Squidoo had made yet another update to its site quality. This time, any lens with excessive affiliate link or suspected link, will be put in "work in progress" or will be removed from the network entirely.
And just got one of my lenses removed from the network...
A bit about that particular lens:
It was my all time, highest ranking lens. It received consistent traffic and had been my highest contributor, in term of dollar and cents, throughout my entire affiliation with Squidoo.
I thought of selling that lens, and I've been thinking about it harder this few weeks. But darn it! The Squid Team beat me to it. I just saw the post on Seth Godin's blog that he was bringing yet another change to Squidoo but it didn't occur to me that it will be along that line.
Yes, Squidoo had been a wheel where people who understand its power in ranking on the search engines (SE) want to use it to their advantage. Many of them were promoting something, for example, affiliate products.
These affiliates were using the power of Squidoo to get their lens ranked and attract searchers' eyeballs using the power of SE. It work in some cases. But not always.
Even if these people are not getting clicks through their affiliate links, they can still make some extra cash through monetization with Squidoo. They still can earn extra cash through Amazon modules and profit sharing of Google Adsense.
Squidoo had made changes to its quality of lens some years ago when it cancelled "adults" related lens and keyword stuffing lens. All look good back then and Google did reciprocate with giving them back their ranking power. Sqidoo lenses lost their power before the clean up.
And now, they're after the affiliate marketers. Some of us might think that affiliate marketers are plaque and need to be clean up. Perhaps, that's what it appears to be. But it is not necessarily so because even Squidoo is a giant affiliate network.
I suspect it got to do with link manipulation, and generally, people don't like to be manipulated. Same goes to Squidoo, I guess. They want to keep it relevant and professional. I assumed that they will be exception to this clean up exercise but don't ask explanation.
It would not be publicly available...
I've promoted a guide, an e-book to be exact, called Squidoo Profit Tactics, and it tells people how to use Squidoo to make extra profit. I even build a lens to promote it and linked it to my online ebook store.
That how I used to do it...
But I've lost my online store. I got no link to promote but I just leave the lens as it was. It's still doing OK at the time of this writing. How it is in the future?
I don't have a crystal ball to look into and make my prediction...
Personally, I see that people behind Squidoo is putting their best effort to keep the quality and standard of lens making high above average. Yes, Squidoo is free for all, but it's not to be taken lightly when dealing with quality and relevance, and pleasing the search engines.
That, my friends, is not free and need to be paid with extra time and effort. Does it worth the time and effort?
Obviously, there's no short answer for that. On a personal note, I've not been visiting Squidoo as frequent as I used to. That should be a hint to its feasibility.
But, I'll leave it to your intelligence to figure it out, to read between the lines...
And just got one of my lenses removed from the network...
A bit about that particular lens:
It was my all time, highest ranking lens. It received consistent traffic and had been my highest contributor, in term of dollar and cents, throughout my entire affiliation with Squidoo.
I thought of selling that lens, and I've been thinking about it harder this few weeks. But darn it! The Squid Team beat me to it. I just saw the post on Seth Godin's blog that he was bringing yet another change to Squidoo but it didn't occur to me that it will be along that line.
Yes, Squidoo had been a wheel where people who understand its power in ranking on the search engines (SE) want to use it to their advantage. Many of them were promoting something, for example, affiliate products.
These affiliates were using the power of Squidoo to get their lens ranked and attract searchers' eyeballs using the power of SE. It work in some cases. But not always.
Even if these people are not getting clicks through their affiliate links, they can still make some extra cash through monetization with Squidoo. They still can earn extra cash through Amazon modules and profit sharing of Google Adsense.
Squidoo had made changes to its quality of lens some years ago when it cancelled "adults" related lens and keyword stuffing lens. All look good back then and Google did reciprocate with giving them back their ranking power. Sqidoo lenses lost their power before the clean up.
And now, they're after the affiliate marketers. Some of us might think that affiliate marketers are plaque and need to be clean up. Perhaps, that's what it appears to be. But it is not necessarily so because even Squidoo is a giant affiliate network.
I suspect it got to do with link manipulation, and generally, people don't like to be manipulated. Same goes to Squidoo, I guess. They want to keep it relevant and professional. I assumed that they will be exception to this clean up exercise but don't ask explanation.
It would not be publicly available...
Does this means it's the end of affiliate marketing using Squidoo?
I've promoted a guide, an e-book to be exact, called Squidoo Profit Tactics, and it tells people how to use Squidoo to make extra profit. I even build a lens to promote it and linked it to my online ebook store.
That how I used to do it...
But I've lost my online store. I got no link to promote but I just leave the lens as it was. It's still doing OK at the time of this writing. How it is in the future?
I don't have a crystal ball to look into and make my prediction...
Personally, I see that people behind Squidoo is putting their best effort to keep the quality and standard of lens making high above average. Yes, Squidoo is free for all, but it's not to be taken lightly when dealing with quality and relevance, and pleasing the search engines.
That, my friends, is not free and need to be paid with extra time and effort. Does it worth the time and effort?
Obviously, there's no short answer for that. On a personal note, I've not been visiting Squidoo as frequent as I used to. That should be a hint to its feasibility.
But, I'll leave it to your intelligence to figure it out, to read between the lines...
