Happy New Year!

In a few hours, I'll be having my New Year Eve with the family - at least part of the family and won't be thinking about writing articles, Squidoo's TOS and ever changing rules for a while. I'll have plenty of time to think about it tomorrow.

So, in order to finish the year pretty well and start the new year with a good mind, I wish all of you a very happy, prosperous and healthy year 2014!

Let's not forget about a huge lot of happiness.

See you soon, Guys and Gals!


Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66

Considering Around 50 Lenses Deletion

Since traffic is so miserable on Squidoo these days, I'm considering the deletion of around 50 lenses I built in the past. Plus three built these past weeks - they are product review and one how-to lenslet which don't get any traffic at all.

All in all, let's put it in words. What's the benefit of deleting my Squidoo account?

Pros:

• It's going to provide my own sites with new and fresh scheduled content for months,
• I'll gather all my writings on just four sites, 
• I'll have TOTAL control on what I write,
• I'll be able to buy good targeted traffic for each site,
• I won't have to share my commissions with anyone,
• I'll save time to work on other things more important than modifying my lenses over and over again to comply with their ever changing TOS.

Cons:

• This year was a total waste of time in terms of traffic and earnings but next year things might get better,
• I worked hard for Squidoo and spent lots of time on this site,
• I'd lose my autopilot earnings - but even when they're miserable I can use them to pay a domain name renewal ;)

Whatever I choose, I must do it as soon as possible.

First, all my lenses are saved onmy computer. I did that long ago and sometimes update my saved lenses, especially when I make some changes to comply the ever changing TOS. The beauty of the thing is that I number the lenses I add so I can see the lenses since their very first day of existence and rewrite them accordingly - with more products and often more content to feature.

So for example and because Halloween traffic that was very very low, was paid last week, I could start by deleting the lenses that don't show any pending payment. I'd break them into several parts that I could rewrite and post to my Halloween site. I'd schedule the posts to be published one per week. This would provide the site with constant content and, therefore, traffic.

Thanksgiving traffic: this year it was absolutely non existent. I myself wondered where my Thanksgiving lenses were gone to... Then found them in a very unusual rank... 

End of year holiday season traffic : will be paid in February. Then once this one paid, I could start deleting the lenses after payday, break them into several parts, and start scheduling Christmas posts on my site.

And then with the Valentine's ones - but I don't have that many lenses in this niche nor in any other holiday related niche, though :(

With these lenses posted on my sites, I could pay Facebook ads or Google Adwords ads for promotion. I could make a test drive to see if paying ads work and what they're actually worth. If these work well, then I won't lose anything. If they don't work, I'll lose more but I'm not sure that compared with this year's earnings it would hurt that bad.

And if Squidoo ever gets Google's love again, I'll just have to rebuild... product review lenses for these holidays. Short and easy to create - well for some, not for me I prefer to offer a wide array of different things to my readers than just one product review thing that's as boring as the "aunt Nellie's stuff" that is required nowadays from HQ.

All in all my account would still feature more or less 85 lenses  covering:

1. Valentine's Day
2. Mardi Gras
3. Easter time
4. Prom Night
5. Mother's Day
6. Father's Day
7. Thanksgiving
8. Recipes - that should also be deleted and moved else where
9. Strawberries
10. Some gift lenses
11. Some toy lenses
12. History lenses 

Hm... Food for thoughts.



Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66

Traffic Drop Due to Google's Latest Update?

It's holiday season and my Christmas traffic dramatically dropped last week. It seems that the drop happened around the 17th December, which is the day Google manipulated one of their algorithms. At the same time, Squidoo seems to be playing with our lenses as well.

Strangely, it is always during the holiday season that Squidoo and Google make a decision on badly hitting lens- and webmasters. As, unfortunately on the 17th this month my Christmas site that's updated every day with unique content was hit as well - all other sites also, though but their traffic doesn't hurt as badly as it hurts the Christmas related one.

Even more strangely nobody seems to want to talk about it or even didn't notice that their lenses and site traffic had dropped. Or am I the only one webmaster in the world whose traffic got hit so bad? I'm pretty sure this is not the case since some other talk about an article relating to Google's latest update (17th December) and Matt Cutt's multiple lies through videos.

Some even benefited from this last update on Google's database. Some saw their sites sinking for good. Good Google, thank you so very much. And with Squidoo playing Google's game the wrong way the situation is even worse.

For example, a lens of mine that used to generate 1,000 visitors/week - and it is a very very very low amount of traffic for my Christmas lenses - dropped to 99 visitors/week since the 17th December. The speed is astounding! I've never seen such a fast drop!  Another lens of mine that is extremely popular at Christmas and even all year long dropped by 2/3 of its usual traffic. If things keep going on this way, the traffic to this lens is going to be like in April... long before Christmas.

