What is BagTheWeb?

BagTheWeb is a free web site where users can save, organize and share links to web content easily by using bags.

What is a bag?

Simply put, a bag is a collection of links to webpages and other bags.

The idea is to create a bag for any topic you want, and then add related webpages to that bag. For example, you could create a bag called "Recipes" and use it to collect links to your favorite recipes.

It's your bag, organize it however you like! You can reorder, rename, and delete your links. You can edit the bag's title, description and image whenever you want. You can even delete the entire bag if its no longer useful.

You can also link your bag to any other bags. So if someone collected a lot of great links to baking recipes, you can just link their bag into your Recipes bag instead of redoing that work yourself.

To view a list of all your bags, click the my bags navigation tab.

What is the "Bag it" bookmarklet?

The Bag it bookmarklet is a tool that makes it easy to add webpages and bags into your bags. Best of all, you can use it from anywhere on the web, not just on bagtheweb.com.

The Bag it bookmarklet is a tiny program stuffed inside a link. This makes it easy to "install", because you can save it to your browser's favorites. Go ahead and get it from the tool page.

Open the bookmarklet by clicking the link that you saved. A small window will pop up on the page you're looking at, and makes it easy to bag webpages without interrupting your workflow.

How do I create a bag?

Method 1 - "create" page
Click the "create" navigation tab, which brings you to a page with a simple form. Try to enter a good title for the bag so its easy for you (and others) to recognize. "45 minute Italian recipes" is better than "my links". Its good to enter a meaningful description too, but it's optional. Click "submit" to create the bag. Now you can start adding links.

Method 2 - Bag it bookmarklet
From any webpage, click on the Bag it bookmarklet tool that you saved to your favorites. Click the "add to new bag" tab on the bookmarklet. The form will change to allow you to enter a title and description for the new bag. When you click "create" the current webpage will be saved to the new bag.

How do I add webpage links into my bag?

Method 1 - Bag it bookmarklet
The easiest way to bag webpages is to use the bookmarklet. When you are surfing the web and find a page you want to bag, click the Bag it bookmarklet. The bookmarklet window will pop up over the page you're looking at.

The page title and description are automatically filled in for you (if available), and you can edit them if you want. Under that you will see a list of all your bags. When you click a bag the current webpage will be added into the bag you selected - a process we like to call bagging. At this point you can close the bookmarklet by clicking the red X.

Note: if you've already added a webpage to a bag, that bag will be "grayed out" and won't be clickable.

Method 2 - manually add webpage to a bag
On a bag page that you own, click the "add" button near the "Linked webpages" section. Paste or type in the webpage url into the form that pops up. It's nice to include a title and description for the link too, but those are optional.

Method 3 - search results on bag page
On a bag page that you own, scroll down to the "search results you may want to link" section. Click "show" to expand the section. You should see a list of webpages that match the query. By default we put the bag's title into the search box, but you can modify the search however you like.

If you see a result that you'd like to add to this bag, click the "add to bag" button next to that result item. That webpage should now be in the "linked webpages" section of the bag (scroll up a bit to see it).

How do I add a bag into my bag?

Method 1 - "recently viewed bags" sidebar
On a bag page that you own, look on the right side of the page to find the "recently viewed bags" section, which displays bags that you've looked at recently.

Method 2 - Bag it bookmarklet
When viewing any bag on bagtheweb.com, click the Bag it bookmarklet. The Bag it popup window shows the title of the bag you're looking at, followed by a list of your bags. Click one of these bags to add the current bag into your bag.

Method 3 - search results on bag page
On a bag page that you own, scroll down to the "search results you may want to link" section. Click "show" to expand the section. Click on the "bags" tab to show bags that match the query. By default we put the current bag's title into the search box, but you can modify the search however you like.

If you see a result that you'd like to add to this bag, click the "add" button next to that item. That bag should now be in the "linked bags" section of the bag (you may need to scroll up a bit to see it).

What is a 'post' on BagTheWeb.com and how do I create one?

A post is an easy way to create public content directly on BagTheWeb.com. Use it for anything from writing simple notes to blog-like stories and articles. A post can be linked to any bag just like a normal webpage. Sure, you can create a blog or other content on another site and link it to your bag. But a post is very quick and easy to create, and you don't need to sign up or log in to another site.

To create a post , go to the bag where you want the post to be linked (you must be the bag owner). In the "Linked webpages" section, click the "+ post" button. You will now see the "create a post" form. Fill out the title, description (optional), and of course the text section which is the main content of the post. Click "publish" when you're done.

Now you should see the finished post page. If you want, you can add an image to the post by clicking the "insert a picture" link and following the instructions that appear. You can also edit the post text anytime you want by clicking the "edit" button.

When you're satisfied with your post , you can click on the "owner bag" displayed at the top of the post page to go back to the bag you started at. You should see a link to the post you created at the top of the "Linked webpages" list in that bag.

Are all bags public?

By default, bags are public. But when you create a bag you can choose to make it private by clicking the "make this bag private" checkbox. You will notice a small red "lock" icon next to the bag title, which lets you know that YOU can see the bag but nobody else can.

A private bag is a good place to put things you don't want your friends to see, like what you're getting them for their birthday. Its NOT meant to store super-top-secret stuff like nuclear launch codes!

Why should I sign up?

If you create an account you can create your profile, build and use bags, add webpage and bag links into your bags, and comment on bags.

If you haven't registered yet you can still view all the bags. You can find interesting bags via the "explore" page, searching, and by looking at users' profile pages.

My Bag has too many links, what should I do?

If a bag gets too big it can be hard to quickly find stuff. It's time move some of the links into some new bags. Then the related bags can be linked together to create an organized web of information.

For example, if you have too many links in your Recipes bag, you could create new bags for specific recipe categories like "Italian recipes", "Soup recipes" and "Baking recipes".

Move the webpage links to the corresponding bags, and link all the new recipe bags into the main Recipe bag. With bag links its easy to find information even if you have hundreds (or even thousands!) of links.

The "Bag it" bookmarklet window looks different sometimes. Whats going on?

If you're looking at a webpage other than a bag, then the bookmarklet will use "webpage bagging mode" to let you link a webpage into one of your bags.

However, if you're viewing a bag page on bagtheweb.com and you click the bookmarklet, you will see "bag bagging mode" (yeah its a bit of a mouthful). The bookmarklet noticed you're on a bag page, and assumes you want to link two bags together, as opposed to linking a simple webpage to a bag.

How do I follow and unfollow baggers?

By following baggers you like, you can keep track of the bags they create, update and recommend.

You can click the “follow” button located in the bagger profile section on a bag page.

Or, go to a bagger’s profile page to click the “follow” button there.

To unfollow a bagger, click the “unfollow” link on the profile page.

How do I recommend bags?

You can recommend bags to your followers in a way similar to how your tweets are seen by your followers on Twitter. By clicking the “recommend” button on a bag page, you can share any bag you see with your followers, no matter if you are the bag’s creator or not. When recommending a bag, you can add a comment in the small dialog box. The comment will be added to that bag’s Comments section. If you type a hashtag in the comment using the '#' symbol, the hashtag will be automatically retrieved for display.

What is a Bagstream?

When you are signed in, your homepage displays your "bagstream." On that page, you see all the bags recommended or published by the baggers you follow. You can control this stream of bags by following and unfollowing baggers.