I don’t know what to think about Squidoo and Google right now. There seems to be this love/hate relationship going on that I can’t seem to keep up with. I’ve been building lens for about as long as the platform has been available. Used to be that Google loved those things. I was able to get indexed fairly high as long as I built good quality lens that had good Lensrank. Then about 9 months ago Google began ignoring them. Seems there was a lot of spamming going on and Google began penalizing Squidoo. Then about 4-5 months ago it seemed that things were alright between the two. I was getting good Google rankings again with my lens.
Now, and maybe it’s just me, but my lens are back in the crapper in Google. Which is kind of interesting, because if I compare the stats with a few months ago when Google was happy with my lens to those today, I am getting more traffic now. As much as I want to be listed #1 on Google with all my lens, I think it is fantastic how they are getting all these social sites wrong. I get quite a bit of referral traffic from within Squidoo. The more lens you build the more traffic they share with each other I think. People are curious and I think if they like one of your lens they want to check out your other ones to see what you are doing.
Maybe Google doesn’t like the human factor that makes Squidoo and other social sites go. With Google, they don’t rank for pure click popularity. They make all their money on their proprietary super secret algorithm. Squidoo ranks much easier. Traffic and popularity. If your lens is the shit then people will visit. Even if it’s crap, popularity still wins out with Squidoo. They don’t care if there are links pointing to your lens. They care if people actually visit. Google cares about the linking. Yes I realize that links pointing to your site equals popularity but there is still a slight difference at work here.
You can’t game popularity with Squidoo. You either get visitors or you don’t. I suppose you could hire 1,000 people all over the world to click on your site. I guess you could go to a separate proxy server every time and go click but that isn’t all that realistic. With Google, if I want to rank high with my site I go out and buy links. Or I swap them. Or I post them. Comment them. Join blog farms. Web 2.0 them. The shit is exhausting.
Sure the bottom line is you will stack more bennies with a high rank in Google than you will with Squidoo. I’m not deluding myself that Squidoo matters all that much. Especially with Google’s intent to slap it around. But I just find it interesting how they differ. It seems that the popularity contest is being used throughout the new web. Places like Squidoo and Hubpages are using it effectively I think. Seems as though search engines are the only entities these days that are not using click popularity to figure their site rankings.
If I go to a site like Google and type in “ham toasters”, Google’s math is going to tell what they think is the most important sites on the topic. If I go to Squidoo and do the same search, well the first few lens that comes up are those that won the popularity contest. The herd is many things but it won’t keep visiting something that offers no value. Well it watches American Idol week after week so maybe my logic is faulty. But I think you get my point.
For certain topics I’d sooner do a search in Hubpages or Squidoo than wade through the morass of Google. Hubs and lens tend to get to the point quicker than niche blogs. I like that there is a human element taking care of the hub and lens listings. Lens and hubs feel different.
Google is king no doubt. I’ll keep playing the game to rank in their little database of sites. I just wish Squidoo was loved more by Google or even Yahoo. But even if it’s not I’m still building lens. And Hubpages, which BTW are pretty cool. People are visiting and it pays out more than Squidoo.
Anyway, this is my experience with Google and Squidoo today. It may change tomorrow and your experience may be that all your lens are ranked first in Google for whatever keyword you built the lens on.
9 responses so far ↓
Seth Godin // Mar 28, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Thanks for the post. the thing is, in aggregate, Google is sending more traffic than ever, with more than 980,000 keywords sending people over, and with most lenses getting more traffic than ever before.
Like you, I have no clue why some do better than others. But it’s not a widespread plot! Promise.
Sunshine // Mar 28, 2008 at 3:50 pm
From the looks of the latest IM product launch, it doesn’t appear that the big Squid has lost its footing in Google.
However…It does require solid keyword research up front to determine just how much competition there is for your keyword phrase.
After that, it does take a small link building effort if you’re in a low competitive niche which can be done by a one person operation.
Unfortunately, I have found that huge competitive keyword niches, require slightly more financial expense up front on tools like Article distribution software or Social Bookmarking paid memberships that will put you in a better position to make more affiliate sales or adsense earnings.
It is worth it in the end though. At least it’s been for me.
Splork // Mar 28, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Thanks for wading in Seth. I was wondering if it was just me or what. From what you are saying it sounds like things are pretty good between Google and Squidoo. I’m just going to keep plugging away and build good lens and let the Google rankings fall where they may. My stats may not indicate much activity from Google on certain lens but that won’t keep me from continuing to build.
Splork // Mar 28, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Sunshine, glad you’ve observed a different scenario than I have. For some reason I have had mediocre results with being ranked in Google on Blogger blogs, Squidoo and Hubpages of late. I’ve gotten much better choosing keywords so I’m pretty sure I’m not screwing myself with bad keyword choices. But I agree keywords are the most important thing…both on lens or otherwise.
Overall I’m still very excited and enthused about Squidoo lens and Hubpages. They are very easy to build and maintain. They receive and deliver traffic. I make a few bucks more each month.
Roger Davis // Mar 29, 2008 at 12:40 am
Hi Splork,
How you doing. Forgive me for asking this question, but I feel compelled. I have a hunch -
Either -
a) you’ve sold your blog
b) you’ve changed your writing style
c) you’ve got guest bloggers pretending to be splork
It’s just that I have been reading your stuff for about a year, and I’m convinced that something has changed.
Again, forgive me if the pressure is getting to me and I’ve started seeing things that aren’t there, but…
Anyway, I’ll still keep reading, regardless of my hunch.
Best…
Splork // Mar 29, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Nope it’s all me. Curious how you think things have changed. Am I getting boring or not writing on interesting topics?
Roger Davis // Mar 29, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Hi Splork,
No you’re not getting boring and the topics are fine. It was just a hunch - more to do with your writing style. If I could elaborate at all, it seemed that an ‘edge’ had been smoothed a little. But bearing in mind that you are still you, it’s probably entirely irrelevant!
If anything was to be deduced from my incorrect hunch, I’d want it to be that you have a very interesting and unique writing style and a powerful sense of humour that has an ‘edge’.
I’m still going to keep coming here with the other 6 and Seth
Splork // Mar 30, 2008 at 11:59 am
Thanks Roger. I appreciate you coming in and reading.
New Year's Resolution Blogger // Mar 31, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Say, a long time ago you wrote a sort of Intro to Squidoo post. Any chance that you’ll do the same with Hubpage? I haven’t heard anyone else mention them and I went and looked. All the hubpages that I found seemed to primarily be short articles on a topic and an opportunity for someone to comment. It didn’t seem to have the richness of Squidoo in terms of mixing in YouTube, pictures, linking to other pages, polls, etc. Did I just choose a couple less-than-great hubpages? But they had pretty decent rank and the writing was okay, just there wasn’t too much there.
Also, it didn’t really seem to be much of a hub, as in I think of a hub as having spokes off in lots of different directions and I didn’t see that.
Actually I do see one interesting difference. I think Squidoo’s short comments in the guestbook hurt it. The hubpage seems to have a real dialog in the comments the way blogs do. Any other differences you’ve seen?
Thanks for the pointers. And I didn’t think you sounded any different in old posts versus newer. Just some days you sound grouchier or more cynical than others. But don’t we all?
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