StumbleUpon has been in the news recently due to its recent aquisition by eBay. StumbleUpon is a social bookmarking network consisting of over 3 million users or stumblers each of whom use the StumbleUpon toolbar to find and review web pages, viral videos, online photographs and more. The StumbleUpon algorithm then learns what the user likes and then let's you channel surf the Internet to recommend and display to the stumbler similar sites.

StumbleUpon can be a great source of traffic to a webmaster. To obtain traffic from stumble, you first need to sign up and install the SU toolbar for either the Internet Explorer or Firefox Internet browser. SU will then ask you for your interests.

One recommendation I make is to upload an eye catching photograph to your profile. This photo will do a lot to attract stumblers to your profile. Next, join some of the StumbleUpon groups to find Stumblers with similar interests as yours. If you upload a photo to your profile, that picture will show up on the group page for all the groups you have joined. You then want to add friends based on your interests and region. SU will show you similar stumblers based on your interests. Add as many friends as possible, but keep in mind that StumbleUpon currently has a maximum of 200 friends. StumbleUpon also currently allows each user only one account unless the Stumbler received expressed written permission from StumbleUpon.

Next, start exploring the StumbleUpon toolbar options. If you click the SU button, you will begin to channel surf web pages based on your interests. If you like it, click the thumbs-up "I like it!" button and SU will make note of that. If you do not like the website, click the thumbs-down button and SU will not longer show you web pages related to that site. Finally, you may want to submit one or two of your pages to SU. Go to your website and click the I like it button. If your page has not been previously submitted to SU, a pop-up box will be displayed alerting you that you have found a new site and SU will request more information about the site including a title, a review, topic and tags. It is very important to choose the correct topic and tags for your site as this information will be used to determine whether your site will be displayed to stumblers who are actually interested in your site's topic.

About the Author

Robert is a stumbler at stumbleupon.com.