Linkbaiting: Good Or Bad?

A controversial topic in the blogosphere is whether or not linkbaiting is a good or bad thing. We will cover a couple different topics about linkbaiting and then try and decide on whether or not you should do it.

First, what is linkbait? Linkbait is what bloggers and other Internet users call posts that are written for the sole purpose of receiving a digg or stumble. But since the word linkbait has negative connotations should we continue to call stuff linkbait, and is that word even relevant?

Obviously we all want lots of traffic and Digg and StumbleUpon can provide it, but is writing posts specifically for the purpose of being bookmarked or added to social media sites the right thing to do?

We all should be writing posts full of content that anyone would be happy to bookmark, but if those posts are few and far between than linkbaiting is a problem. On the other hand if you write every post chaulked full of content that is worth of being social media bookmarked than linkbaiting really isn't a bad thing.

Most blogs about blogging have written about linkbaiting but Darren Rowse from ProBlogger has a few posts on it. Take a look at his 20 linkbaiting techniques and his introduction to linkbaiting.