Review of the AntiSocial Plugin
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The AntiSocial plugin is quite the opposite of how the name makes it sound. After the AntiSocial plugin is installed Wordpress shows a line of buttons at the bottom of your posts that let the reader submit and save it to popular social websites (ones that you choose to appear!) To see an example, view the bottom of this post.
Readers can click one of the buttons and are taken to submit your post to sites like Reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg, Netscape, and any others of your choosing. Well, what’s so great about that? When your post is submitted it will be shown on these sites that have high traffic. On many your post will be voted on and if it gets a lot of votes it can be seen by enormous amounts of people and you could have new loyal readers, or at least a large spike in traffic. This is always a good thing.
If you do not have a plugin installed that lets your readers submit and save your site, what are the chances that they will go out of their way and do it? With this plugin all the little buttons are right there, and it makes it quick, simple, and even appealing for your visitors.
If you’re still wondering why it’s called AntiSocial, when it is in fact quite social, there is a good reason. The AntiSocial plugin is in fact a hacked version of the Sociable plugin, with just one difference. But the difference is major and important. The AntiSocial plugin adds a “nofollow” to all of the buttons in the plugin. When you use Sociable, you’re giving away your link juice and really hurting yourself. When you’re displaying over 10 of the social bookmarking buttons on each post, and you have many posts on a page, it can really add up to how many links you’re giving away. And that damages your Pagerank!
Once you have the AntiSocial plugin installed, you get to pick how it’s going to look on your blog. There are dozens and dozens of social bookmarking sites to display in your line of buttons, but you get to select which ones you want to show up and implement. You also get to choose what order they show up in.
You also get to choose what pages the line of buttons are shown. You can show them below your posts on the homepage (highly recommended!), your individual post pages (also recommended!), Wordpress pages, category and archive post pages, and more. I really recommend showing the plugin on the homepage and individual post pages the most.
If you have a blog, chances are you’re missing out if you don’t have a plugin where your content can easily draw in traffic. If you have blogging friends and loyal readers, they will most likely submit your posts and articles to the social bookmarking sites. And when that happens, you get even more traffic! And I don’t know about you, but that’s a really awesome thing in my opinion.
So click here to see the AntiSocial plugin page and download it for your own blog. If you don’t like this plugin as much then also consider the Share This plugin, where your readers can also email your articles. You should have one of these plugins if you want your blog to grow, generate traffic, and reach greater heights.
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16. July 2007 at 22:31
I use this plugin on my site. I think it’s best to pick and choose the social networking icons that really fit your site, but that’s just me.
I’m hoping that all these steps I’m taking to help my pagerank really WILL help. We’ll see, I suppose.
16. July 2007 at 22:34
It’s weird…maybe you can explain it, but your RSS feed has the text links to “email, digg, stumble, etc”…but your page has the AntiSocial links?
Which one do you like better?
17. July 2007 at 00:26
Of course. I think all the icons I have selected will fit this blog. Is there one that you think should not be included, or one that I need to include?
The pagerank update is coming soon, but I’m sure you’ll do great.
17. July 2007 at 00:29
For my RSS feed I use Feedburner, and Feedburner allows me to include the links to email, digg, stumble, etc. I used Feedburner to select, include, and have those shown in my feeds.
On the blog, I got the AntiSocial plugin and installed it. I am able to also use Feedburner to add social bookmarking links to my posts, but I really do prefer the plugin.
The AntiSocial plugin is sleek and neat looking, it uses images, and it isn’t as obtrusive as all the Feedburner links. Plus, with the plugin, I have a lot more to choose from.
I actually think I need update the design of my feeds. I had forgotten about the links in them, to tell you the truth.
17. July 2007 at 10:45
Problogger has an article on the topic here.
17. July 2007 at 16:39
I believe that by having those social bookmarking buttons at the bottom of my posts doesn’t harm anything. They don’t list how many times something has been dugg, submitted, or stumbled, so they’re not able to make an impression on the post itself, like Darren is talking about.
Anyway, if I found an article I liked on a website, I would not go out of my way to digg it. But if they had a social bookmarking button already handy on the page, I would.
17. July 2007 at 17:00
I’m not sure about adding the nofollow tag. I believe in link karma and don’t really concern myself with linking out. Just as long as it’s not to some junk site.
17. July 2007 at 17:52
The only thing I would add the nofollow tag is to links like to my feedburner feed, to submit to digg, etc. After all, digg and the other social bookmarking sites put a nofollow on all the links they list. Oh, and I also would add nofollow when I was linking to a site that has stolen my content.
However, I would not add a nofollow tag to another blogger’s site or links in my blogroll, etc. That totally defies the purpose of blogging and having a blogroll in the first place.
But I also have the do follow plugin installed in the comments, so it gives out links to all of my commentators. Which I suppose makes up for it.
8. November 2007 at 19:17
Have you figured out how to add Propeller to Anti Social?
9. November 2007 at 18:40
@Money Blue Book - To be honest with you I don’t play around much with plugins. It shouldn’t be too hard to do anyway, just edit the plugin code and add it in there. You could also keep your eyes open for a future version release of the plugin which might include Propeller. I’ll contact you and let you know if I figure out how to do it!