Another very strange thing happening on my portfolio is a lens that's never been popular at all is seeing its traffic climbing. But this traffic comes from Pinterest, which is, for some topics, a great traffic generator. Unfortunately this traffic, while generating sales, doesn't generate huge commissions from a site of which I don't get many payouts as it's a site that I don't use a lot for affiliate stuff. 

Could you believe that an unique Christmas lens that still has NO competitor on Squidoo because based on a topic that is quite unusual, has only 23 visits/week? How can this lens, in this case, generate any kind of sale? Well it got three sales yesterday but it's the first time since the start of the end of year holiday season that this lens makes any sale!

Apart from two or three lenses of which I had to change the introduction as they were stolen by some sites like "www dot besthomever dot com" and "www dot bharatmoms dot com", I haven't touched my Christmas lenses in any other way than updating products. So this huge drop can't be explained by this. Instead and while checking the past 30 days traffic and comparing it with last week's traffic I notice that Squidoo wasn't just kicked out by Google, it also had been hit by Yahoo and Bing as those two sources of traffic dramatically fade away as well! Yahoo and Bing sent my lenses 1/10th of the previous weeks traffic! Are they going to align their search results, database and algorithms on Google's?

Even my craft lenslet that used to get traffic stopped getting any kind of traffic since the 17th December...  With zero traffic to product review lenses and now zero traffic to my craft one, I don't see the point building 5 lenses per year to keep my Giant status... That is another thing I'm going to think of these days...

I'm seriously considering deleting my Christmas lenses from my portfolio and moving them to my Christmas site. They would provide me with 50+ blog posts - therefore I'll be able to schedule 50 weeks of fresh content since I'd break them into two parts and would rewrite the whole lot. 

If I do this with my Halloween lenses of which traffic wasn't as miserable as the Christmas one but wasn't optimal, I could also fill my Halloween site with 50+ weeks of content. This would leave me with a portfolio of +/- 85 lenses.

I don't know why Squidoo is so hatred by search engines and about to lose all their juice. And because I wanted to make sure about what I saw as traffic trends on Squidoo I checked my site traffic as well. It's harder to make difference between one and another search engine as I noticed a strange trend.

Out from the related holiday period, my sites get traffic almost exclusively from Google but once the related holiday period started, I get a good mix of Google, Yahoo and Bing traffic. So for example Christmas time gets its share of the three search engines though less traffic from Google - since the 17th December as stated earlier.

Other sites still get their share of Google traffic, 10% from other search engines with a huge decrease from Google starting on the 17th December.

Let me know if you experienced such a huge traffic drop - both on Squidoo and other sites.




Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66

Squidoo's censorship has hit me again...

Squidoo has come with some more new policies that are applicable to product review lenses. However, for a few days, I could note that traffic has, once again during Christmas time, dramatically dropped!

My top lens that used to generate more than 1,200 visitors/week -which is extremely low for the season but still I take it, eh, I won't be rejecting that small amount of visitors when the rest of the year was more than miserable - has now seen its traffic drom by the half! So I'm left with more or less 600 visits/week and, therefore, half sales.

My second lens has its traffic dropped by 3/4 - from 500 visits/week it now is at 150... And so on.

There's a huge problem with Squidoo - with Google as well though but my income come from Squidoo not Google. 

So when I read those new policies I forgot that we were only allowed to post supportive comments and posted something that came from the bottom of my heart:

Once again don't take me bad, but what do you plan for Squidoo to get traffic? Policies over and over again aren't going to get us in Google's good graces again.

Also is Squidoo bound to become now a movie and book review site only, just like, previously in the year it had become a mom's oriented site?

Unless on a particular-highly-popular-under-exploited product, these product review lenses don't get any kind of traffic, maybe it's time to simply review that part of the site instead of adding policies. What's the point building such lenses if they don't get traffic at all? Product reviews are pretty well done on personal sites, they've always been popular and still are. Squidoo will never overrank them in search engines. And still what's the point building thousands of lenses on the very same book or movie?

Useless and the fastest way to become a cached site in Google's database...

It seems that it's an awfully disagreeable, insulting comment since censorship has hit me and that my comment disappeared. My writings were probably not underestandable and didn't deserve a clear answer. Instead, they were removed from the site. Period.

How can one, in this situation, keep on building lenses, work for Squidoo? Ok there are new lensmasters that start creating lenses every day. They abide by the new rules, aren't aware of what the site was in the past, don't know that many old timers are those who actually made Squidoo become the number one reference site that it had become. 

