Backlinks: Either squidoo is "out there," or we are.

Banned 11 years ago

Sounds like they are brown nosing Google. Remember the similar EZA drama, I think it was last year?

I imagine Google contacted them to set them straight, they're obviously a high earning site for Google ($$).

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paulgl 11 years ago

Seems to me maybe they(squiddo) may be bringing out a new
algo. Looking at the backlink profile of lenses. Dumb links,
you get flagged. I can't even imagine why they would come
up with this. Unless their last algo failed to weed out the trash.

But you cannot control how and who backlinks. They even encourage
people to fb like, squidlike, twitter, and pinterest. Heaven forbid
someone links to you, "just because."

Paul
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trade4861

11 years ago

But lets face it, how many threads have you seen that say “should I bomb my lens with backlinks?”

Hell, I never even wanted to build a lens but was going to just so I can compete against competition. Its better this way. Now I don’t need to waste my time building a lens for SEO links :-)

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DPM70

11 years ago

LOL I can't believe two of the best posters in WF SEO thread are debating squidooo. That's a new kind of low.

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discustipated 11 years ago

I just had someone email me and said that I don't have the right to link out to their website, and that if I don't remove the link they will have to take me to court. What the hell is the internet coming to?
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paulgl 11 years ago

Originally Posted by DPM70

LOL I can't believe two of the best posters in WF SEO thread are debating squidooo. That's a new kind of low.

It's not really a debate about squidoo. It's the future of backlinking.
If squidoo is saying almost not to backlink just to build backlinks,
what's the world coming to? The end of backlinking as we know it?

They don't want you to backlink to a lens, unless you are providing
a "valuable" link and it enhances the linking website.

If that's the future of backlinking, it's a game changer.

Paul
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yukon

Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by DPM70

LOL I can't believe two of the best posters in WF SEO thread are debating squidooo. That's a new kind of low.

I don't base anything I do with my sites on Squidoo, I've never even used Squidoo.

My point was that Squidoo is without a doubt a large chunk of change for Google pockets & Google without a doubt has an influence on Squidoos income.

EZA is pretty much in the same situation as Squidoo, when Google says jump they don't say why, they say how high? IMO their (Squidoo, EZA) overly dependent on Google SERPs which puts Google at an advantage. You can look at their pages & see they exist for only the SERPs (keyword stuffing).

BTW, I don't write articles, which is kind of funny considering I write more on public forums than I do on my own sites. My traffic doesn't need articles, which is probably why I stuck with the same niche for so long, writing isn't my thing.

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paulgl

11 years ago

Here's the insanity. Just copied this reply about squidoo's post:

"Backlinking is such a minefield these days it's just better not to do it if you can avoid it!"

Insane people, man. Insane people.

Paul

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smodha

11 years ago

Originally Posted by paulgl

Here's the insanity. Just copied this reply about squidoo's post:

"Backlinking is such a minefield these days it's just better not to do it if you can avoid it!"

Insane people, man. Insane people.

Paul

Somebody call the exorcist!

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Mike Anthony

11 years ago

Originally Posted by paulgl

Here's a quote from squidoo HQ:

"Why link from a site to your lens? Is it solely to get a backlink? This practice is no longer considered acceptable by search engines."

I can't help but thinking squidoo has "jumped the shark."

I can't even fathom why anyone would make a statement like that.

I can get entirely where they are coming from and heres the money spot -

Make sure that every link added to a lens is targeted and relevant. Avoid cheap linking from places that may not be trusted. Lenses found to contain an excess of links from “nofollowed” blog comments or low quality “link directories” could be flagged or locked.

This may well be the first shot across the bow at tiered link building. Yes some people attempt to rank their lens but alot of others use it as a first or second tier link. The standard way of doing tiered link building is to automate blast your tiers with every link in sight (especially second and up). So can you imagine the amount of junk links squidoo is getting to their site each day? I mean the way some people use SenukeX, xrumer and scrapebox etc we are talking millions of spammy links per day!

Thats like hundreds of people attempting to do negative SEO on your pages everyday

It may very well be affecting their site in SEO ways. Sure as beans if they have sat down with a Google rep the rep has brought it to their attention and might even have mentioned that they are acting as a middle man for link spam.

