Is Squidoo still okay to post article to?

69 replies
Hello,

Is Squidoo still okay to post articles to? Does it still rank good for keywords in the serps?

Andrew
#article #post #squidoo
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    • Profile picture of the author Kris79
      Originally Posted by shireen View Post

      Hi:

      Shireen here :-)

      No offense, I quit using squidoo already...
      Hi. I have very simple question:

      Why?
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      • Profile picture of the author andrewm
        The reason I asked is that I was about to setup several test niches using squidoo and click bank products. I do not want to waste time if it is not a good think to do.

        Originally Posted by Kris79 View Post

        Hi. I have very simple question:

        Why?
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        • Profile picture of the author andrewm
          Thanks every one for helping. I will only use it to test niches.

          Thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author ak1lz
      Originally Posted by shireen View Post

      Hi:

      Shireen here :-)

      No offense, I quit using squidoo already...

      I ran into way too many problems with Squido, and I only used it shortly. Didnt give me a chance to even like them a tad bit.
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      "The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today." - Elbert Hubbard

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  • Profile picture of the author sorind
    To post an article in Squidoo is not so easy now,they required at least 5 likes from members to publish your article.And..I think that is too many OBL there,around at least 20...for me looks to be too many for an unranked article.But if you like to use Squidoo,you can do it...
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    • Profile picture of the author Jhangora
      Originally Posted by sorind View Post

      To post an article in Squidoo is not so easy now,they required at least 5 likes from members to publish your article.And..I think that is too many OBL there,around at least 20...for me looks to be too many for an unranked article.But if you like to use Squidoo,you can do it...
      While it is true that there are a lot of Topics which are not allowed on Squidoo, you don't need 5 likes - or even 1 like to get your Article published and featured on the site.

      It is true that Squidoo has put a Spam Filter in place, after the Panda update, and it is not the best one around.

      Selling Squidoo Lenses has been my major source of Income for the past one year. I think Squidoo has a real cool look, it has also fared better than Hubpages, EZine Articles, and other revenue sharing sites - as far as weathering the after effects of the Panda update is concerned.

      Provided you keep clear from Squid Don't Topics and publish quality original content - I see no issues in attracting search engine traffic from Squdioo.
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      • Profile picture of the author wilsonljx
        Personally,I found it quite hard to publish now adays.There are quite a lot of violation especially if you are doing the MMO niche.
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    • Profile picture of the author kislany
      Originally Posted by sorind View Post

      To post an article in Squidoo is not so easy now,they required at least 5 likes from members to publish your article.And..I think that is too many OBL there,around at least 20...for me looks to be too many for an unranked article.But if you like to use Squidoo,you can do it...
      While I don't want to get into the debate of using Squidoo or not (yes I use it and love it), why would you spread something stupid as that? Noone ever said something about needing 5 likes to publish your lens. Please don't blatantly lie...

      Speaking of Squidoo high ranking pages, actually most of my lenses are between PR 2 and 4, which gives some nice link juice back to my sites - all this without doing any promotion to my lenses except social bookmarking to a few squidoo bookmarking directories. I've never managed to get this Pr for any of my Eza articles...so yeah, Squidoo is definitely worth for some juicy backlinks even today.
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  • Profile picture of the author Miguelito203
    Originally Posted by andrewm View Post

    Hello,

    Is Squidoo still okay to post articles to? Does it still rank good for keywords in the serps?

    Andrew
    It still has a high page rank and Alexa ranking (indication of incoming traffic). The reason a lot of people don't like it anymore is because Squidoo is very picky about the niches and even products you promote. I might use it to test out a niche idea before I bought a domain or use it to link to my blog. I wouldn't, however, put like a product review on there. I would put that content on my actual blog.

    Good luck,
    Joey
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Miguelito203 View Post

      It still has a high page rank
      Squidoo's own home page has a high page rank, Joey. That doesn't help your pages there, or mine, much: neither of us can have our own material published on Squidoo's own home page, can we? Our pages there will be PR-0, just like the pages on which our articles (if we submit them) will appear in every article directory on the web.

      Originally Posted by Miguelito203 View Post

      and Alexa ranking (indication of incoming traffic).
      How does that "incoming traffic" to Squidoo's site help your pages there, Joey? That traffic belongs to Squidoo, and to people who were willing to use pages on a site someone else owns, to attract their traffic to, rather than attracting it to their own property. That doesn't mean that you and I have to make the same mistake.

      I stopped using Squidoo, even as part of my backlinking strategy, a couple of years ago.

      For me, there's absolutely no point at all: it gives me nothing that I can't get elsewhere without having to worry about all their ever-changing terms of service, their inconsistent and idiosyncratic interpretations of them, and the fact that I can never own my own site there. For me, that's just silly: even a subdomain on a free host somewhere would be better, safer, more reliable and just as useful for SEO (now that page ranks almost don't mean anything any more and relevance is almost everything).

