Squidoo is a joke...

Over the past year, I've heard tons of people rant and rave about Squidoo and how you can EASILY make money with squidoo through affiliate programs- particularly amazon's affiliate program and adsense.

Well I took some time, cracked my knuckles and put the stories to the test.
My conclusion might surprise you.

Conclusion- "Squidoo is a joke..."

Here's why

I wrote 5 - approx 1000 word posts for 5 great keywords ( all "excellent according to the "keyword matrix", yes old-school I know)

These posts and keywords were written around high volume selling products that I actually own and use. I wrote all the content myself and the only content I took was 1 amazon review per post that was approx 1-200 words. Amazon was properly cited in bold and everything was by the book. I added my affiliate links to links throughout the posts, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

"No big deal right?"

What I noticed was:

A. Within 24 hours of publishing the post, the lens had been locked, flagged for plagarism, etc.

B. Upon first publish, It won't let you publish due to "Red Flag Words" in my case the word "Reviews" was used 10/1000 words

C. The hoops you have to jump through to post a legit article are ridiculous.

NOTE: One of the lenses - I argued with squidoo over 2 of them and within 3 days, they lifted the lock, the one that couldnt be published, I havent heard anything back and the other seems to be ok... atleast for now.

"How do some of you actually use and make profit from this?"

Also after reading their policy 10 times, i discovered that their terms have a huge problem for all of us...

"Lenses cannot be affiliate related or be obviously promoting a product"

"What?! Ok, then what would I use squidoo for?"

Also,

I've noticed a few sites that have great keywords in the title on squidoo and they have gone nowhere with google.

My overall conclusion...

I think Squidoo might have been the way to go a few years ago but now I'm not so sure. They've definitely gotten strict on their rules and maybe they're cracking down on people posting product reviews hoping to make a buck. If you're planning on getting ranked high and fast for your keyword... You might be barking up the wrong tree. I like the ease of how fast you can throw up an article but I'm not too fond of how they take a large percentage of your adsense income.

I wish it was easier than this but this is what I've found out. I hope some of you can maybe prove me wrong.

I think Squidoo is a really cool idea, I just think that maybe it's time has passed.

"Any thoughts?"

Your pal

J