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Squidoo Free Traffic Ride Gets Squished | ||
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Squidoo, in the past several months, has turned into a very popular free service for generating traffic. Setting up a Squidoo lens was an easy way to rank high for certain targeted keywords. Then a lens owner could just funnel that traffic (via links) to any web site they wanted. And it worked great… But that free ride seems to be coming to an end. This happens to almost any tactic that starts working well online. It gets abused and then it goes away. TechCrunch just made a great post about how Google is cracking down on Squidoo’s spam.
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July 10th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
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July 11th, 2007 at 2:27 am
You know, I was talking about this with a few marketers a couple months ago. I think the end was in sight a while ago. Squidoo just worked too well for it to not get the ‘Google Slap’.
It sort of goes down the marketing chain. First the big marketers find something and milk it for all its worth, then the middle guys find out and get in on the action… then… by the time it reaches the little old internet marketer, it’s doom is in sight.
By then, there is just too many people doing it and that leads to abuse. I think alot of this is to do with dumb marketers who randomly spam. They need a course in providing real value to their visitors.
If people just followed your principles we wouldn’t have these kinds of problems. Instead, you have hype filled copy and people randomly spamming. The real problem is that once people find something they can make money off of, they get greedy and start abusing a system that worked wonderfully.
So we are constantly forces to keep up with the next ‘big thing’.
July 11th, 2007 at 3:08 am
[…] lens SE results ranking - across the board. I was first made aware of the issue before it hit Income.com or other websites, inside The Immediate Edge, where Ed Dale lovingly coined the “Squidoo […]
July 11th, 2007 at 6:14 am
Hey John, I had a lens that dropped in the Serp’s because I didn’t update it these days (except the RSS feed). I updated it 2 days in a raw, and it started ranking again, I am on the first spot for my keyword, and I made a sale the very same day.
I don’t think that Google will penalize good lenses or penalize the main Squidoo site since it is always updated.
Goolge may be just “thinking” about what to do with Squidoo for now. Anyway. We should work on OUR sites.
July 11th, 2007 at 7:20 am
[…] 7. John Reese say that Squidoo free ride seems to be coming to an end […]
July 11th, 2007 at 8:45 am
I just read that Tech Crunch article before I came here and I’m honestly not surprised. There is a ton of garbage on Squidoo and it gets harder to find good information every day. Don’t get me wrong here, I use Squidoo for marketing just like many others and love the positioning I get for my lenses.
I just checked the Google ranking of my lenses and most of them haven’t moved. One of them dropped from #1 to #2 and #3. It’s really not a big deal. Here is some advice to keep your rankings:
Use the keywords you want to rank for as the lens title, url, and module titles.
Fill your lens with content that is useful and worth reading, but make sure it’s focused on your main lens idea.
My pet peeve:
Don’t use their affiliate modules if you’re promoting products from your lens! It’s a simple fact that if you give a customer too many options, they will most likely take one of the options you don’t want them to take!
July 11th, 2007 at 9:30 am
I had just started using Squidoo. I guess I wasn’t using it right because I couldn’t see any traffic coming from it. Thanks for the information on using the keyword in the title and the pictures and the copy. I will try that.
July 11th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Using Squidoo was only one technique to get ranked in the SERPs. Many looked at it as an EASY way to get ranked highly. I’m glad Google slapped Squidoo pages. There is no easy way to profits. Good content and building your own site into something of value will ensure your long term survival on the net.
July 11th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
So John, traffic teacher, do you think we should not try to focus too much these types of traffic generating methods and focus more on quality products, superb content, and use other non spammy traffic generating methods, like good old fashion snail mail and banner ads, etc?
Because to me it seems like when there is a new traffic method people slam that method hard and it gets abused, and then it no longer works. Then poof! your efforts (or money if you hired someone.) went down the drain. I guess in some ways I feel like the Squidoo thing was like your on someone else’s block and your like,”Hey man, come to this fine store right here man, it’s great, walk this way please.” I guess, I felt it’s like a hustle or something.
I’m not the expert, but you are… so I was just wondering since you have a lot of expertise.