Scary thing for link blasters is if Squidoo is now looking at incoming links as a reason to shut down pages what happens when it becomes standard SEO practice for all the the web 2.0 sites out there. As it is right now a simple tool to check backlinks coming in to a page (which squidoo seems to have) is a great way for the web 2.0 websites to flag page owners using their service for link spam.

Tiered link building game over? not really. Not yet but if thats all you got going on it might be a good time to look around and explore other avenues as well

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daisy172

11 years ago

Make sure that every link added to a lens is targeted and relevant. Avoid cheap linking from places that may not be trusted. Lenses found to contain an excess of links from "nofollowed" blog comments or low quality "link directories" could be flagged or locked.

Ha, Ha! Too funny. Squidoo itself nofollows all outbound links from it's site! Does that mean it's a low quality spam site? LOL. They must be really panicking about their traffic loss.

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paulgl

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

This may well be the first shot across the bow at tiered link building.

Scary thing for link blasters is if Squidoo is now looking at incoming links as a reason to shut down pages what happens when it becomes standard SEO practice for all the the web 2.0 sites out there.

Tiered link building game over? not really. Not yet but if thats all you got going on it might be a good time to look around and explore other avenues as well

See that's what I thought when I posted this thread. I never heard EZA talk
about link building to their site.

Originally Posted by smodha

"This practice is no longer considered acceptable by search engines." - is this statement actually true because I haven't seen or read the "search engines" confirming this.

To me it sounds like more nonsense from Squidoo. Why wouldn't ordinary (non-SEO or IM guys) not link to your lens if it's popular or relevant to them? It makes a mockery of "going viral".

That, is what I'd like more input on. The statement at first glance is nonsense.
Looking deeper, perhaps it's more what Mike A. says, a first salvo at not
necessarily tier links, but just pure spammed junk links. In other words,
is this the next thing coming? You will be judged on your link profile.
All the more reason to do as many good links as possible.

Crazy thing. Someone there is talking about using the disavow tool. Idiots.
How can you use the disavow tool on a squidoo lens?

Squidoo has really gone off the deep end. I see no reason for anyone to
create new lenses. For what? For the fun? Selling amazon? How are you
going to get people to squidoo? Why not just work on your own stuff?

Squidoo was a good ride while it lasted. If this is the first salvo, then
anyone using any auto-spamming link building had better beware now
more than ever.

Paul

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smodha

11 years ago

Originally Posted by paulgl

See that's what I thought when I posted this thread. I never heard EZA talk
about link building to their site.

That, is what I'd like more input on. The statement at first glance is nonsense.
Looking deeper, perhaps it's more what Mike A. says, a first salvo at not
necessarily tier links, but just pure spammed junk links. In other words,
is this the next thing coming? You will be judged on your link profile.
All the more reason to do as many good links as possible.

Crazy thing. Someone there is talking about using the disavow tool. Idiots.
How can you use the disavow tool on a squidoo lens?

Squidoo has really gone off the deep end. I see no reason for anyone to
create new lenses. For what? For the fun? Selling amazon? How are you
going to get people to squidoo? Why not just work on your own stuff?

Squidoo was a good ride while it lasted. If this is the first salvo, then
anyone using any auto-spamming link building had better beware now
more than ever.

Paul

I'm not a Squidoo fan boy so it doesn't make any difference to my life but let's say you want to build Trust and Relevancy. How do you do that without backlinks?

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paulgl

11 years ago

Originally Posted by smodha

I'm not a Squidoo fan boy so it doesn't make any difference to my life but let's say you want to build Trust and Relevancy. How do you do that without backlinks?

Thing is, I'm all for relevancy, authority, etc., when it comes to backlinks.
But I also am a big fan of easy to get ones. Like sig links here on the WF,
even though I choose not to. There are some non-relevant links, out
of context, that can be pretty good. Some are easy to get. I'm not
talking about the ones most people think of. Like spamming blogs.

But to put a crimp in link building, and basically directing people how
and when to backlink to a site, is crossing some line. They are not saying
they are just devalued links. They are saying they flat out don't want them
as they may hurt. Now it could just be another wave of getting rid of
lenses. But getting rid of lenses based on links is nonsense. Nobody
has control of who, how, where, why, etc. one links to their site.

Because everybody and their brother has decided that links are the
number one thing to do, it has created a backlinking frenzy filled with
junk peddlers.