Sometimes, some kind of respect would be welcome. I would have been glad to get a simple answer "we work on this as well" or so. This would have reassured me regarding Squidoo's future that I don't see as bright as some do.

And this makes me wonder if those lensmasters who left Squidoo after Halloween payment these days, aren't on the right track. I seriously wonder if there's anything to be expected from Squidoo.



Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66

Squidoo's Traffic (Temporary) Increase

I just don't get it. People seem so naive... Ok, what do I mean? Well just that: the temporary and small traffic increase on Squidoo - due to Halloween and Christmas - seems to have provided them with a new kind of faithfulness. Ah, Squidoo's back in Google's good favors. 

Hm... I don't believe it at all but if it helps them face life, well, I'm ok.

However I don't see any traffic increase on my Christmas lenses, only on those that have been "evergreen". I mean, those that brought traffic and generated sales all year long although being end of year focused lenses. The kind of traffic I can see, instead means a lot to me: Google definitely doesn't love Squidoo and their lensmasters as much as they used to.

And once again I will make so-called experts in Squidoo traffic scream but once again I'm pretty sure that anything they come up with is, not absolutely false, still... Google doesn't love unique content that much, they don't expect huge content pages either, they want FRESH content. And when I say "fresh", I mean... anything that is fresh! Even if it's scraped content, duplicate, stolen, whatever, as long as it's NEW.

That is why my Halloween and Christmas lenses, that always generated thousands of hits during the matching season didn't generate that much this year.

Halloween season on Squidoo

Was miserable. Never been that miserable! All in all, compared with last years, they could be moved to my Halloween site that's been neglected till 2013, they would get more or less the same traffic numbers.

Grease Halloween Costumes is the only one lens that generated more traffic than any other lens on the same topic and it's a first time for this lens as it had never got any kind of absolutely marvelous figures in terms of traffic. It's a low traffic lens although one that generates sales all year long. I mean, it doesn't get more visits in October than any other month of the year - it just generates more sales.

This year, Grease Halloween Costumes got more visits than all previous years but generated less sales - strange, hm... But given the economic crisis, I'm not surprised.

Addams Family Halloween Costumes generated 3.07 times less traffic then its very first year, 13 times less figures than back in 2012 as, as a reminder, MY lenses weren't hit as much as others last year (between October and December); instead some benefited from even more traffic than any other year.

So figures for Addams Family Halloween Costumes: 5,571 in 2009 ; inscrease for the next years ; huge decrease for 2013 : 1,809 visits this October! What a mess!

• Halloween Ghoulish Party Foods: 9,538 in 2009 ; 1,141 in 2013 --> 8.35 times less traffic
• Scooby Doo Halloween Costumes: 1,701 in 2009 ; 988 in 2013 --> 2 times less visits.
• Halloween Homemade Scary Decorations: 12,020 in 2009 ; 3,725 in 2013 --> 3.23 times less visitors.
• Halloween Homemade Costumes for Kids: 7,662 in 2009 ; 742 in 2013 --> 10+ times less readers.

All these lenses were created back in 2009. All of them generated traffic during the season until... 2013.

Most of these pages were copied everywhere on the Internet, of course. Still, they never got hit as hard as they've been this year. And this is where I really question the Google's actual demands when it comes to content!

If they wanted unique, informative, correct, no sale page or shopping cart content written from webmasters, then they should index these pages accurately. However this is NOT the case! As most of these lenses were replaced in search results by pages that reproduced MY content!

For example, while looking for other places that would feature my lens content, I found, in the top search results:

• Paying traffic positions - since they disappeared from the sidebars - they didn't use my content, of course;
• Stolen content pages - yes sites/blogs that used my STOLEN content ranked higher than genuine pages,
• Pinterest pins - most people who pinned my lenses also added MY content as description, which lead into the disappearence of my own lenses from Google's page results.

So there's no need to be an expert to clearly see that Google does NOT only want unique content, they want FRESH content. Whatever some so-called experts pretend, adding graphics and other stat charts. I'm definitely convinced that FRESH content is king on Google's ORGANIC INDEXING nowadays. In addition, I noticed the trend on most of my niche sites and pages - this happens most of the time on holiday related stuff. Maybe a "desperate housewife" thing?

Christmas Season on Squidoo

How could my personal Christmas pages rank between #1 and #5 for specific keywords when one knows that the pages are brand new and feature products for sale?

For example, in a series of Christmas trains I produced for my site, I could find some of these pages ranking really high in search results although these trains have been reviewed for a while and aren't that new. Not that I copied the content from elsewhere, I just neglected my site for years (because I was working hard on Squidoo) and didn't make these pages before this year. However, these trains do already exist everywhere on the Internet, some pages are so old that they should be ranked higher than mine. 