      And then to all of that nonsense you have to add the fact that Squidoo wouldn't even let me post previously published content on my pages there: they want "original content"! :p :rolleyes:

      When I have original content, I'm hardly likely to give Squidoo the initial indexation-rights to it for their site, when I can post it first on my own site, am I?

      Any marketer seriously thinking of using Squidoo, these days, may find some of the threads like this one a helpful and interesting component of their much-needed "strategic rethink".
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      • Profile picture of the author andrewm
        Thanks Alexa for the thread on squidoo.

        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        Squidoo's own home page has a high page rank, Joey. That doesn't help your pages there, or mine, much: neither of us can have our own material published on Squidoo's own home page, can we? Our pages there will be PR-0, just like the pages on which our articles (if we submit them) will appear in every article directory on the web.



        How does that "incoming traffic" to Squidoo's site help your pages there, Joey? That traffic belongs to Squidoo, and to people who were willing to use pages on a site someone else owns, to attract their traffic to, rather than attracting it to their own property. That doesn't mean that you and I have to make the same mistake.

        I stopped using Squidoo, even as part of my backlinking strategy, a couple of years ago.

        For me, there's absolutely no point at all: it gives me nothing that I can't get elsewhere without having to worry about all their ever-changing terms of service, their inconsistent and idiosyncratic interpretations of them, and the fact that I can never own my own site there. For me, that's just silly: even a subdomain on a free host somewhere would be better, safer, more reliable and just as useful for SEO (now that page ranks almost don't mean anything any more and relevance is almost everything).

        And then to all of that nonsense you have to add the fact that Squidoo wouldn't even let me post previously published content on my pages there: they want "original content"! :p :rolleyes:

        When I have original content, I'm hardly likely to give Squidoo the initial indexation-rights to it for their site, when I can post it first on my own site, am I?

        Any marketer seriously thinking of using Squidoo, these days, may find some of the threads like this one a helpful and interesting component of their much-needed "strategic rethink".
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Hi Ron,

        Originally Posted by Ron Hitson View Post

        one way to get traffic is to promote your niche/website on 3rd party websites.
        I agree completely: having my site promoted on other people's sites (and in their ezines) is the main source of traffic for my business.

        I just think, for all the reasons given in so much detail above, and in so many other threads, that Squidoo is a particularly bad one to use for this purpose.

        Originally Posted by Ron Hitson View Post

        My point, if the only way people can find your website is by search, aren't you leaving out at least 80% or more of the people that are looking for your offers? Most traffic does not come from search. MOST of the websites I have found, I stumbled upon them by way of 3rd party websites. 1 link leads to another.
        I couldn't agree more. Very little of my business's traffic comes from search engines. If it interests you, you can see my business model described here in one post, and as you'll see the feature of it that I'm stressing in that post is that the primary traffic has nothing to do with search engines at all.

        Originally Posted by Ron Hitson View Post

        here is a reason why businesses advertise on 3rd party sites
        Originally Posted by Ron Hitson View Post

        I think it would be foolish to not market on 3rd party sites. Guest blogging, banner ads, etc....is all about promoting on 3rd party websites.
        Again, I agree with all of this, Ron. None of it makes Squidoo useful to my business in any way, though; and that's why (like so many others replying above) I abandoned it long ago.

        There are other, better, easier places without such restrictive terms of service, and those are much more useful to me.


        Originally Posted by Ron Hitson View Post

        As far as TOS, everyone has rules.
        Not like Squidoo's, mercifully, they don't!

        Originally Posted by Ron Hitson View Post

        just be sure to follow their TOS.
        That's just a cop-out, Ron. This trite, tired old "Stick to the TOS and you'll be ok" line is readily exposed for what it is by all the Warriors who have thought they were doing that, and tried to do that, only to find that one of two things happened ...

        (i) The rules suddenly changed (Squidoo are pretty good at that!), or ...

        (ii) The rules seemed fairly clear but unfortunately Squidoo chose to interpret them in an apparently illogical, idiosyncratic and most unexpected manner, inconsistently from what they'd done before.

        Nobody needs the risk of problems like that
        , when there are other, far better, far safer alternatives available.
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        • Profile picture of the author celente
          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

          Hi Ron,



          I agree completely: having my site promoted on other people's sites (and in their ezines) is the main source of traffic for my business.

          I just think, for all the reasons given in so much detail above, and in so many other threads, that Squidoo is a particularly bad one to use for this purpose.



          I couldn't agree more. Very little of my business's traffic comes from search engines. If it interests you, you can see my business model described here in one post, and as you'll see the feature of it that I'm stressing in that post is that the primary traffic has nothing to do with search engines at all.



          Again, I agree with all of this, Ron. None of it makes Squidoo useful to my business in any way, though; and that's why (like so many others replying above) I abandoned it long ago.

          There are other, better, easier places without such restrictive terms of service, and those are much more useful to me.




          Not like Squidoo's, mercifully, they don't!



          That's just a cop-out, Ron. This trite, tired old "Stick to the TOS and you'll be ok" line is readily exposed for what it is by all the Warriors who have thought they were doing that, and tried to do that, only to find that one of two things happened ...

