Has the IM Community fallen out of love with Squidoo?

I gave up on them after half my lenses were locked. Didn't bother trying to fight it. I'm hoping that the 6 remaining are ok as they still make me money. I don't even update them anymore for fear of them getting locked automatically.

For me, a combination of:

(1) locking of lens and/or cutting down on the topics that can be discussed;

(2) "clickability" -- there is just so much happening on the pages in terms of ads and what not I find that many article directories are much better; and

(3) it takes significantly longer to do a "lens" than submit an article to Ezines, Articles Base, GoArticles, USFreeads, etc.

I just don't find it cost-effective.

compared to other ways squidoo sucks in my opinion, I guess it doesn't hurt to use squidoo but never by itself.

No... only those who can't see beyond promoting Clickbank products

Still a good place to drop a link. I wouldn't use them to get real traffic, but as a back link resource, it's fine.

Thanks everyone. I guess I will put it lower on my list of priorities than I was first planning, but as I want to get some backlinks going I won't ignore it altogether. I'll definitely get back to article writing tho.

Cheers

Kate

Squidoo, I think, got too tough on IMers,

They have only locked a few of my lens's but what irritates me and I suspect others is their random locking. It doesn't seem to always be the spammy one's they are after.

I have lens's with aff links all over them and they love them, others that had no links at all and were written just to help others were locked very fast.

I deleted all mine and said adios Squidoo ... with their new TOS, they just aren't worth the effort.

I made a decent amount of money with Squidoo, but I too had some lenses locked. It was my fault though, I should have read the terms of servcie more closely.

Well, I for one have not fallen out of love with Squidoo. I've never yet had a lens locked - not even in this last major lock-down event. I've built ~ 200 lenses by now - for my clients, to include with sites/networks I sell, and of course for myself. I have ~50 lenses of my own currently.

Call me lucky, or call me smart.

But I ...

1. Never use Squidoo (or ANY web 2.0 site) as a MAIN site or page. I use Squidoo strictly as a TOOL. ;-)

I use these sites to spread my content around for off-page SEO, and to direct traffic to where I want it to go. Generating income directly from Squidoo lenses is not my focus or main intent. Although I do have lenses that regularly generate sales (read item #3 below).

2. I have always set up my lenses in such a way as to remove all the Squidoo-induced distractions possible.

Did you know that by changing your lens SETTINGS to donate 100% to charity you can then UNcheck the ads and banners, and they disappear from your lens?

3. I take a little extra time to create or retrieve my OWN RSS feeds to publish on my lenses - Getting feed code directly from my affiliate area at Amazon, eBay, et al. And I always use my own blog feeds, static site feeds, web 2.0 pages, feed mashups, etc...

This way I get 100% of any commissions of sales generated from those feeds, or I get revved up SEO and backlink juice by using my own sites' and blogs' feeds.

4. I also use content that's on average about 35% unique or MORE. Depending on the purpose, I either go completely 100% unique, or rewrite to be 35% unique.

5. And I take care NOT to pepper my lenses with a bunch of promotional copy, links, or images. A little goes a long way here - especially when placed strategically within the flow of the lens.

6. Oh, and here's a big one. I try to pick natural looking names (the part that becomes the lens url) for my lenses - Titles that are as keyword relevant as I can get without being obviously IM-ish. Sometimes it's just not possible to get a really keyword rich title for a lens url without it either looking way out there, or spammy. I would rather err on the side of 'natural' rather than being extremely keyword targeted if being keyword targeted results in an OBVIOUSLY Promotional-looking lens title/url.

I am definitely NOT a Squidoo-aholic. It is just another tool in my toolbox that I continue to use, when it's applicable, because it continues to work.