July 11th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
You mean I missed getting on the train and now it’s about to leave the station? It figures. :sigh: I’ve just recently heard about Squidoo, so I guess I need to pay attention a little better.
July 12th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Mara - LOL! I was thinking the exact same thing. I guess the lesson is, as always, don’t rely on one traffic source.
I don’t think squidoo is no longer valuable, but as always, the good stuff will rise to the top and the spammy blackhats will get ousted. John’s been saying that for awhile.
July 12th, 2007 at 11:29 am
I read the email from Seth that just 1 spammer built more than 400 lenses in one day on the exact same topic! Crazy! I personally think that Squidoo will be still worthwhile and is a nice little extra to add to your business. What are your thoughts John on how they can recover from this?
July 12th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
[…] Squidoo Free Traffic Ride Gets Squished […]
July 12th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
What about the other Social bookmark methdos/approaches?
-DIGG and
-Del.icio.us ?
Are they likley to go down too?
Please give your views people, about whether they will most likely go downhill.. ?
July 12th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
[…] Squidoo tasted the wrath of the Googfather as well. Some people reported that their squidoo lenses were losing traffic as well as ranking in the Googfather search result. […]
July 17th, 2007 at 1:33 am
I see it that way: Squidoo and other Web 2.0 sites for me are an additional traffic and marketing platform to use, but with a “twist”. I do not believe the may vanish in the near or mid future, however I believe their strenght and impact have been a bit over-estimated. Any ways, one should not go without, but same time not spend too much time on them as well.
July 18th, 2007 at 12:15 am
There has been a lot of theories / personal opinions on what is really going on with Squidoo & Google . . .
Here is an interview with Seth Godin on the “Squidoo Slap” that I just posted:
http://www.searchingdot.com/2007/07/17/interview-with-seth-godin-on-the-squidoo-slap/
July 18th, 2007 at 8:06 am
[…] all of the hype and stories flying around the Internet at lightning fast speeds about this so-called “Squidoo […]
July 18th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
> “This happens to almost any tactic that starts working well
> online. It gets abused and then it goes away.”
- - - -
John, coming from YOU, this surprised me… because you’re not the kind to miss looking on the POSITIVE side - which is
“They fix the loopholes allowing such abuse - and return with MORE power”
That’s more likely to happen with Squidoo.
I’ve been an ‘early adopter’, built my first lens in February 2006 well before the Google-Squidoo love affair began.
I loved the core concept of Squidoo, which is that ‘everyone is an expert at something’ - and it provides everyone, not just tech-savvy webmasters, the tools to build a professional looking ‘lens’ to focus on a passion or interest.
I’ll share below an excerpt from my ebook, “Squidoo Marketing Secrets” (and if you’d like to take a look at it, and want to offer it to Income.com visitors, I’ll be happy to send you a copy - and assign you exclusive give-away rights so more people can enjoy the benefits of Squidoo in an ethical and honest fashion, without relying on the black-hat spam tactics that have resulted in the recent ‘Squidoo Slap’)
= = = = = = = Excerpt from ‘Squidoo Marketing Secrets’ by Dr.Mani = = = = =
Squidoo Marketing - Understanding Squidoo’s Ethos
When you search on Google for something, you don’t bother to think about what drives the founders to build such a powerful search engine.
The trouble is, too many people don’t bother to think about it even when you start ‘optimizing’ a website to rank well on Google.
And that’s a mistake.
I wrote an article titled “How To Make A GIANT Pay You” on my blog, “Money.Power.Wisdom” at MoneyPowerWisdom.com
It was all about how you can leverage huge networks of users built by giants like Google, MySpace and eBay to attract visitors to your website and profit from them.
The key is a very basic, very simple, very obvious philosophy:
Give THEM What They Want
And that’s why the smartest, most successful ‘Squidoo marketers’ will start off by studying what’s behind this ‘new kid on the block’.
Seth Godin revealed part of it in a short interview that’s on the Squidoo website. He said the reason he though about a service like Squidoo is because searchers were getting FRUSTRATED.