          (i) The rules suddenly changed (Squidoo are pretty good at that!), or ...

          (ii) The rules seemed fairly clear but unfortunately Squidoo chose to interpret them in an apparently illogical, idiosyncratic and most unexpected manner, inconsistently from what they'd done before.

          Nobody needs the risk of problems like that
          , when there are other, far better, far safer alternatives available.
          nice post again alexa.

          There is a big learning curve in here at the moment in regards to articles, mainly due to the crap you see floating around with "your must spin" or "I use a spinner" or even "should I post to 800 thousand article directories"

          Watch in the next 11 months, as we see a massive transformation in the article world. You can almost feel it cant you darls. I learnt from some of the best to do with article syndication, and your posts are a breath of fresh air. ....... *insert sniffing the air nose here* LOL.

          The smart article marketers are again going to light years ahead of those still spinning in their jammies and blasting to 99999999999 directories each day.

          But what would I know?. I could be just farting in the wind for all I know. I had a bean burito for lunch alexa so make sure you are upwind please.
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          • Profile picture of the author capitalalchemy
            Debating whether Squidoo has any value is idiotic in my opinion.

            Sites like ezinearticles.com may have high editorial standards, but had low content standards from the beginning. When I visit the site and scan through all of the hypey titles vying for the reader's attention, it is no wonder that they are suffering.

            What are they? an information site or an infomercial site? Ask yourself this....do you ever go there when you aren't working or thinking about internet marketing to look for tips and information? probably not, and it's impossible for any of us to ever step out o the IM mindset, so we don't see just how crappy some sites are.

            Squidoo is different. I see so many people hear complaining about how it's useless because "you can't just throw up an article and move on, you've actually got to add more content" or that "it's useless for link building campaigns"....

            Guess what? I hated Squidoo at one point too, and you know what? It's because I was trying to do the same things, and as a result had the same complaints.

            Look don't use Squidoo for link building -- use Squidoo for marketing.

            A lens is a free landing page that has millions of other powerful landing pages pointing to it from within the site. Each one of these is well respected by Google, because Seth Godin really knew what he was doing.

            It's no secret that search engines love videos. It's no secret that they love articles. It's no secret that the like pictures (even if they can't get much information from them without the ALT tag), it's no lie that they like to see people taking part in a discussion.

            What happens when you combine all of these elements? I honestly have yet to see a site do it like Squidoo. I think that they have put their foot down on it.

            Honestly, this site is on the same levels of Wikipedia, because of how it's structured.

            If you go onto Wikipedia and build a crap page just to get a link it will be taken down and you won't get the link.

            But..if you build something really good then it can climb to the top of the rankings.

            Squidoo is the same. Only difference is that you can sell products through your lens, build a mailing list through your lens, educate people through it, get high quality back links, and all at the same time
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            • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
              Banned
              I'm kind of reluctant to reply to some of the stuff above at all, to be honest, but there's such a "false causation" fallacy, a couple of posts back, that it would be a shame to let it go, only for folk to be misled by it ...

              I did some research
              I bet a good percentage of these pages' PR comes from internal links
              Call me a skepchick, but some of us don't quite regard "I bet" as proving the point, hello.

              There are, of course, plenty of higher-PR pages on Squidoo, but even if all the "reasoning" above (including the "I bet" part!) were true and valid and correct, it still wouldn't prove the traffic or SEO value of Squidoo, compared with the alternatives, any more than the existence of some PR-3/PR-4 article pages on EZA proves the "value" of EZA for traffic or backlinking purposes.

              It's just yet another "misattributed causation" fallacy, in fact.

              What it demonstrates is simply that some people are (or were) misguided enough to build backlinks to pages on other people's sites rather than owning and controlling their own business.

              People do exactly the same with their Ezine Articles, too. It doesn't, of course, signify that the site's any good for SEO purposes at all - just, in this case, that those marketers have (or had, anyway, at the time they tried this) a somewhat different perspective of the value of that particular activity from all those of us who abandoned Squidoo a year or two ago, when it lost its benefits for us. :p

              These little threads might help anyone wanting to see a large selection of Warrior experiences using Squidoo.

              That may be a little more helpful and illustrative to some than purported logic and "research" based on "I bet".

              http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...y-website.html

              http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...-hubpages.html

              http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post4928766

              http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...e-squidoo.html

              http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post5359055
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              • Profile picture of the author capitalalchemy
                Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

                I'm kind of reluctant to reply to some of the stuff above at all, to be honest, but there's such a "false causation" fallacy, a couple of posts back, that it would be a shame to let it go, only for folk to be misled by it ...

                Call me a skepchick, but some of us don't quite regard "I bet" as proving the point, hello.

                There are, of course, plenty of higher-PR pages on Squidoo, but even if all the "reasoning" above (including the "I bet" part!) were true and valid and correct, it still wouldn't prove the traffic or SEO value of Squidoo, compared with the alternatives, any more than the existence of some PR-3/PR-4 article pages on EZA proves the "value" of EZA for traffic or backlinking purposes.