The only way to eliminate this is simple. Eliminate the
weight backlinks give. How on earth do you do that in the current
system from google?

Paul

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Mike Anthony

11 years ago

Guys that part I quoted makes it clear that they have no issues with backlinks. They have issues with spammy links. Even the part Paul quoted is talking about you placing your own links not natural links.

You guys are knee jerking with the term links as if the message is about links in general. Its not. Its about building links which means self backlinking from the usual places some of which they list. Its completely understandable and we should have seen it coming.

Getting massive amounts of incoming spam links became a very bad thing last year. It was kind of predictable that Web 2.0 sites would start feeling some heat and want to protect themselves

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smodha

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Guys that part I quoted makes it clear that they have no issues with backlinks. They have issues with spammy links. Even the part Paul quoted is talking about you placing your own links not natural links.

You guys are knee jerking with the term links as if the message is about links in general. Its not. Its about building links which means self backlinking from the usual places some of which they list. Its completely understandable and we should have seen it coming.

Getting massive amounts of incoming spam links became a very bad thing last year. It was kind of predictable that Web 2.0 sites would start feeling some heat and want to protect themselves

So are you that using Web 2.0s like Squidoo as a tiered backlink will no longer pass on the juice? It seems to me that they are trying to verbally discourage backlinking to a lens without the technology to back it up.

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smodha

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Guys that part I quoted makes it clear that they have no issues with backlinks. They have issues with spammy links. Even the part Paul quoted is talking about you placing your own links not natural links.

You guys are knee jerking with the term links as if the message is about links in general. Its not. Its about building links which means self backlinking from the usual places some of which they list. Its completely understandable and we should have seen it coming.

Getting massive amounts of incoming spam links became a very bad thing last year. It was kind of predictable that Web 2.0 sites would start feeling some heat and want to protect themselves

So are you saying that using Web 2.0s like Squidoo as a tiered backlink will no longer pass on the juice? It seems to me that they are trying to verbally discourage backlinking to a lens without the technology to back it up.

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dennis09

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Guys that part I quoted makes it clear that they have no issues with backlinks. They have issues with spammy links. Even the part Paul quoted is talking about you placing your own links not natural links.

You guys are knee jerking with the term links as if the message is about links in general. Its not. Its about building links which means self backlinking from the usual places some of which they list. Its completely understandable and we should have seen it coming.

Getting massive amounts of incoming spam links became a very bad thing last year. It was kind of predictable that Web 2.0 sites would start feeling some heat and want to protect themselves

The problem though is that, as paul stated, you can't control who links to you. IMO the more these sites (and Google) penalize and ban for bad links, the more negative seo becomes viable/valued. Thin line here. If I don't like you or your lens then load up xrumer and you're gone. The irony is that the more stringent these algorythms become, the closer we move to the wild west.

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smodha

11 years ago

Originally Posted by dennis09

The problem though is that, as paul stated, you can't control who links to you. IMO the more these sites (and Google) penalize and ban for bad links, the more negative seo becomes viable/valued. Thin line here. If I don't like you or your lens then load up xrumer and you're gone. The irony is that the more stringent these algorythms become, the closer we move to the wild west.

A very good point. This is a can of worms right here.

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yukon

Banned 11 years ago

If I remember correctly, folks balked when I said focus on relevant links a year or so ago. Relevancy will never go away, it's what Google is based on, just like a library card catalog in the olden days. If an incoming link is on a site from a similar niche site, it's almost impossible for Google or anyone to consider it anything besides a good link, even If it's a paid link.

The way I see it, relevant links will also bring in relevant traffic besides the SERP traffic which is the goal.

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smodha

11 years ago

"This practice is no longer considered acceptable by search engines." - is this statement actually true because I haven't seen or read the "search engines" confirming this.

To me it sounds like more nonsense from Squidoo. Why wouldn't ordinary (non-SEO or IM guys) not link to your lens if it's popular or relevant to them? It makes a mockery of "going viral".

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PerformanceMan

11 years ago

Tiered link building to the so-called 'second tier' is obviously on the radar now.

There are too many examples of people 'piggybacking' on the main domain authority and then mass blasting links to their subdomains for the 'powers to be' to not notice.

This announcement makes it seem like Google has communicated this directly with Squidoo.

