It's always fascinating to see how different people use the same tools differently. For all the years I have used Safari on and off for Web browsing on my Mac systems, I've never really paid any attention to the topsites area, nor did I realize until you sent this query that you could actually save bookmarks directly to topsites. Instead, I always figured it was just analyzing the pages you visit and coming up with the list based on where you go frequently, combined with where you've gone recently.

Based on how you need to get a bookmark in Top Sites to stick, I suspect that the Safari engineering team has been spending a lot more time on HTML 5 than on how Topsites works too, so perhaps I am not alone in ignoring that area of the app.

Still, it is possible and with a bit of work, I think Top Sites could be a very slick way to give you access to your favorite Web sites. The secret is that you have to "pin" a bookmarked page into Topsites or it vanishes when you quit and restart Safari.

Let me take you through the steps...

First off, let's say you want to bookmark my site -- and really, who wouldn't? :-) -- while browsing in Safari.

To bookmark a page, choose "Bookmarks" --> "Add Bookmark to Menu" like this:

Once you make this choice, you'll get a small window that offers an easy bookmark addition capability, with the default location -- Bookmarks Menu -- displayed:

What most people don't realize is that you can chose a different destination by clicking on the "Bookmarks Menu" option:

I'm going to choose "Top Sites"

It's saved. Kind of. Top Sites, as you have already learned, does bookmarks differently to how the rest of Safari works, so it's put into the Top Sites area, but it isn't a permanent bookmark as of yet.

To fix that, find the Top Sites button on your Bookmarks Bar...

Click on the button -- highlighted above -- and the Top Sites view appears, including the newly bookmarked page:

The trick is that you need to click on the "Edit" button on the bottom left of this screen. Now two buttons appear on each Top Sites thumbnail graphic:

You can guess that "X" removes the page. Click on the pushpin icon and you'll have taken the second step necessary to get a Top Sites bookmark to stick and be there next time you start up Safari.

When you do click on that, the pushpin icon changes colors:

That's the secret. Thanks for highlighting Top Sites, it's an area of Safari that I surmise precious few people explore!