                It's just yet another "misattributed causation" fallacy, in fact.

                What it demonstrates is simply that some people are (or were) misguided enough to build backlinks to pages on other people's sites rather than owning and controlling their own business.

                People do exactly the same with their Ezine Articles, too. It doesn't, of course, signify that the site's any good for SEO purposes at all - just that those marketers have (or had, anyway, at the time they tried this) a somewhat different perspective of the value of that particular activity from all those of us who abandoned Squidoo a year or two ago. :p

                These little threads might help anyone wanting to see a large selection of Warrior experiences using Squidoo. It may be a little more helpful and illustrative to some than purported logic and "research" based on "I bet".
                I agree with you to some degree. It's always better to own your content and have your own website that you are in control of.

                But, in terms of SEO (I know that you mostly rely on other methods) it's good for testing something before deciding to get involved with it.

                Building a site from scratch, optimizing it, adding the content, building back links to all of the pages and worrying about getting dropped can be expensive and time consuming.

                Plus after all that work, you might find that your website isn't kicking in profits because of either poor product selection, the wrong marketing approach, the wrong communication to visitors, etc.

                A lens doesn't take as much time or effort, can generate substantial amounts of income, get feed back, and if it's working, then you can use the same approach and set up a website to build a real business.

                The internal link juice on Squidoo is dofollow. The tags feature may be useless in terms of typical SEO, but when it comes to on-site SEO it is not. By using all 40 of the tags, Squidoo can help your site get displayed on other related lenses.

                When those lens owners build back links to their lenses, you get some of that link juice. When you build back links to your lens, those who followed the same best practices will also benefit from your efforts. So you can get the link juice from many PR 3+ lenses. Plus, you can inner-link multiple lenses that you have on the same topic.

                But again, the format for success is already in place. The problem is that most people are not patient enough to use it.

                In the long run of course owning your own site is better
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              • Profile picture of the author Underground SEO
                Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

                I'm kind of reluctant to reply to some of the stuff above at all, to be honest, but there's such a "false causation" fallacy, a couple of posts back, that it would be a shame to let it go, only for folk to be misled by it ...

                Call me a skepchick, but some of us don't quite regard "I bet" as proving the point, hello.

                There are, of course, plenty of higher-PR pages on Squidoo, but even if all the "reasoning" above (including the "I bet" part!) were true and valid and correct, it still wouldn't prove the traffic or SEO value of Squidoo, compared with the alternatives, any more than the existence of some PR-3/PR-4 article pages on EZA proves the "value" of EZA for traffic or backlinking purposes.

                It's just yet another "misattributed causation" fallacy, in fact.

                What it demonstrates is simply that some people are (or were) misguided enough to build backlinks to pages on other people's sites rather than owning and controlling their own business.

                People do exactly the same with their Ezine Articles, too. It doesn't, of course, signify that the site's any good for SEO purposes at all - just, in this case, that those marketers have (or had, anyway, at the time they tried this) a somewhat different perspective of the value of that particular activity from all those of us who abandoned Squidoo a year or two ago, when it lost its benefits for us. :p

                These little threads might help anyone wanting to see a large selection of Warrior experiences using Squidoo. It may be a little more helpful and illustrative to some than purported logic and "research" based on "I bet".

                http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...y-website.html

                http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...-hubpages.html

                http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post4928766

                http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...e-squidoo.html

                http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post5359055
                Wrong I'm afraid. When I used to use Squidoo a while back I often found my lenses reaching PR 2/3 with no backlinking whatsoever, just going off the strength of Squidoo alone. Also I'm not the only one this has happened to, may "warriors" haven't experienced it that often but a simple search will show you many experiences similar to my own.

                Also stating in a previous post that "PR" is worthless is one of the most absurd things I have heard. Try buying a few one-way high PR homepage links and tell me your site doesn't move up the SERPs, in fact not just up the SERPs, but dramatically so.

                I think the "Alexa School of Internet Marketing Myths" has struck again.
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          • Profile picture of the author wilsonljx
            There are a lot of restrictions when posting articles in squidoo and also,certain niches are not allowed in squidoo to prevent spamming of affiliate links.

            Some of the restricted niches that I am aware of are making money online and weight loss niches. I believe there are a lot of better ways to generate traffic and build backlinks other than squidoo.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mitja Drame
    I use Squidoo for articles and sales from Amazon and eBay, and it's still working. My lenses ranks easily on 1 page of Google with only social bookmarking.
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  • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
    The site is what you make of it, just like any site. Don't underestimate the value of using it in conjunction with a much broader online marketing strategy.
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    • Profile picture of the author Igirl
      yes...yes...yes...it ranks, easy, and if done right it can generate nice income.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sohel Parvez
    It's still working & one of my lens is showing on Google 1st page for competitive keyword.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Sohel Parvez View Post

      one of my lens is showing on Google 1st page for competitive keyword.
      Just a question, Sohel, but don't you ever wish that the page ranking on the first page of Google's SERP's for a competitive keyword were a page that you yourself owned rather than one that Squidoo owns, that's subject to all their terms of service and can be locked or removed by them at any stage (exactly as has happened to so many Warriors!), if they don't like what you're doing with it?