Oh wait... NO. Google wants FRESH content! Chances are that by next year, these pages will disappear from the search results.

Now the example of Christmas trains isn't probably the best one since my Christmas train lens performs pretty sell since its very first day: it never generated tens of thousands of visits but it is some kind of evergreen lens that gets traffic all year long and makes sales at least once a week, whatever the season. The more Christmas approaches, the more sales the page generates. Bing and Google are my top traffic drivers for this lens.

I just made a how-to lenslet on how to make a Christmas train and, for the very first time ever, I've seen some traffic generated towards this pages. It seems that Christmas trains are a really popular topic. How-to pages are also really liked.

However, I noticed the same trend on my Christmas village pages. The Halloween village page I created for the other site never brought that much traffic, however Christmas villages are highly demanded and these pages are also quite popular on my site. I should have make a lens about them.

I won't pretend that all the traffic my lenses get come from Google, it would be untrue. For example most of my fun Christmas printable games traffic comes from Pinterest. Strangely, although until last year, the Halloween printable games got most of their traffic from Google, it doesn't receive traffic from Pinterest - at least not buying traffic while the Christmas one does but doesn't interest Google.

My overall Christmas traffic looks like this - please note that, depending on the actual subject of the lens, my Christmas traffic may be higher in November than in December. Unless specified, these figures are those of the month of November.

• Stunning Outdoor Christmas Decorations: 1,026 in 2009 ; 16,007 in 2011, 2,454 in 2013
• How to Plan the Best Christmas Party: 130 December 2009 ; 2,579 in 2011 ; 332 in 2013
• Homemade Christmas Wreaths: 584 in 2009 ; 7,014 in 2011 ; 584 in 2013 (funny - same figure than when created!)
• Homemade Christmas Gift Baskets: 144 in 2009 ; 2,144 in 2011 ; 282 in 2013
• Themed Christmas Tree Decorations: 618 in 2009 ; 19,253 in 2011 ; 409 in 2013

These aren't my best performing Christmas lenses but those of which the difference between figures are the most dramatic. Now the outdoor decoration lens hasn't dropped like the others, this also must be acknowledged.

All in all, Christmas is miserable for me this year on Squidoo, though Halloween was even worse. I've never seen such a low amount of traffic reaching Squidoo although it's certainly 10 times more than during the year. Still it is miserable and isn't promising for the after holiday season: if traffic is that low now, it's going to be even lower after December.

Whatever the expert amateurs out there pretend, Google has certainly a hidden agenda and that what some of us experience these days on Squidoo doesn't always relate to actual UNIQUE content... It also is a question of freshness. It all depends on your niche, I think. 

And, apart from Google, nobody has the answer to what happened to our traffic, and this includes me.




Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66

Amazon.com Reports, Earnings and Payments

Today I want to cover a topic that's not absolutely related to Squidoo - but is in some way, though. I mean, Amazon.com reports, earnings and payments. 

These past months, we observed some troubles regarding Amazon.com reports which have, at times, been missing from our Squidoo dashboard as well as our Amazon.com dash. Then suddenly we could see our account filled with missing sales and, therefore, commissions.

However, while reading Amazon's affiliate discussion boards, I also could notice that some reports weren't absolutely correct. I recommend anyone double checking their Squidoo dashboard and take note of all ordered items through Amazon so as to be able to check later if all commissions have been properly reported.

I also recommend doing so on your Amazon affiliate account as it happened there too.

While reading some Amazon discussions on different forums, I also realized that many users are like I am, from foreign countries and, therefore, not able to get their Amazon.com payments through direct deposit in their bank accounts. Sadly many countries removed the check payment options from their bank facilities and charge a high fee for us to get a check to our bank account.

So we had to find an alternative for getting our commissions. This can be very easily done through Payoneer, an online solution for payments, which allows us to receive payments from many US companies like Amazon.com, Share A Sale, Commission Junction, etc. and spend our money through the use of a prepaid debit MasterCard card.

For companies that need to send mass payouts, they come in handy as well as they allow them to pay their affiliates or employees around the world with this solution that won't cost them an arm and a leg. They allow the transfer of funds to those famous preparid debit Mastercard cards and send bank transfers to many countries around the world.

I've already subscribed and got my prepaid debit card, it works great and allows me to withdraw the money any where in the world. The best thing with this card is that now, I don't have to wait for my Amazon.com to reach a large amount of dollars to be paid: I can get my payment once I reach the $10 minimum required. What a relief!

