In spite of all the changes at StumbleUpon, it continues to drive so much traffic that we would be foolish to ignore it completely – at least for sites whose primary interest is more visitors with less concern whether the traffic converts or not.
As part of research I’m doing to come up with best practices for the new StumbleUpon, this post will list the top categories I’ve discovered so far. These are important because the more followers a category has, the more potential traffic it can send you.
HOW TO USE THIS LIST OF TOP STUMBLEUPON CATEGORIES
By choosing the most appropriate category when you share content, and using other primary related categories as keywords, you maximize views for everything you share. (More strategies later.)
You also want to choose your most important categories and add them as your interests. Those are the categories you want to regularly add content into, use as your categories and tags, and where you want to be most active.
You want to focus most of your time and effort interacting in your niche.
Follow the best stumblers in each of your chosen categories. Thumb up and add comments on their shares and share them elsewhere. Especially support any content they share that they created.
Top StumbleUpon Interests
Interests aka categories in Alphabetical Order ~ Also use when sharing content as tags to increase traffic. The number is how many were following that interest as of Jan 20, 2013. (Example: 542K = 542,000 and 1.7M = 1.7 million.)
- Advertising 542K
- A.I. 236K
- Alcoholic Drinks 735K
- Alternative News 310K
- Amateur Radio 39K
- American Football 1.7M
- American History 180K
- American Lit 64k
- Ancient History 749K
- Animals 1.2M
- Animation 4.4M
- Anime 894K
- Anthropology 122K
- Antiaging 78K
- Archaeology 146K
- Arts 1.3M
- Astrology / Psychics 151K
- Astronomy 633K
- Aviation / Aerospace 559K
- Banking 50K
- Baseball 647K
- Basketball 165K
- Beer 2.9M
- Biographies 80K
- Biology 204K
- Biomechanics 135K
- Biotech 126K
- Board Games 127K
- Books 6.3M
- Botany 71K
- Business 1.4M
- Bizarre/Oddities 10.2M
- Buddhism 148K
- Camping 1.5M
- Career Planning 490K
- Cars 681K
- Cartoons 816K
- Cats 1.9M
- Celebrities 512K
- Cell Phones 1.8M
- Charity
- Chemistry 106K
- Chess 65K
- Children’s Books 52K
- Climbing 128K
- Cognitive Science 759K
- Collecting 75K
- Comedy Movies 1.4M
- Computer Graphics 3.3M
- Computer Hardware 1.4M
- Computer Science 207K
- Computers 802K
- Continuing Education
- Crafts 508K
- Crime
- Cult Films 270K
- Cyberculture 1.8M
- Design 4.4M
- Dogs 609K
- Drawing 5.1M
- Ecology 82K
- Ecommerce 38K
- Education 161K
- Electronic Parts 282K
- Entrepreneurship 214K
- Environment 2.8M
- Equestrian / Horses 26K
- Evolution 267K
- Facebook 531K
- Family 247K
- Fantasy Books 137K
- Fashion 755K
- Feminism
- Financial Planning 393K
- Fine Arts 2.8M
- Fitness 1.0M
- Food / Cooking 8.1M
- For Kids 84K
- Futurism 850K
- Gadgets 1.2M
- Gambling 65K
- Genetics 169K
- Geography 1.6M
- Geoscience 254K
- Government 90K
- Graphic Design 593K
- Quotes 6.6M
- Hacking 425K
- Health 5.3M
- Hiking 234K
- History 831K
- Home Business 59K
- Home Improvement 1.4M
- Homemaking 1.0M
- Humanitarianism
- Humor 14.0M
- Indie Rock/Pop 2.1M
- Independent Film 231K
- Internet 990K
- Internet Tools 4.5M
- Investing 108K
- iPod 438K
- IT 594K
- Journalism 87K
- Judaism 37K
- Kids
- Kinesiology 56K
- Law
- Liberal Politics 115K
- Library Resources 49K
- Linguistics 108K
- Linux 80K
- Logic 3.4M
- Machinery 68K
- MacOS 1.0M
- Magic / Illusions 1.2M
- Marine Biology 95K
- Married Life 115K
- Martial Arts 778K
- Mental Health
- Meteorology 61K
- Microbiology 74K
- Mining / Metallurgy 105K
- Mobile Computing 80K
- Movies 10.6M
- Multimedia 478K
- Music 1.8M
- Mythology 5.3M
- Nanotech 750K
- Nature 6.1M
- Neuroscience 128K
- News (General) 105K
- Nightlife 802K
- Nonprofit – Charity
- Nuclear Science 106K
- Online Games 5.9M
- Open Source 112K
- Operating Systems 104K
- Outdoors 4.1M
- Paleontology 65K
- Parenting 79K
- Personal Sites 62K
- Pets 529K
- Philosophy 871K
- Photography 10.6M
- Physics 1.8M
- Poker 73K
- Political Science 78K
- Politics 663K
- Psychiatry
- Psychology 1.2M
- Punk Rock 144K
- Quizzes 692K
- Real Estate 41K
- Relationships 823K
- Research 78K
- Robotics 1.1M
- Rock Music 711K
- Satire 3.2M
- Science 1.0M
- Science Fiction 591K
- Sculpting 107K
- Search 33OK
- Self-Improvement 1.1M
- Semiconductors 27K
- SEO 86K
- Shareware 61K
- Sociology 128K
- Software 2.3M
- Space Exploration 667K
- Spirituality 225K
- Sports (General) 582K
- Statistics 71K
- Stumblers 320K
- StumbleUpon 133K
- Supercomputing 52K
- Tattoos / Piercing 580K
- Taxation 16K
- Technology 1.0M
- Teen Life
- Television 780K
- Tennis 44K
- Trains / Railroads 29K
- Transportation 59K
- Travel 1.1M
- University / College 336K
- Video Equipment 42K
- Video Games 938K
- Vintage Cars 148K
- Virtual Reality 1.2M
- Web Development 109K
- Webhosting 31K
- Weblogs (blogs) 56K
- Windows 103K
- Wine 220K
- Writing 3.3M
Zipso claims this is a list of all StumbleUpon categories. Later I will probably be publishing lists by type of category (Blogging related, sports, etc.) and by number of followers so be sure to bookmark this page and subscribe to Social Implications.
If you have other categories you believe I should add to this list or
you are or know of influencers I should add to a list of who to follow
please leave them in the comments.
Mental Health doesn’t have any statistics? Curious as to what it is.
stumbleupon is great to generating traffic but..why adsense not count this
Hi,
Thank you for the list! Any chance you’ll be updating it again this year? Looking for some new interests to build sites for.
Hi PotatoF,
Although StumbleUpon can send a lot of traffic, it is so erratic that I just don’t make it a priority. The other issue is that SU traffic usually bounces so you aren’t reaching the ideal readers. These are the major categories, though, so choosing any of them is likely to be a site that interests many.
Are there any updates to this?
Are there any recent updates to this?