ram content into the publics view via sphinn is the wrong way to go about things. Trying to ram content into the publics view via sphinn and then whining about why its not gone hot is just plain stupid.
Some good content does go unnoticed I’ll admit, and it can be frustrating when you see a hot topic featuring some lame funnt pictures and your post buried, but that’s just life.
You carry-on, you learn, you produce better, you’ll get sphunn.
NSM SEO, that’s sooo true.
@Sebastian: I hit the front page of Sphinn a long time ago– just not recently. I just meant that I know most my stuff isn’t “primo” SEO material, so even if some might be of interest, I don’t expect tons of votes. That is to say: I try to be realistic about how things are likely to go– and for this reason, you’ll never see me posting one of those “complainy-whiny” posts.
I agree with you on the people complaining. There is rarely any point in complaining your own stuff doesn’t get the attention it “deserves”. Some of those complaining simply overvalue their own material. Some just don’t really get how social media work. Yes if someone I trust posts an article, I’m more likely to read it and then Sphinn. So, yes if no one trusts you, you may not get votes even if you article is good.
It takes time to build a good reputation.
Sebastian’s stuff is indeed always worth reading.
Thanks Pat.
Lucia, perhaps I didn’t make it clear enough. Just because a SM (Sphinn/Digg/Reddit/…) submission doesn’t hit the home page that doesn’t mean it’s crap. As you rightly point out, many folks out there overestimate their content quality. And yes, trust is a major factor.
Wow, well I’m glad I could be inspiration for your post. You completely missed the point of my comments, but the free attention ain’t a bad parting gift
Hmmmm, when I’ve missed your point completely, why do you think I’ve particulary addressed your comments? Because sucking up gets you nowhere?
Sebastian,
Nice post. I couldn’t agree with you more about spammers and crap articles written solely for the sake of the Sphinn Submission. However, I do have a question for you.
I’m a decent SEO (at least I like to think so), but a horrible blogger. I’ve never been one for copywriting (I make the writer do that for clients), or the social media game. Alas, if I’m to run a blog, then I need to better myself. So, I use Sphinn (conservatively of course) to see what posts I write get me what kinds of responses. Honestly, I feel I’m getting a lot better from the passive feedback I’m getting. I’m able to see what types of articles get me somewhere, and what writing attitude I submit gets a response. I could read hundreds of blogs posts out there to tell me these things, but if I don’t experience the process myself, then someone is just giving me a fish. Besides, the regulars at Sphinn are the successful ones. Who better to put my stuff in front of than them…and you?
So, what are your thoughts on my thought process for Sphinn?
Josh, your blog isn’t horrible, really. I think submitting your posts to Sphinn is a great way to find your blogging style. I wouldn’t call that crap submisisons, not even noisy, and I hope that most sphinners agree.
Just an idea: If you decide to become as evil as I’ve suggested in my comment on your I hate spammers post, you could document the process in a humorous way and get it on Sphinn’s greatest hits page in no time. This might be considered a post solely made for Sphinn, but when it’s classy and high quality there’s nothing to say against it IMHO.
Sebastian,
Thank you very much for the positive critique. Yeah, your idea is awesome. I commissioned a real designer to take care of the blog’s look (I’m horrible at that stuff) and I believe there will be a nice little section for stuff just like that. I’ll Sphinn it and see what happens.
Thanks again. You rock.
Thanks for Sphinning Igor The Troll..:)
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