      I'm not in any way trying to belittle your achievement with it.

      I'm simply suggesting that possibly the attribution of causation/benefit here may perhaps be a slightly less-than-optimal one.

      To be frank, it reminds me of the conversations here in which people (quite truthfully, I'm sure) say "I spin hundreds of articles and I've got some Google top rankings out of it", not realising that they could have done exactly the same thing more easily and with more benefit by not spinning their articles. :p

      In other words, I don't doubt that "your" page on Squidoo's site is on the front page of Google, and well done for that, but I also have a large number of pages of different sites on front pages of various Google's SERP's, and in order to get them there, I haven't been building up an asset which belongs to someone else whose ever-changing terms of service, policies and procedures dictate what I can and can't do with "my" pages.
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  • Profile picture of the author MisterMunch
    Squidoo is great for generating targeted traffic as most lenses have related lenses in their sidebar.

    So if a squidoo lens is getting traffic, and you write on the same subject, you might get a tickle of traffic from that (similar to youtube).

    Squidoo should mos def not be your main strategy, but it is a good place for generating some extra eye balls to both your squidoo lanses and your website or affiliate products.
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  • Profile picture of the author dadamson
    Dispite soem of the answers above, I still use Squidoo for backlinking purposes.

    I find it does extremely well when you push social bookmarking links onto them.
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  • Profile picture of the author topgold
    Squidoo in and of itself is a GREAT source of non-SERP traffic! I made some CJ - Your Performance Marketing Partner sales after I published on Squidoo and I still make a few sales here and there on auto-pilot. Why not just post unique articles containing useful information for people on that platform? Like the other Warriors said, you will get trickles of TARGETED TRAFFIC from related lenses. Just a thought
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    • Profile picture of the author andrewm
      Thanks again everyone for your good advices. I have a better understanding now, as a result.

      Andrew
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      • Profile picture of the author capitalalchemy
        A large part of my income comes from Squidoo Lenses. I used to hate Squidoo, but then I started really digging into it. I started having success with it once I applied myself. I thought that it was something that you could just "do", but then I started reading tons of books and articles about how to use Squidoo effectively, and that's when everything changed.

        99% of the people I see using this site aren't using it to the fullest potential. There are some tricks, there are some secrets, and of course a lot of ropes to learn.

        You do get an advantage for SERPs. It's a fact that Google loves Squidoo, but it's the more hidden SEO advantages that can propel a lens. If you know how to build lenses "the right way" and how to establish yourself, it's a total blast and can be extremely profitable.

        Truth is, I used to worry about search traffic, but then I realized that Squidoo alone gets so many hungry visitors a day, that really you tap into that traffic.

        I have tons of enses on page 1/position 1 for extremely competitive keywords. I have about 6 accounts. Squidoo can be like lightening when it comes to grabbing traffic and bringing it back to your website. I wouldn't be messing with it if it didn't work

        Squidoo can be so powerful that you can leverage it to bypass other people's listings. You do own the content, and yes you run the risk of having your lens locked, but if you stick to their guidelines then it shouldn't be a problem.
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        • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
          I love hearing about how people have leveraged even sites that they don't own. Have you been writing for Squidoo for awhile now, capitalalchemy? Have you produced many lenses? Which one are you most proud of?

          ....I highlighted in bold what I think the most powerful part of your comment was. The truth of the matter is that, a site like Squidoo, has developed tremendous authority over years of being essentially built by the collective effort of thousands of users. If you do it correctly, you can bypass other's listings, even for highly competitive search terms, fairly easily.

          Originally Posted by capitalalchemy View Post

          A large part of my income comes from Squidoo Lenses. I used to hate Squidoo, but then I started really digging into it. I started having success with it once I applied myself. I thought that it was something that you could just "do", but then I started reading tons of books and articles about how to use Squidoo effectively, and that's when everything changed.

          99% of the people I see using this site aren't using it to the fullest potential. There are some tricks, there are some secrets, and of course a lot of ropes to learn.

          You do get an advantage for SERPs. It's a fact that Google loves Squidoo, but it's the more hidden SEO advantages that can propel a lens. If you know how to build lenses "the right way" and how to establish yourself, it's a total blast and can be extremely profitable.

          Truth is, I used to worry about search traffic, but then I realized that Squidoo alone gets so many hungry visitors a day, that really you tap into that traffic.