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BucsaEmanuel

11 years ago

I got penalized on the latest Squidoo algorithm changes. I was doing pretty well on their platform, making a decent living. But then the changes came...

I think their policy with all outbound links being nofollow is sane... I mean, I would do it if I owned a big site like Squidoo and didn't want to "donate" my authority for peanuts.

When you get as big as Squidoo did, you cannot think like:"oh, look, a relevant link to a relevant small blog". That's just nonsense in their vision. Since there are so many lensmasters, each busy as a bee creating links to their businesses and whatnot, they are losing authority.

Another thing they did... inbound links, to other lenses are still dofollow. They still want to keep their bubble from deflating I think.

Maybe this seems just like ramble, but I still haven't gotten over my rage over their past actions.

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AmazonGuy 11 years ago

I was also focusing on squidoo alot and was one of the fastest lensmasters to reach $1000 dollars a month.

It was easy as hell to rank a lens in the serps in literally hours.

Squidoo if you don't already know was a site that catered for seo's and was getting references from every single webmasters that was in I.M for its ease to rank , earn and drive traffic to your site.

This manipulated there rankings as people where building good and crappy links 24/7 (think about having a website with 200.000 employees writing and building links) think how many links you can build to your site in a day/month/year and multiply that by 200k.

The actual penalizing (lower serp rankings) and in general being hit by the penguin algorithm was there own fault when they got gready and starting doing traffic exchanges.

No following links was one of the dumbest thing they did. All webmasters stopped building lenses.

The also lost around 1 million backlinks when they started aggressively flagging lenses with there "not so perfect content algorithm" and lenses started to get deleted.

When you get greedy thats what happens , I loved squidoo but I was sure this would happen as its not in your control when earning off there so I just left and end of story no headaches.
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Mike Anthony

11 years ago

Originally Posted by smodha

So are you that using Web 2.0s like Squidoo as a tiered backlink will no longer pass on the juice? It seems to me that they are trying to verbally discourage backlinking to a lens without the technology to back it up.

What more technology do they need to back it up than to delete your lens? NO need to disavow or anything . When the links aim toward dead space they fall off eventually

Originally Posted by dennis09

The problem though is that, as paul stated, you can't control who links to you. IMO the more these sites (and Google) penalize and ban for bad links, the more negative seo becomes viable/valued. Thin line here.

Yeah but you are thinking like a marketer. Even if that were true who gives a fig leaf if a lens doesn't rank? The old theory used to be tht Google can;t penalize sites for incoming links. I heard for years on here it would never happen and it did. WHy? because alot of people were thinking one dimensionally. they were thinking like this

if you get penalized for 10.000 link then I can just send 10.000 links to my competition.

They were not looking at the other ways you can do it in programming. You don't have to do it that way. You can use and if condition used in programming and even multiple IF statements

IF site has 50 high authority links do not tank no matter how many other links it has OR if site has ratio of 10,000 to one authority link. Conditionals mean that a marketers site gets sent to siberia and an authority site doesn't. There are surely guys down at Google that get bonuses for coming up with conditionals to protect mainline companies while slapping IMers.

This announcement makes it seem like Google has communicated this directly with Squidoo.

You can book that and take it to the bank. No way under God's green earth they make these changes on their own SEO theories. They have talked to Google.

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smodha

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

IF site has 50 high authority links do not tank no matter how many other links it has OR if site has ratio of 10,000 to one authority link. Conditionals mean that a marketers site gets sent to siberia and an authority site doesn't. There are surely guys down at Google that get bonuses for coming up with conditionals to protect mainline companies while slapping IMers.

You can book that and take it to the bank. No way under God's green earth they make these changes on their own SEO theories. They have talked to Google.

Trust, Domain Age and PR are factors too. For example 50,000 blog posts to an established site (high PR, aged domain with Trust) won't have that much effect because Google trusts it.

It's not so much about ranking a lens in Google that's the problem here. Let's say you are a popular content writer and external sites link to you. Squidoo would see this as a violation of ToS and remove the lens or your profile. How can that be a good thing?

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smodha

11 years ago

I think this highlights the many dangers of building your business around one traffic source/Web 2.0 platform. As soon as the company changes its ToS, people start crapping their pants.

I like Squidoo and have used it in the past for tiered link building but I never saw it as a long-term, sustainable method.

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Backlinks: Either squidoo is "out there," or we are.

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