Tagometer Badges on Del.icio.us

del.icio.us recently released a widget called Tagometer that can be added to your blog or website. This badge includes an up-to-date count of how many users bookmarked your page and a list of the top tags used to describe your page. It also includes a button where readers can bookmark your page on del.icio.us.

If you want to add a Tagometer to your page, you have a choice of two badges. They are pictured below for your reference.

How do you get a Tagometer badge? Go to del.icio.us help to get the code for these badges. Make sure your site allows JavaScript since the code is in JavaScript.

Advantages and Disadvantages

One of the advantages is the fact that you can see how many people bookmarked the webpage you are viewing and what tags were used. This is great for a del.icio.us user since you do not have to go to del.icio.us to find out this information by typing the URL or checking your bookmarks. This is also great for people who are not del.icio.us users because they can find out this information and see how the site works without having an account.

For a webmaster or blogger, the information is great to have for websites, blogs, and articles. However, this information can only work if you are going to check each page regularly and it would be very time consuming. I think it is easier to save each page on del.icio.us and track the information by going to one website.

For webpage visitors, this information can encourage or discourage visitors to continue reading the page they are viewing. If you look at a webpage where lots of people bookmark the page, then you would want to view the page to find out for yourself why the page is popular. If not many people save the page you are viewing, chances are you will stop viewing the page. However, it is important to note that someone has to be the first to save the page as a favorite.

I think one of the biggest disadvantages of tagometer and social bookmarking is the fact that one page can be saved with at least two different URL’s. For example, you want to save Profy to your del.icio.us account. You can either save the website as http://profy.com or http://profy.com. If the tagometer badge was posted on Profy and you were viewing http://profy.com, you would only find out how many users bookmarked the page and the tags used only for http://profy.com. If you looked at http://profy.com, the information would be different. Does this mean that you need to check both URL’s to get the most accurate information?

What are your thoughts about this new widget?

For more information, check out the del.icio.us blog.