          I have tons of enses on page 1/position 1 for extremely competitive keywords. I have about 6 accounts. Squidoo can be like lightening when it comes to grabbing traffic and bringing it back to your website. I wouldn't be messing with it if it didn't work

          Squidoo can be so powerful that you can leverage it to bypass other people's listings. You do own the content, and yes you run the risk of having your lens locked, but if you stick to their guidelines then it shouldn't be a problem.
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          • Profile picture of the author capitalalchemy
            Originally Posted by x3xsolxdierx3x View Post

            I love hearing about how people have leveraged even sites that they don't own. Have you been writing for Squidoo for awhile now, capitalalchemy? Have you produced many lenses? Which one are you most proud of?

            ....I highlighted in bold what I think the most powerful part of your comment was. The truth of the matter is that, a site like Squidoo, has developed tremendous authority over years of being essentially built by the collective effort of thousands of users. If you do it correctly, you can bypass other's listings, even for highly competitive search terms, fairly easily.
            Yes, I started using it about 4 years ago when I first started online. I just didn't know what I was doing at that time.

            The truth is simple. Squidoo is perfect, especially for those who need to leverage something and get a start to make money. For any beginner not making any money online, I do suggest studying Squidoo inside and out and acquiring a "PhD in Squidoo".

            Once you understand every faucet of how it works, you can dominate markets where people need help, but where there is little competition. You probably won't make a sale EVERY DAY or anything like that, but building high quality lenses is fun, exciting and does not take that much work. You just keep at it, and most lenses I have rank well just with a few back links. 1 lens has held the one of the top 3 positions for the last 2 years without being touched. It makes quite a few sales a month.

            One was a little b#%tard It took me a lot of work, but after 3 months - I beat out every affiliate's website for a huge market.

            Actually, Squidoo pays the bills for the sites I own. That's how I use it. It pays to run my business so far. I don't make tons of money or anything, but it's my back up plan. Diversity is always good I figure.

            But, you don't have to sell anything. If you want to build a list even it works. Pot Pie Girl was the one who inspired me. She came from nothing, and just needed a way to start. She studied intensely and applied. She started earning hundreds of dollars a day on Squidoo. Now she makes multiple thousands a day through many sources and not just Squidoo, but squidoo is a great place to cut your teeth. Learn how to market, learn how to get traffic, learn what rubs people the wrong way, what delights them, how to write good content, sell, etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
    During this year, there was an individual named "Squidoo Girl" who emerged on Squidoo. With some interesting marketing tricks, she accelerated her earnings from Adsense/Amazon, through simple Squidoo lenses, to over $800+/month. I know she blogged about her experiences, but has since moved on from the blog (as per her last post on it).
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  • Profile picture of the author jeresteem99
    Squidoo is Okay to used. It's like the other free used web blogs like blogger, hubpages, etc.

    I used it to promote my articles but like everybody said. Its hard to get approve or rank your articles for you need lot of stuff to do before they will appear.
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  • Profile picture of the author denzcans
    I think Squidoo is not effective to use anymore. Many quit in using the site already.
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  • Profile picture of the author savvybizbuilder
    Squidoo is a high ranking PR site, which makes it still worth it in link building.
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  • Profile picture of the author Leslie B
    I still use Squidoo, yes, I have a few lenses that got PR3 and even a PR4 without having to do anything for it, except build it. It's some nice link juice to my money site.

    It's not a big part of my business, but I still create them.

    Leslie
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  • Profile picture of the author nicheblogger75
    I still use Squidoo, however HubPages has gone and lost their mind.

    Evidently, they got slapped real good the last Big G update, and so they have now revamped their policies.

    The DO NOT allow Clickbank hoplinks anymore. Nor do they allow links to squeeze pages, landing pages, or one-page blogs that link to a Clickbank sales page.

    Basically, they took down all 40 of my Hubs (some that were making me $20-$30 per month between Clickbak and Adsense). Also, duplicate content is not allowed at all anymore (it used to be allowed, but you would have a low Hub Score).

    Basically, if you are a marketer, HubPages is not an option anymore.

    If you just like to write and want to belong to a writer's community and make a little off Adsense every month, then it's alright. But if that's the case, why not just put up a Wordpress blog, publish to that, and take 100% of the Adsense money?
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  • Profile picture of the author JeremiahSay
    i create squidoo lenses on topic which i'm totally interested in, to build up some 'kicks' and have fun (certainly not mmo niche).. & NOT to earn backlinks or generate some fast money etc..

    By all means, squidoo can be your secondary (hobby) but my advise to you is never make it your primary (generate income)..

    Hope this help,

    may God bless you,
    Jeremiah
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  • Profile picture of the author cashp0wer
    I can only speak for myself when I say that squidoo still works well for me. I posted about a dozen squidoo lenses last week and then spun the squdioos and did some social bookmarking and for keywords with about 300,000 competition I am front page of Google and this is over a period of about six weeks.