When you go to Google or Yahoo! or any of the other directories and look for something, chances are you are going to click around many times before you find the information you want.
And there were gaps. Gaps that could only be filled by ‘human intelligence’. Intelligent people who cared about other users, and wanted to share with them the fruits of their experience and expertise, to build a LENS.
A ‘lens’ is used to look through - and see things from a unique perspective… that of the person who created the lens. Squidoo calls these folks ‘Lensmasters’ - and gives them the creative tools to build lenses on just about anything they like.
And Then, Squidoo Gets Out Of Your Way!
That brilliant ‘marketing’ move makes every Lensmaster his or her own boss. And when you create something you are proud of, what do you do?
Tell a friend, of course. Often many friends. People you care about and want to help.
When they visit Squidoo, find information researched, compiled and collated by a helpful person that saves them time and effort, a relationship begins… which indirectly benefits every Lensmaster who has a presence on Squidoo.
You Give Squidoo What Users Want - And In Return, Squidoo
Gives You The Tools, Then The Audience!
It’s a perfect, symbiotic relationship - and the only way you can mess it up is by abusing the system. And even that won’t work, because Squidoo doesn’t quite have ‘algorithms’ the way Google and other search engines do.
It is a human directory, based on peer-review to rate results… which means the more helpful your lens is, the more popular it will be and the higher it will get ranked.
What does this mean for ‘Squidoo Marketers’?
You need to invest some time and effort to build lenses that will be worth talking about… the same way Squidoo itself is worth talking about, and spreads like a wildfire because of this.
You need to do many things ‘by hand’ instead of automating them - no churning out thousands of junk pages using software just to boost your ‘inbound links’ or ‘keyword counts’.
You need to take a long term view. ‘Squidoo Marketing’ may not bring you huge surges of traffic from #1 rankings like Google does. But the kind of traffic you’ll get from Squidoo will be specific, targeted, ‘human’.
And just in case you thought what I’ve just said is an ‘introduction’ or ‘warming up’ and are eager to move on to the ‘hard’ tactics, STOP.
Go back and re-read the section above. Yes, I’m serious.
If you close this book now, and go to Squidoo and start building lenses, you’ll succeed wildly… without knowing any of the stuff that follows.
If you ignore this part, everything else you do will be much less effective.
The ’simple’ concept above is your biggest ‘Squidoo Marketing Secret’
- - - - - - - - -
All success
Dr.Mani
July 19th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Ditto to what Dr. Mani said!
I don’t think Squidoo is ever going away.
Let’s just be glad they ARE slapping the
spammers.
For they are the ones who bring the rest
of the industry down. How dare they show
such disrespect to the hard-working lens makers.
Out with the junk!
Karen
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:08 am
Everything ends sometimes. I think it’s good that google defend spam. But it’s pity that it looks like endlrss battle.
September 15th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I was just going to get Squidoo Profits ebook off ebay for $.99 Oh well I waited too long.
robert
mycareerandrecruitment.com
September 22nd, 2007 at 6:24 pm
John, you are now in the position that Seth was in with Google when Squidoo got attacked by spam and cheaters. As you can now appreciate what is needed at this time by people, like yourself and Seth who are offering a genuine service, is support, not promotion at the expense of each other.
I believe that Squidoo has won Google back by the many steps Seth has taken to get rid of spam and crooks (just as you are doing!). A couple of my lenses for example are back in the top three positions for their keywords.
I did a post called “The Squidoo Slap” on my Squidoo Marketing Strategies lens to correct the erroneous views that were being propagated about the issues with Google:
http://www.squidoo.com/squidoomarketingstrategies
I echo Dr. Mani’s sentiments. As a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster, I have a very strong commitment to Squidoo and the spirit of collaboration, innovation and sharing that it promotes.
October 7th, 2007 at 10:45 am
I think Squidoo has solved the problem - at least for the most part. I joined Squidoo a few months before the big slap. I saw my traffic go down when that happened. However, the staff at Squidoo got right on a solution and now my traffic is back up to about what it was before. I love Squidoo!
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http://www.newfxlive.com/education-forex-trading.html
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great blogging john…