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Social Bookmarking Campaigns Beware: Delicious is Getting the Axe... or is it?

If you have ever used the social bookmarking site Delicious, you may be in for a surprise since Yahoo announced it's closing the service down... or did they?
Written by Stephen Chapman, Contributor

As those of us in the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) industry know, social bookmarking campaigns have the potential to be fruitful, depending on the client's/campaign's needs. Well, in a Yahoo slide recently leaked to the Web, a number of Yahoo services are shown to be getting nixed. One such service is the popular social bookmarking site Delicious... or is it?

After 24 hours of plenty of frenzied public outcry, it appears the folks involved with Delicious have decided to address the issue. The verdict? Delicious will live on. In a post straight from the Delicious blog (it appears to be getting hammered, so be patient if it that link fails to load at first):

 

What's Next for Delicious?

Many of you have read the news stories about Delicious that began appearing yesterday. We're genuinely sorry to have these stories appear with so little context for our loyal users. While we can't answer each of your questions individually, we wanted to address what we can at this stage and we promise to keep you posted as future plans get finalized.

Is Delicious being shut down? And should I be worried about my data?

- No, we are not shutting down Delicious. While we have determined that there is not a strategic fit at Yahoo!, we believe there is a ideal home for Delicious outside of the company where it can be resourced to the level where it can be competitive.

What is Yahoo! going to do with Delicious?

- We're actively thinking about the future of Delicious and we believe there is a home outside the company that would make more sense for the service and our users. We're in the process of exploring a variety of options and talking to companies right now. And we'll share our plans with you as soon as we can.

What if I want to get my bookmarks out of Delicious right away?

- As noted above, there's no reason to panic. We are maintaining Delicious and encourage you to keep using it. That said, we have export options if you so choose. Additionally, many services provide the ability to import Delicious links and tags.

We can only imagine how upsetting the news coverage over the past 24 hours has been to many of you. Speaking for our team, we were very disappointed by the way that this appeared in the press. We'll let you know more as things develop.

 

So, there you have it. Any of those social bookmarking campaigns you spent all that time and money on where Delicious was involved appears to be safe. Altavista, on the other hand... well, if you have SEO dreams of ranking there, then you're surely going to be let down by this news. And speaking of that... hey, GoDaddy! There's yet another reason why you need to update your SEO sales pitch!

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