Social bookmarking service is an easy way to seek attention of the internet users by providing them references to a particular topic which might interest them or which might be of use for them.
It helps in searching, sharing and organizing the content by a user.
The user basically tags a website which he finds useful and which he think might be useful for others by saving it.
They go under 'most viewed' or 'recently viewed' or other such tags.
Metadata is the form of the descriptions used for such sites as this will require no downloading of the content and the user will also get a clear picture by reading the comments, posts or votes that talk.
In Social bookmarking services, there is an option for the user to save some web-links which can be if wished shared with some private party or some groups.
Some of the social bookmarking services have gone a step further by letting the users or shared people know the new 'tagged' people and bookmarked websites.
There are also methods to share the bookmarks through e-mail, by importing and exporting it or by making it part of a social networking service.
The most important advantage of the service is that it is done manually so that the content will be trustworthy as they can understand it unlike the search engine spiders.
It is mainly used in libraries as it is very easy to give links of information to their users.
The tagging should be carefully done as spelling errors, structural differences, keyword troubles etc can cause problems for the user.
However a lot of misuse of this method is found.
Users tag and submit the website number of times in order to make their website come in top rankings.
Proper security systems have to be installed in order to prevent this.