So if like me, you're from a country where getting paid your commissions is some kind of hassle, I seriously recommend using Payoneer. It's the best way to get your money quickly. Their debit card can also be linked to your Paypal account and used like any other card with such a payment solution. However, Payoneer doesn't partner with Paypal so make sure to read their terms before signing up with them.

See you soon for some news - at least if I have some to share as I'm not really active on Squidoo these days and work a lot on my own sites so as to provide them with a new polish and traffic wave ;)







Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66

A short update on "lenslets"

I've been absent for a while and didn't post. Mostly because the 3G connection wasn't the best where I was and also because I found myself very happy doing nothing else but running here and there to create my partner's company.

Weather was quite hot in the day, the late afternoons and evenings were fresh but I could stay outside dressed in short sleeved dresses or t-shirts and from time to time had a sweather to keep me warm - we've had three cold evenings. It even rained one night ;)

All in all my stay was pleasant, as usual, too short as usual and now I'm quite blue, hoping to get back to the South as soon as possible. This time I'll get a good connection pack as I plan to change my local provider and get Internet Everywhere type of pack that would allow me to only pay when I stay in this area and not when I'm back home. Unless I settle there for good it'll be my Internet option.

OK so now let's get where the topic of this post is supposed to lead us : the famous "lenslets" or "product review lenses" - I won't talk about the recipe or how-to ones since I didn't use them yet.

I built a lenslet before going abroad last month and didn't really like that kind of lens. It's too short, too few opportunities to display a wide array of complementary accessories, the background feature is too standard - no size or tile or any kind of option - the lenslet doesn't look nice, the featured picture is too big, the "buy" button's also too big. All in all, I dislike these formats, period.

However I gave it a try and must say that I'm quite surprised with the traffic. It actually went from 2 views/day to 1 per day in one month and a half. Wow ! What a surprise ! Beautiful !

I really wonder how good other lensmasters do with these lenses. Apart from some who work on some definite niches that are highly popular, I mean... But in my case how can I review topic X when I'm not interested or have never seen an episode or listened to one of that band's tunes ? I haven't read English written books, I haven't bought anything on Amazon USA... I'm not a big shopper although there are a lot of things I'd like to own, especially now that I have to homes. However, the second house is located in a country where Amazon US isn't known at all and where I won't find things that attract the American public.

Naturally this lenslet is going to be deleted in a few days and rewritten before going to be hosted by one of my sites. Some rewritten lenses that used to make no sales on Squidoo have brought me some commissions from Amazon once hosted on my sites. So why wouldn't this lenslet do the same?

As for my overall Squidoo account, it's now making a few sales here and there but not as many as last year. I really wonder if Christmas is going to be cancelled this year :(

I'll keep you updated on how traffic is going to be by the end of year. But if by the end of March, my stats don't show an increase or a sign that things are going to get better, chances are that, apart from my Valentine, Halloween and Christmas lenses, all others are going to be deleted and moved else where where they'll go get some more traffic and make more sales than on Squidoo.

That is where I don't think it's only a Google matter: Squidoo also has a problem... otherwise my deleted lenses wouldn't attract buyers since they didn't attract them on Squidoo.

Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66

I Built my First New Lens in 10 Months

So I did it: I built my very first new lens in 10 months ! Well not really a lens, it's actually a product review lens - or as some lensmasters call these types of Squidoo pages: "lenslet".

I've read so many things about that new type of pages that I decided to give it a try. Before making any lenslet I needed a product to talk about. Found it since my coffee maker suddenly died (yeah, once again, I'm bad luck with coffee machines) and that a friend of mine just bought a coffee on demand machine which I saw in action and fell in love with.

Oh I already had such a coffee machine (the one that doesn't work any more) but it was an old model, tall, wide, too big for the small kitchen. Plus not of a high quality. So when I saw my friend's coffee machine, I decided to put it on my Christmas wish list. Anyways, talking about my coffee maker is not the purpose of this post.

Because I didn't have enough materials to create a standard lens, I gave a shot at lenslets. If there's a $100 award incentive for making such a page, why would I keep off building it? Moreover, there's a book I'd like to talk about as well but never created the related page because of the lack of materials -- lenslets to the rescue in this case too! (if I have some time before flying abroad tomorrow).

So here's my feedback about product review lenses:

* Quickly built lens because it doesn't require too many modules, text blocks, pictures, etc.

* One product lens -- that's something I can do on my own blogs, though.

* The introduction picture and "buy now" button are too big for my own taste; they look like shouts at the readers,

* Must pay close attention to the related products automatically added to the page!!! Yes -- related products are picked from the Amazon product page where Amazon adds some products bought by their customers. Hm... these products aren't always suitable for the product WE write about so we must pay attention to that. Since I know the coffee machine, I was able to remove the related accessories and add at least one that would fit with the machine.

