New squidoo TOS

[paulgl]

A few days ago, squidoo made a semi-radical change. If you don't follow
these new guidelines, and create or edit a lens, it will be red and a work in
progress. Found out the hard way, but all is well now. Beware to fix these items
before editing, or the lens will be demoted.

1. After 5 years of studying lensmaking habits and trends in lenses that perform well, we’ve found that lens introductions are critical. (We posted a review of Introduction module tips last week). To help guide lensmasters toward writing better introductions, resulting in better lenses for everyone, we’ve released a new Intro photo requirement and a requirement to write at least 200 (non-html) characters in your Intro.

2. We’ve also released a minimum module requirement per lens, which also looks to see if there is actually content in those modules, and tweaked the conditions that determine whether a lens is ‘Work in Progress’ or not.

3. We introduced maximum module limits on the Amazon and eBay modules. Right now these are set so that a single lens may have a maximum of 10 Amazon modules, and a max of 5 eBay modules. The reasoning for this is twofold: First, after lots of analysis of high (and low) performing lenses, we’d found that lenses that vastly exceed 10 commerce modules tend to abandon the concept of ‘personal, curated recommendation’ and as a result don’t get as many clickouts as tighter, more focused, more curated lenses. 10 Amazon modules on a single lens, after all, equals 10 different products in the Amazon Spotlight module, or 50 different products total if you’re using the traditional Amazon module.

Paul

[LSFloyd]

I agree with this. Many of the lenses I see contain very little content, and are packed with Amazon and Ebay modules. I guess they can't continue to allow users to waste all that space.

I enjoying visiting a tightly focused lens. That is what they are supposed to be after all—*Focused*.

[CoolAromas]

Good looking out Paul.
I am on Squidoo and did not see this, it must have slipped by.

[paulgl]

I was 7 characters short on that intro, and had 13 amazon modules.

They could have done a better job at putting the word out, like a message
when you login. One of my lenses went from a rank of #274 overall to 0 in
2 seconds. Luckily, I contacted squidoo immediately and they reinstated it after
I tweaked it. A lot of squidoo friends came to my rescue and gave it a boost.
it's up to #154 or so.

The thing about the amazon module that kind of stinks, is that I like to have
amazon products alone or in groups. Some items don't fit in the same module.
Having multiple amazons allows you to give "content" to each product. Sometimes
I needed more than 10. Have to get around this, I know, since squidoo is free and
I use it to the max. We have little to complain about when using a free program.
Plus they pay. This month will be my biggest ever on squidoo. It will actually
rival adsense, BTW.

Getting back to the amazon thing. A lot of you might think, gee 5 items a module
times 10 is 50 products. True, but I have learned how to get buyers for products
by putting a text module before an amazon module and putting one product in each
amazon module. So, if I keep that up I can only do 10 products. Not sure if they
thought about this in detail, as they make a ton off of amazon via my lenses. And
they are taking 50% of the revenue. But they may think a ton of amazons=spam.
Point taken.

Paul

[marketwarrior06]

great job Paul. i don't even looked at it.

[bigcat1967]

Thanks for your posts.

I've written a few lens as well - they were mostly informational. I have been thinking about doing more lens...currently, writing a lot of hubs for HP.

[canard5]

Thanks for the info. I'm rather new to squidoo and didn't see this change. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

I can certainly see how it will limit the amount of spam lenses, but at the same time I can't help but think of this very good Christmas lens I came across. It was a lens on hot Christmas gifts for the current season. There were tons of amazon links, but it was wonderfully laid out according to sex, age, interests, etc. It was a very informational site. It was ranked very high as well. I came across it while looking for gift ideas and I remember thinking this is a great lens and he must be making tons of money from it. With the new rules though I'm sure they took it down. But since Christmas is over I'm sure the owner can take it in stride.