Squuidoo "update"?

by 20 replies
24
Rather than dig up my old thread, thought I would do a small update
for some REAL seo discussion, unless this thread gets ignored.

Here's what squidoo is worried about.

Nofollow links
unrelated links
keyword density
tags--their "tags" get turned into keyword meta tags, and they toss this
in with keyword density--spamming your tags

Now, I have said for a long, long time, that if you keep getting nofollow
links, what is google to think? That your site is untrusted and spammed?

Unrelated links? Hurting? How so? That makes no sense. I have seen no
shred of evidence that grandma linking to your cat blog on her knitting
blog, or sharing stuff, is bad.

Keyword density? With squidoo rules, they practically FORCE you to
spam your keyword...besides, I see no evidence that google gives a
flying leap about keyword density...in the true sense of the word. That is,
a decent page can run the gamut on keyword density. it's not really
about keyword density.

Meta tags? Since when did google give a flying leap about what you
do with the meta keyword tag? But again, squidoo FORCES you to
have at least 5, even if you can't think of anymore!!!!!!!!!!

Squidoo has jumped the shark. I will now tell people there is no
reason to join and waste your time on squidoo.

squidoo is basically saying that SEO is dead. Don't do ANY seo, and
you'll be fine. Stupid man, just stoooopid.

Feel free to discuss anything here.

Paul
#search engine optimization #squuidoo #update
  • I respect what you are saying here. I use Squidoo as well, obviously to less effect that you do.

    However, I distinctly remember Squidoo freaking out about certain lenses, and then a few days later there was a Google update that did in fact affect a fair few of my lenses keywords in the SERPs etc.

    So, if Squidoo is suddenly blowing a gasket even more so, I have to wonder what's coming down the pipes. And I have to consider how it will affect my own sites, and not just Squidoo lenses.

    I always read what certain people say here, and Paulgl is one of those...but the bottom line is Squidoo has some input from Google, and I bet the next major updates like Penguin 2.0 etc will show why Squidoo is all of a sudden gone all candyass.
    • [1] reply
    • Yeah, I just had a couple of my lenses locked. With all the changes they are making lately they are just shooting themselves in the foot. I wont be adding anything to their site anymore, and I imagine with all that they've recently done, many more people won't be either. So, they are going to get less free links and content from a lot of people.

      They are just grasping at straws right now as their traffic stats are taking an absolute nose dive. I've only been creating lenses for less than a year, so I haven't invested too much into squidoo. They way that they've been doing things over there, I hope that their traffic stats continue the rapid decline. They have asked for everything they got, then go and punish the publishers for it.
  • Yeah, I don't really know what they're doing over there. I guess the hope is that they don't get manually blacklisted or something.

    That's all I can think of, but I still don't get why they are cracking down so much. If they make it harder to SEO, it's just going to drive marketers that know how to drive traffic away from them.

    I bet they'll realize their mistake and start to switch back.
  • I agree. A bit like a dog chasing its tail :p

    It was useful at one time but things have rapidly changed. Squidoo presently has nothing to offer seo-wise, nor is it a easy platform for making sale commissions any more.

    It used to be simple.. but it isn't now. There are other revenue-sharing sites that make life easier.
    • [1] reply
    • Now it's worse. Theyw ill start judging your quality content, as they
      feel search engines have some sort of way of telling whether your
      content is "quality." They obviously have no clue as to how the
      internet works.

      Squidoo should just delete everyone, except the editors. Done
      and done. Just saw where a high level squid, 75 lenses, all got
      locked and deleted. Boom! 4 years down the drain.

      Paul
      • [1] reply
  • Banned
    There's a difference between hurting & ignoring. I don't doubt that Google ignores a lot of different things. My guess is Google has a quality score for just about everything they look at, links, plain text, etc...

    I don't use Squidoo but I get the feeling Google has been chatting with them to clean up their act. Most business don't clean house unless it's forced onto them.
    • [1] reply
    • The nofollow thing was probably from google. The rest is just chickens with
      their heads cut off...clueless.

      Telling squidoo that they are responsible for the "junk" sites showing up
      #1 on google is idiotic. Makes no sense. isn't google supposed to judge sites,
      not a 3rd party? Is google actually telling people that they have no
      control over what site gets #1? When google tells wikipedia, yahoo
      answers, etc. to clean up their junk stuff...perhaps it will make
      more sense.