* Without a background, product review lenses look ugly and have a taste of junk. So although they might appear as conceived for lazy lensmasters, they at least require the creation of bespoke backgrounds. Warning: there aren't any background setting options, so if you create a 200 x 200 background you're wrong. You must make at least a 1500 x 1500 graphic for it to be properly displayed.

* These pages don't require many modules. The introduction text is in reality the product itself so it might be hard to find a good way to start talking about the Amazon item you try to sell since you don't want to digress and need to directly refer to your advertised item.

In summary I'd say that many thought that this new lens format would be ideal for those who are able to create a 1 hour or less lens. I'd say that it is true. But the final result, apart from some very smart and creative lensmasters (and there aren't a lot of them) looks like what it is: 

• A less than 1 hour lens,
• A page that didn't require a lot of work,
• A page that's been quickly made,
• A page that isn't particularly attractive,
• A page that doesn't look as personal as HQ wants it to be,
• A page that lacks design, harmony and taste,
• A "free" page,
• I can do better on my blog.

From my readings on the Internet it seems that unless we create such a product review page on a highly popular product, it won't generate any kind of significant traffic or sales.

All in all, apart from the book review I wanted to make for so long and that coffee machine I want so bad, I don't think I'm going to make any more product review lens.

But the worst feeling I've had while making this page was that I realized that I lost my Squidoo mojo. Needless to say that the traffic drop experienced one week before the big Halloween Day won't revive the passion I once had for making Squidoo lenses.

That's it for now. Since I'll be abroad for 1 month, I wish you a very happy Halloween and hope you'll see some improvements in terms of Squidoo traffic and earnings in the future.


Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66

Quick Halloween Stats Update...

I'm sorry for not having posted these past weeks: I was busy working on my Halloween site and HubPages while also preparing my next three-week trip abroad. 

However this didn't keep me off checking my Squidoo Halloween stats. And here are my "top" Halloween lenses (well if, given the situation, on can even speak about top anything). Remember that the Halloween season is "on" and that traffic should peak since last week.

Halloween Homemade Scary Decorations : 
October 2011    31,441
October 2012    16,588
October 2013      2,352

Grease Halloween Costumes:
October 2011    6,942
October 2012    6,218
October 2013    1,487

Halloween Potluck Party Ideas:
October 2011    11,621
October 2012     9,232
October 2013       957

Addams Family Halloween Costumes:
October 2011    12,808
October 2012     8,425
October 2013       900

Printable Halloween Party Games:
October 2011    1,230
October 2012    4,608
October 2013      568

Homemade Halloween Window Decoration Ideas:
October 2011    5,763
October 2012    5,354
October 2013      760

Scooby Doo Halloween Costumes:
October 2011    4,634
October 2012    2,603
October 2013      527

Halloween Pin Up Costumes:
October 2011    2,303
October 2012    4,019
October 2013      559


I won't blame Squidoo for such a mess. Looking at my stats, I notice that for some I won't even reach 1/10th of 2011 traffic.

Who's to blame, then? Google, of course ! Have you seen the huge number of sites like Squidoo, your sites or blogs, mine... outranked by big brands? Have you noticed that Adwords ads disappeared from Google's search page results? This means they're now just listed ABOVE organic traffic pages.

Plus... Squidoo has lost top position for lots of keywords - and I'm convinced that Halloween + long tail keywords are included in the loss.

Is it still worth working like crazy on the Web when companies like Google ruin your hard work and favor paying big brands that do NOT need top page result place since WE drive traffic to their sites and WE generate sales for them.

I'm not sure that kind of business online has any future and I seriously consider doing something else than writing articles that don't get the deserved traffic. I have to admit that I'm quite fed up working for peanuts these days.

All I see now tells me that NO, traffic won't recover. It's the Internet playground, the games, their rules AND people who have been changed by Big Brother. Unless the average Joe and Jane Doe stop using Google to search the Web we won't see the end of the tunnel. 

Ok so now back to prepare my luggage for my trip. I'll be happy to take that long break from the Internet, my sites, writing platforms and the rest and do what I want for a while. I'll be back on mid-November in order to update my Christmas site. As for the Christmas lenses, I'll leave them as they are: now I know that they aren't worth the hassle any more.

Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66

Squidoo Earnings Still Dropping Like Stones

Squidoo payday was early this month. Actually, it seems that payout is, month after month, sooner than it was in the past. Are the lower amount of lensmasters as well as the lower amount of money to be paid out the motives for such a strange change.