    All I can say is give it a try and see how it goes.
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    • Profile picture of the author Trevor
      Check out how much traffic Alexa thinks Squidoo gets:

      Squidoo.com Site Info

      As you can see, Squidoo wasn't the kind of site that was hit by the Google Panda. Unlike EzineArticles and other article directories, Squidoo is still getting a huge amount of traffic, so there's no reason why you should quit making lenses

      - Trev
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  • Profile picture of the author vvsingh
    I left using it after panda update as like several other article sites its traffic decreased from search engines so the article on it lost their portion of direct traffic. Second It gives no-follow links which is not helpful in terms of link building.
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    • Profile picture of the author UptonGoodwin
      Originally Posted by vvsingh View Post

      I left using it after panda update as like several other article sites its traffic decreased from search engines so the article on it lost their portion of direct traffic. Second It gives no-follow links which is not helpful in terms of link building.
      Everything you just posted is incorrect. All the content on Squidoo is unique by Squidoos TOS, Squidoos traffic is the same as it was before Google Panda. Links on your lens modules to your sites are NOT no-follow.
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    • Profile picture of the author SingaTechnologies
      Banned
      [DELETED]
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      • Profile picture of the author RimaNaj2011
        I used to use Squdioo and Hubpages for backlinks. But I spent too much time updating and adjusting them so they stay out of WP or above a certain hubscore to be no follow links. I'd rather spend that time on other backlinking ways.
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  • Profile picture of the author rahulr
    Be sure to have long articles in your lens to get seo benefit
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  • Profile picture of the author FrankieTP2
    I think it is still a good place to post articles to. I have some squidoo lenses that are making me money on auto-pilot since 2008. I haven't touched them since I created them for the first time and they bring me $100's each and every month.

    They don't make a fortune, but who complains about receiving "free" money?
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  • Profile picture of the author DanielMilstein
    Well the Squidoo TOS is really a pain. I totally agree with that. And maybe for some, I agree, that it is not the best. But it is still worth creating Squidoo lenses. I'd rather not make it a priority to create one but an option worth a try.
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  • Profile picture of the author Osman_M
    I think for backlinking purposes, it can always benefit. Not too sure about ranking the page itself but the same process would be needed. Build links to the page if you want it to rank.
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  • Profile picture of the author flipgrind
    Banned
    Squidoo's posting guidelines is now too strict. I wrote an article, 500 words long and Squidoo rejected it. But when I submitted it to EzineArticles, it is accepted.
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  • Profile picture of the author danlew
    This is still very useful to post articles, as long it is high quality and gives value to the community. But take note that Squidoo has changed their rules after the Panda update (just like Ezine) and its tough for your lens to be accepted.
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  • Profile picture of the author richblogs
    Even if Squidoo isn't as useful as it once was (and that's arguable), relatively speaking, it's still among the best places to get exposure for your website. You can't really argue with getting your brand/links/content on to a website with an Alexa rank in the top 250.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kurt
    The true benefit to posting to sites like Squidoo is the ability to manipulate their internal linking structures and traffic for your benefit.
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    • Profile picture of the author skseofleet
      Originally Posted by Kurt View Post

      The true benefit to posting to sites like Squidoo is the ability to manipulate their internal linking structures and traffic for your benefit.
      I agree with you kurt..
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  • Profile picture of the author skseofleet
    Squidoo is a good web2.o site that i helpful for both article submission and link wheel. I often use squidoo to publish my contents and in link wheels. The best thing of squidoo is that it have high traffic that is good for a website. If that traffic search for my keyword then my article should come in results i will get a crawl from there>
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  • Profile picture of the author clever7
    Squidoo is helping me send traffic to my websites and this traffic is staying longer there. Creating lenses is also a passive income.

    I hated Squidoo's rules and their numerous changes without asking us if we agree with them. However, now that I became a Giant Squid I'm having many advantages.

    Now it's quite easier to become a Giant than it used to be before; you only need 25 good lenses with original content, while before you had to create 50 lenses.

    You can also create lenses using a few paragraphs of your old articles, or simply create stores without text, even though a short description-review of your products is always helpful.

    My lenses are based on content because I'm a writer. They are immensely helping me promote my business. I'm getting traffic from the Squidoo community and sending this traffic to my websites and to my blog.

    I advise you to do the same. Creating lenses is a money-making occupation that gives you the opportunity to sell your products, or many affiliate products, besides being an excellent traffic generating method. If you'll write your own content, you'll get a lot of traffic from Google after publishing a lens. This advantage lasts for one or two weeks, while your lens is still fresh.

    Later you have to build backlinks and promote your lens to see it appearing at Google's first page. However, if you are smart, you will create a new lens every week so that you may always have a fresh lens appearing at the first results page because Google gives this advantage to new lenses. I guess that this advantage works also for lenses that are merely stores without text, but I'm not so sure. Based on my experience I can say that original content is the best option today, not only for creating lenses, but for everything you do online.




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  • Profile picture of the author chrissyb
    Squidoo feels a bit awkward to post to for some reason, all that building lenses is counter intuitive, like you've got enough on your plate writing, without having to do a jig to put it all together.

    I wish Google would reward people who had neat handwriting and could spel proply without using electronic aids...

    I've only written one lens - and mustered one visitor, I feel embarrassed that some people seem to write a handful everyday...