      Squidoo telling people that meta keywords affects keyword density is
      inane...clueless...idiotic....dumb.

      I have used the wayback for a couple of lenses that I could turn into
      stand alone pages fitting into a current domain. The others, WTF.

      Had the smallest payout from squidoo in months today.

      Just realized I misspelled squidoo....

      Paul
  • Squidoo is saying dont go around spamming the web hoping to burst your rankings. Create qaulity articles in small amounts that actually have meaning. Backlinks are supposed to be created by other people naturally raving On another site about your site. Any time when you post about your own site bragging on another site just to get a link is pure spam!
  • So...what are you guys using instead of sqidoo? Hubpages???
    • [1] reply
    • In my opinion, Squidoo is junk. If you publish the articles on your own site you will have more control. Many Squids have spent countless hours publishing many lens, 100's in some cases, over many years only to have Squidoo lock or delete them for various reasons. It doesn't seem they are very consistent. There are still many spammy type lens that appear on the site while good quality lens either got deleted or locked. What gives?
  • At present, Sqidoo is complete waste of time anyway. Few of my lesnses got locked too and they were over 1K words. There was no any affiliate links, only links to my site. Waste of my article and time. Not going to use them from now on.
  • I stopped using Squidoo months back after they stopped approving my lenses. I wasn't using any spun content and apparently I broke their ToS. When I asked them to clarify specific violations they stopped responding. I also forwarded them similar lenses in my category and ask them to explain why these lenses were approved.

    I understand their paranoia about rubbish content but this is starting to effect genuine lens writers.
    • [1] reply
    • thanks warriors, i was thinking about doing some buisness with squuidoo, "not now"
  • Banned
    What alternatives do we have?
  • When a company starts treating small guys bad for the sake of big boys, it is the time to get out. I think Google has told them to clean up and they just don't care who they hurt along the way. So much for a supposed-to-be friendly-community web 2.0. They have locked all of my lenses and I have lenses with purple star (ultimate quality sign on Squidoo)! Off-course I will follow-up to get them back, but a company that screws you once without caring, will do it again, as it comes from the philosophy of the owners and execs. No point to take them seriously anymore.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • I don't understand their "rubbish" content nonsense. Like I said,
      ebay, craigslist, yahoo answers, wikipedia, ...
      are just full of scraped, copied, and many times, junk.
      But yes, on different levels.

      I mean that would send wordpress to stop allowing free blogs,
      right?

      No, it's deeper. I think I figured it out. It's all about adsense.
      Squidoo wants to keep their adsense account. They can't risk
      idiots jeopardizing their adsense. But the thing is, instead of
      locking lenses and deleting them, they could just disable
      adsense and noindex them. Simple. Done and done.

      Paul
      • [1] reply
  • Mission accomplished. I think the point you are missing Paul is that Squidoo having talked to Google isn't just concerned with correcting those things they mentioned that marketers do.

    They just want a bunch of you gone. Obviously you ( I speak collectively not on an individual level) are a liability. They have two issues

    A)weeding out the issues Google has told them they want gone.
    B) the cost of policing the issues Google wants gone.

    Marketers collectively are hurting their rankings making them lose income AND you are costing cash to monitor.

    SO sorry but this is what they want. Thin the ranks. Tick off marketers so they say goodbye and they can say good riddance.

    People in here kidding themselves that they will lose out are mistaken. There are alot of hobbyists and people who just like the idea of getting published that will still contribute. Plus months or a year from now when they have cleared out enough of you they can go about adding in some other incentives.

    Still I guess I was in the dark. I had no idea that people were this invested in squidoo anymore. I guess I thought it had diminished in importance when ezine did.
  • I really don't understand why they have done this, all was great for them. I think now a lot of people will not enjoy enymore squidoo for this reason, and they will lost something i am sure. but maybe for them this is not so important, becouse of extrem earnings till now. But i don't see any sense to do this in the time, or you are going to the start with this option, or you will keep it forever. Becouse in this way you don't realize how can damage a lot of works from a lot of peoples.
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
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