Here at Webwell design we love StumbleUpon. A social networking site that not only brings people together with similar interests but lets you see what other people are discovering about the Internet. The StumbleUpon toolbar is great for finding websites or for that matter any area of interest on the web. Just select subject areas that interest you and click on the StumbleUpon button and off you go. Could this be a competitor for the mighty search engine Google then?

I guess we will just have to wait and see, it’s certainly more fun than Google but you are literally stumbling around the web through thousands of pages. Serious searching or merely wandering?

Now considered more than just an online community to find friends social networks have extreme influence on the direction of the internet itself. Web design is often themed around social community requirement. Sites such as Stumbleupon, Myspace, Facebook, Digg have great influence in getting other websites seen.

Facebook has only just released data to index user profiles within the search engines such as Google. The ever evolving social networking multimedia experience such as video promotes the sites even further, the whole web is a captive audience to what is most popular through this network.

Is it wrong for social networking sites to influence search engine results ?

If social networks give backing to quality and informative resources online with an unbiased feed to the search engines there should be little cause for concern. Social networks have high levels of established trust built up through other online resources and links that they can pass on to search engines if they choose to.