    But writing is a hobby, I'm only just learning that it may garner traffic for my site :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author DireStraits
    There's little doubt in my mind that the time I've just spent sprawled out on my bed, scratching my backside, puffing a cigarette and supping a whiskey with the Transatlantic Sessions streaming on BBC iPlayer was better spent, more productive, and worth more to my bottom line than if I'd instead read threads intent on filling my consciousness with the sort of talk that has me going away believing Squidoo is anything other than highly distilled sewage.
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  • Profile picture of the author TiffanyLambert
    Well I've been there a long time. I was pissed when changes took place but later happy they did - it was a nice cleanup, even if some babies got thrown out with the bathwater (even some of my own).

    But I use them now as part of my marketing strategy. Here's how I use them:

    1. I test niches there. It's perfect for it because I get to easily create a nice looking layout that gets me almost immediate search traffic without having to register a domain and set up a site.

    2. I use the pages to supplement my spots on the SERPs. If my own domain grabs spots 1 and 2, why not grab #3 with a Squidoo lens, too?

    3. I use Squidoo to get additional category exposure. They promote other lenses (like mine) on other lensmaster's pages (something that bugged me as a marketer who hates link leakage, but loves it as a recipient - hypocritical).

    I like that newbies can set up a page with ease and without having to have web building skills.

    I like that it's free.

    I like that there's a community there of people generally very helpful and kind who help spread the word of your lenses IF you actually get social there and interact with them.

    I like that Seth, Gil and Meagan are all in the trenches interacting with the community to make it better.

    I like that I can use it for silly niche ideas I have NO plans to go into on a full website - because there's just not enough for me to make one on. For instance, here's a lens that's made me $17+ this month: Yankee Candle Electric Refill - Shop and Save - no, it's not much. But building something one time and having it work like that and knowing I can make unlimited pages like that is pretty neat.

    I have no plans to build a Yankee candle refill site LOL - but I had the idea, and now even with very little traffic, it converts. (I think it had about 110 visits in the last 30 days and shows $17+ profits).

    I like that I can see all of the keywords my lens is being found for. I can do further research and build out new pages like that if I want (or if I want my ghostwriter to).

    Is it something I, as a marketer with my own sites and products, invest a ton of time and effort into? Not anymore - but it's like a nice side dish.

    I like it better than article directories. Someone else was right - it's not a place to "throw up an article." It's a place to create a page about something you like.

    I like using multiple places, but as someone else said, I no longer enjoy HP. I do like Google Plus, FaceBook, Twitter, and I count Squidoo as another place to share information in a network where others can help spread the word about it.

    Tiff
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  • Profile picture of the author money fan
    Banned
    Just be careful i heard someone with all his income coming from Squidoo got their account shut down and all his articles lost plus his income. He may have been doing something against rules tho. Good luck
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  • Profile picture of the author avinash13
    Squidoo is a good place for submitting articles. The reasons are-

    1. You can make money online
    2. You can get huge backlinks from squidoo lens. But the articles must be good & content rich.
    3. There are options of posting pictures, video clips & advertisements in your article.
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  • Profile picture of the author blueeyedboy
    Unfortunatly I found some of my squidoo lenses suddenly lose its search engine ranking. I think google has changed its algorithm and has affected squidoo lenses too.
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  • Profile picture of the author fetamy
    Hi guys, squidoo is not just offering to post instant article. It is much more that. It had so much modules for the enrichment of your content here.You amazon product you can put on your lens. This is amazing. The views of you lens and popularity checker is available on it. Its not just an article directory.Lens is like a mirco blog.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by fetamy View Post

      Its not just an article directory.
      In fact, now that you mention it, it isn't an article directory at all.

      For the record, an "article directory" is a depository of content which is freely available (within each directory's terms of service) for publishers and webmasters to syndicate - by no stretch of the imagination does that even begin to describe any of Squidoo's functions, purposes or permitted uses.
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  • Profile picture of the author ryanmilligan
    Banned
    It's ok I supoose. At one point I was thriving with it, making about $500-$600 a week with it but it soon died when for some reason unknown to me I was finding it incredibly hard to rank the pages.
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    • Profile picture of the author andrewm
      This thread is very interesting. I really have new insights on Squidoo as a result. Thanks everyone for contributing.

      Andrew
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  • Profile picture of the author Mindz
    I think there still a great way to get traffic from .
    So why not post your articles to there , plus if
    your lens is good enough and you have enough
    rank you can sell them for extra cash , I think that
    alone is enough to keep using it !

    But i see it different than most !

    Hope that helps !
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  • Profile picture of the author shahzadnabeelpk
    I would prefer Squidoo over hubpages and blogger. Please don't treat squidoo like article submission sites. Squidoo provides you a solid platform to sell your products. It's still a good source of income. But all it demands quality content(700 to 1000wordcount) with sales modules like amazon, ebay etc.

    One more thing, don't try to cover every point of product in a single lens. Just write lens about a particular product and stay focused on that.

    One last thing call to action, is very important in the end.
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