Anyway, payday was early. Sadly while early payday is often a good thing, when it comes to the amount of money that's dropping in your bank account, it's not the same tune. I've never seen such a low August payout. At least, and from day 1 I worked on Squidoo more seriously than with the goal of building backlinks for my other sites, I don't remember having got an amount as small as the one I've got yesterday.

Is Halloween Cancelled on Squidoo This Year?

Tier numbers have been posted in the official forums. Squidoo's payout for the month of August have dramatically dropped, once again. Is it the beginning of the end for the site? Is Halloween cancelled  on Squidoo? Are we going to see an end of year season as miserable as the poor people in Victor Hugo's novel?

Despite the stats for the site as a whole  that are increasing a little bit, traffic numbers on an individual basis are still very low. Given the season: Halloween marketing season has set in two months ago, such low traffic numbers aren't a good sign for the whole site.

I really fear the Halloween payout (October) to be as miserable as the entire year.  Not to mention Christmas that might even be cancelled if tier numbers don't increase by the end of the month. 

So some might argue that traffic stats are getting a little better. But they don't seem to recall that the new lens format was made available for Giants this week and that beta-testers built those "lenslets" (that is Paul Ward's word) by the dozens in the past weeks. So with an increase in the number of lenses, there's a logic increase in traffic.

Still HubPages is placed high above Squidoo in terms of traffic !

Now we'll see next month stats as it seems that HQ has done it again and locked entire accounts - especially old, very old timers' accounts. Those that were beta testers in the early days of Squidoo. Those that made the site what it had become. Those that allowed Squidoo to earn a lot of money.

Sales have dropped compared with previous years as well. Although someone not long ago pretended that we all benefited from the huge traffic peak last year, I can say that I did NOT. Absolutely not !

I haven't got more traffic last year than previous years. Instead, last year, when doing a comparison for the same period (second part of the year), I can see a clear traffic loss - around 10% on my whole account - I had 200 lenses at the time.

Now I'm left with 138 lenses, out of them 15% don't get any traffic at all - they are seasonal lenses and always had some traffic but this year, seasonal lenses' traffic is generally zero. This also clearly shows that Google doesn't love Squidoo any more.

Now while we can look at the stats as a whole we must also check the stats on an individual basis. While browsing forums, I noticed that many lensmasters experience a huge loss of traffic on their own accounts. So where do that "good" traffic stats come from? Internal traffic to Rocket Squid and other quest lenses? That also could inflate the stats.

Some lensmasters see an increase in their traffic numbers but they're so few of them. When looking at the official forum posts, I notice that some more recent lensmasters seem to be satisfied with 50 weekly visits that they find a "good number". Hm... They surely never see a lens that would generate 30,000 visits/week. Or as it happened one year, a single lens that brought its owner 1 MILLION visitors/week!

We only old timers know what Squidoo is experiencing nowadays. And to say the truth, while there was once in one forum a thread that would ask some of us if we feared the end of year on Squidoo and while I answered "no"... I say now that I really fear Halloween and Christmas cancellation.

Is there a future for Squidoo?


Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66

Guestbook's Improvement: When Is Enough... Enough?

It seems that HQ made some "improvements" to Squidoo's guestbook module. Hm... Improvements. Is it some kind of joke? Apart from the disappearance of the "delete" button in view mode and the appearance of a "like" button in the same mode, I don't see any kind of improvement done to that guestbook.

When is enough... enough? I ask the question because while they "improved" the guestbook module with the false motive to ease the user experience (we, lensmasters) I don't see any kind of ease of use in all this mess! Please, HQ, can't you test things on a separate domain or subdomain before making them go live ????????

Two Halloween Lenses Deleted Today

Halloween season's round the corner and traffic is increasing on my Halloween site as well as on Squidoo. Hm... not all my Halloween lenses, I'm afraid :(  I built 30 Halloween lenses and deleted some of them in the past for whatever reason. I was left with 26 scary stuff lenses. 

When the changes occured on Squidoo, I cleaned up my account and deleted 3 of such lenses as I didn't want to make them comply with the new TOS given the huge traffic drop Squidoo experienced and still does experience nowadays despite the Halloween season.

Another Batch of Deleted Lenses

Although I have never had any lens locked on Squidoo - not since the new policies introduction (and just one locked lens in the past for a "junk" word in it, lens deleted: I've never played that silly game and never agreed to cast my pride aside asking for HQ to unlock what they locked by mistake) - I started to delete the lenses that could be locked as I didn't want to waste time modifying them.

For a few weeks I don't delete lenses that might get locked, I decided to delete non seasonal zero traffic lenses. Last time I deleted a batch of such lenses, I was left with 152 of them. Today I deleted another batch but had to modify my overall lensography as I was about to delete an entire lensography and 50% of its matching lenses! 

