Why you shouldn’t stumble your own posts
October 5th, 2008
What? You’ve just written a post titled Why you should Stumble and Digg your own posts! – you can say.
Yes, it’s true, but it seems things have turned around a bit since then. 2 days ago I was reading a post on michaelaulia.com where Mike mentioned that stumbling your own posts isn’t a great idea after all, because they ban you for that.
Well, I wasn’t convinced. I’ve heard some things previously that they might terminate your account for this, but their TOS doesn’t clearly state it, nor does their FAQ. Although they said that people will be banned who try to cheat the system, or try to promote their service, it’s kinda blurry for me if I should call my blog a service or not, and I definitely don’t think submitting a post might be considered as cheating the whole system.
But I thought it’s time to put a period to this case, so I tried to contact SU directly. Fortunately they have a nice little method handling these kind of support questions, so they offer some additional Q&A before you send a message.
Sadly, they clearly state you aren’t allowed to submit your own site:
“StumbleUpon does not allow personal accounts to be used for the purposes of incentivization or promoting sites. This would be considered a breach of our Terms.
Accounts participating in such practices will be deleted and banned, and the related sites deleted and banned from the system.
The practice of sending PM’s encouraging or inviting other stumblers to rate/review sites in exchange for reciprocal reviews/ratings, monetary, or any other form of reward is strictly forbidden.
The practice of actively soliciting a rating or review for a site is also forbidden. Should you receive a PM, or encounter forum postings that breach this rule, you are encouraged to report this via feedback.”
I still think if they’d just copy and paste this little piece of information in their FAQ, it wouldn’t cause such misunderstandings.
What now?
First of all, my deepest apologies to everyone who I misled with my previous post. You all know it wasn’t my intention, as I discussed my reasons there. I’m sorry though.
I’ve already deleted my own submissions except for maybe two that got a great number of thumbs up, I don’t think two posts will cause any problems…
But hey, it’s not the end of the world! My previous post for Digg is still accurate, so we just need to use a different strategy for Stumbleupon in the light of this new information.
As I was thinking about how to do this to get the most out of it, I realized it can be even more efficient than submitting it yourself. But that’s another story. Stay tuned and I’ll reveal this technique in the Blog for a Living series, hopefully with some real success examples of my own.
Till then, I must recline upon you to stumble my posts, which is not that bad, considering my kind and committed readership 
This post is already submitted, all that’s left for you is one click if you liked it:
Blogging mistakes -
Chapter 1: Clear goals
September 15th, 2008
Photo by Obi-Akpere
No, don’t get me wrong. A clear goal is not a mistake. It’s the title of the post (wow!) 
Now, gently tune into post reading mode…
Have you ever found yourself working on something, fighting all the problems that come up, spending a great amount of time on that certain task only to later find out that it was all worthless?
