Squidoo is locking lenses

[mpw45233]

A few weeks ago, I logged into my Squidoo account and saw that 1 of my lenses had a heads up warning. This means that you have 30 days to fix the problem and republish the lens or else it gets locked (deleted).

It was a crappy lens with a few empty modules so I fixed it and republished it. Warning removed.

I logged back in yesterday, and ALL of my formerly featured lenses had a heads up warning and were 2 days from being locked.

The pop up said my lens was low quality, but my material was 100% original, not promotional, and didn't have any spammy subject matter.

I'm pretty sure they were flagged because I only had 3 or 4 modules in them. This is the minimum amount required to get the lens featured and start receiving PR to your page.

I added the You Tube, Google news feed, and featured lenses modules. This removed the warning, and last I checked they were still ok.

If you have lenses that aren't top notch, you should really log into your account and check.

My lenses that got flagged were formerly listed in Squidoo as 65% complete, now they're listed as 85%. So either this is a bizarre coincidence, or Squidoo is cracking down on lower quality lenses. I ran across mention of this in a thread the other day, but it didn't quite click.

These are my only links with any real pagerank, and I was just 2 days from losing all of them.

[satrap]

I haven't noticed anything like that. I do get the usually warnings and what not, but not in a scale you are talking about.

[mpw45233]

It was very strange. I tried to find the other thread where I heard someone mention it, but I cleared my history.

I had one lens that was real crap. But I always assumed that they would just return them to the "work in progress" status. Is the "heads up" status new? I've never noticed it before.

Nik might recall the time when I joined this forum and asked him what a web 2.0 site was. I published most of these lenses right around that time. They've been featured ever since and not ever had any problems. 1 is PR 2.

I guess it could have been some sort of glitch, but the first one to get flagged was clearly sub par. Nothing against the TOS or Squidont's. But you could clearly tell I just threw it together for some links. It was featured before it was flagged.

All the rest that I found flagged yesterday were pretty good quality. But republishing didn't unflag it until I added the above mentioned modules. And there's no subject matter I cover that they frown on.

Whatever the cause, I think it's a good idea to check your account every couple of weeks.

[mpw45233]

All of my lenses have lost page rank. The PR 2 is now 1, the 1 is 0, and the 0 is now n/r.

And this is from my pages not being listed in the Squidoo results. None of my lenses have much more than some Social Monkee links. The PR came from the main domain, and not being listed for a month probably killed that.

Wow...

I wonder if this will effect my rankings???

[Matthew Anton]

I had the same thing happen to an account with 100 lenses once. Typically if it's quality, they will leave it alone though. Once you are "on their radar" you would be best to use a different ip and a new account.

[mpw45233]

(11-23-2011 03:58 AM)Matthew Anton Wrote:  I had the same thing happen to an account with 100 lenses once. Typically if it's quality, they will leave it alone though. Once you are "on their radar" you would be best to use a different ip and a new account.

I think the reason for losing the Page rank is that for the 20 days before the PR update; my lenses were not featured. Only featured lenses get PR from the main domain, others are not linked to.

I'm not too worried about being on their radar. They're actually pretty cool about it. They give you a 30 day "heads up" period for offending lenses. Most others just delete your work without warning.

I like Squidoo.

[youproblog]

Do people still use Squidoo these days?

[mpw45233]

IMHO, Squidoo is a great tool to use for link building.

First of all, your links are on the main domain, not on a subdomain or sub folder. Most of my new lenses get to PR 1 in about 4 months without a single link built to 'em.

Also, Squidoo is very clear about their terms of service. They tell you that you can have 9 links (per lens) to 1 domain. They also make it clear that they are not against self promotion; and not on an "anti-spam mission." And it's great that if you do run afoul, you get a 30 day heads up period. Most others just delete your pages without warning...

Many of my rankings are thanks to Squidoo, I'm just trying to expand into other web 2.0's through SE Nuke X or whatever.

And currently, Squidoo pages rank reasonably well in the organic SERPS.

So yes, IMHO; they should be included in any link building activities.

[essentials2IM]

I use the checklist to makes sure I've completed everything. My suggestion is don't post content up for the sake of traffic. With each post make it as high quality as possible. It's kinda give a heads up to top-notch quality. If you're trying to spit out as many lenses as possible then this can happen...I've had a warning on a lenses that didn't meet their requirements...I just started all over.

BTW I think that the least amount of modules you can put are 5. I think this is why that happened. Use the checklist and you'll play it safe that way. Thanx for listening

[Jack]

I remember the least amount of modules you had to have was 3, unless they've changed it.

Also, personally I don't use squidoo for the traffic I can get from it (usually). Most of the time, I use it for the sole purpose of getting backlinks.

But yes, simply starting over with a new lens is best. This is also the reason why I never spend very much time trying to make a "money site" with squidoo. You do not have ultimate control over it. They can lock it or delete it whenever they wish.

[mpw45233]

The Squid site has been irritating me lately. Sometimes, when I log in and check my lenses, they're all featured. But when I log back in after a few days, some have been reduced to work in progress.

I'm not sure why this happens, but it's irritating. WIP lenses are like orphaned pages, and don't get pagerank from the root domain.

I'm pretty sure it's a glitch. But the main thing I like about Squidoo is that you page is on the root domain, not a subdomain or a subfolder. If your lenses aren't going to be featured, this takes away from the benefit IMHO.