Squidoo Lensrank Meltdown - Hysteria Ensues
On Sunday Morning, squidoo lensranks (the ‘rank’ of a ‘lens’ is how well it is doing in comparison to other pages on squidoo’s site) changed a bit more than usual.
Now, in and of itself, this is not an unusual thing, as Lensrank usually shifts a bit more on Sundays due to some parts of the calculation only occurring once a week (Sunday). Apparently, there was also a slight bug in the algorithm that was factoring clickthroughs wrong that was corrected. Not too surprisingly, the SquidU forum went nuts.
There are a few things I want to stress here:
- Chasing Lensrank is not the way to make a ton of money on squidoo. If you have a lens in the top 2,000 and all it’s earning is $8 a month, or if you are just shooting for that $8 a month as your primary revenue from Squidoo, then you are making things a lot harder than they need to be. Instead of creating good content in niche areas and monetizing it, you are now trying to get in a popularity contest with 600,000 other contestants..
- Gil (From Squidoo HQ) said that there was a glitch and to give Lensrank a few days to settle down. Take a deep breath and build a lens.
- Affiliate Programs and Money Making Modules can make your lens portfolio much less Lensrank dependent. I’ve got lenses that are in the 70k plus range LR wise but they’ll still make $15-$30 a month pretty consistently. (If you want an example of this, stick around and I’ll show you how to make a money making lens this week.)
It makes me kind of sad when an awesome lensmaster like Poddys gets frustrated to the point of quitting squidoo just because of one lensrank update.
Yes, I understand that there is some money associated with Lensrank.
Yes, I understand that many think the CTR rate on lenses doesn’t seem like a ‘fair’ metric, but the more that visitors interact with squidoo, the more money squidoo (and by extension, you!) make.
As of right now, that LR update probably cost me around $250 if that were the be-all end all of updates. Luckily, there’s another update in just a few hours :).
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Comments
There are other things I have had some real frustration with, like lag, but nothing that would make me quit Squidoo. Perish the thought!
LR has not had any bearing on my profitability. Most of my consistently profitable lenses are not what would be considered high ranking.
The best way to boost ranking is to keep your lenses updated with the best content you have available, and to use all the tools we have available, like bookmarking sites and SEO, to put you on the Google radar. If you’re not making enough money, make more lenses.
My 2 Cents,
BadMsM
I have to say that my most profitable lenses do have the highest LR because they receive the most traffic. Which came first, the traffic or the commission? We all know the answer to that question.
I don’t freak about LR because I don’t really count on the Adsense payout from Squidoo. It’s usually a nice little bonus for me.
With all respect to the art with which some people create Squidoo lenses, it does seem that really counting on the Squidoo lensrank to make $8 a month instead of $1 doesn’t seem to be a very profitable way to spend ones time (if profit is what one wants). Seems there are easier ways to make more money.
I don’t play on Squidoo for the money. In fact I’m not sure why I choose that playground. I signed up in beta and just kind of hung around watching it get built.
Perhaps it’s simple. Seth really knows how to build and market a business. Squidoo has been an interesting ride. Lensrank is part of the social aura that keeps folks addicted.
Lensrank will keep changing, just keep doing what makes you happy regardless of changes. They will keep coming.
Totally frustrating but I know that all said and done, useful content will have people finding it, and clicking around.
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I think that Squidoo doesn’t pay out enough. I wish that they recorded your actual adsense clicks and gave you a percentage of your actual clicks. This seems more fair.