Zero Traffic Lenses Are Going To Be Deleted

Five minutes ago, I went to my Squidoo account and checked my zero traffic lenses. I've never had zero visit lenses in the past - apart from the very first days I joined Squidoo or until the day I seriously worked on the pages I built over there.

But today I was quite surprised to see a bunch of zero visit lenses in my portfolio. What was the most shocking is that those lenses aren't seasonal pages. They're evergreen pages, the kind of pages that always generated traffic, no matter the time of the year. Not that they used to get thousands of visits per day. Nevertheless, they weren't failure and should get their share of traffic.

Is Squidoo Dead?

Strange title, isn't it? Is Squidoo dead? I ask myself this question several times a day. Especially when checking traffic stats. Traffic stats are quite depressing these days I must say.

Quantcast's stats

First let's have a look at Quantcast's stats for the site. The graphic has the same shape as last month's one. Traffic still decreasing and nobody in HQ seeming to pay attention, or having a word with us regarding the dramatic situation. They keep posting their quests... Are these quests profit anyone? Not sure if traffic dies for good. They keep making changes, the last ones being the introduction of the new templates. Are they going to profit anyone if the site dies for good? No...

Still HQ doesn't seem to even notice how dramatic the situation is. Click on the images to enlarge them.

Is Google's New Algo Hurting our Business?

These past days, I've had a conversation with another lensmaster who asked me to check out their new site and asked for feedback.

At first sight, the site looked great and is probably going to get traffic and generate sales. Though I provided a few suggestions the lensmasters isn't obliged to follow, just my personal thoughts. However, one thing that disturbed me on this site were the displayed Google AdSense ads.

Squidoo Introducing New Lens Format

A new product review lens format is about to be launched

 

After the new workshop announcement, Squidoo introduces new lens format options. These are short (and probably sweet) pages that can be built about any kind of topic you're interested in. 

These new types of lenses are niche focused ones. These new pages won't require more than 2 modules - but we're free to add up to 5. 

Let's take an example: I recently wrote a tutorial on how to make Halloween animatronics. I could have done this on one of the new lens templates that are going to be launched. It wouldn't have required more than what I have already written on my own site, along with some pictures and a guestbook so as to allow my readers to ask questions or leave a feedback.

Halloween Stats on Squidoo Are Actually Frightful!

Boo! Not Halloween yet but Squidoo stats look like a good old frightful Halloween movie !

Hello September ! I woke up this morning thinking about the new month. This month is going to be decisive in terms of the Halloween lenses I'm going to keep active on Squidoo and those I'll delete.

First task: checking my stats. They're quite depressing. Especially Halloween stats. Come on! Halloween's in two months only and stats are looking like January stats. 

Scary Halloween Homemade Decorations is my best performing lens right now. Last year, its August stats were 4.3 times higher than 2013 stats. How on Earth had this lens reached tier 1 with such a low amount of traffic? That is beyond my understanding ; unless Squidoo stats are even worse than I think. Given the figures I seriously doubt that each of the top 2,000 lenses on Squidoo drive 4 or 5 figure traffic stats!

Second best performing lens: Grease Halloween Costumes. This one hasn't reached tier 1 yet - and might never reach it, though. Still it's ranked near tier 1 while not getting more than 500 visits for the whole month of August! It's got 1/3 of last year traffic only. Another quite depressing stat.

In general, my Halloween lenses are between 1/3rd and 1/10th of their usual traffic numbers for August.

Cherries on the pie are two figures traffic numbers. Long established high traffic driving lenses are now lost in nowhere or near some kind of no-man's land stats. They hardly got 2 figure traffic for the whole month of August while last year they reached the 4 figures without any kind of promotional effort. Though last year's stats were lower than those of 2011 - which didn't profit from any promotion either.

It hurts and is quite painful to see my Halloween Homemade Costumes for Kids getting only 53 visits in August - 1/5th up to 1/10th of their usual stats at this time of the year.

Then there are the more or less new lenses, created back in 2011 as I didn't make lots of Halloween lenses last year since I wasn't home and didn't have a computer on hand at this time period. These were very niche lenses, they used to have their fair share of traffic, although quite new and focused. This year, they've hardly got 30-60 hits for the month.

As said earlier, September will be decisive in terms of traffic and trust for Squidoo. Oh there will always be those that think positive and see flowers when old timers like me who know the actual Squidoo figures and their own account figures for the previous years will see the final coffin silhouette.

In any way, if by the 15th I don't see an improvement or one sale coming each of my Halloween lenses' way, I'll certainly delete and move those that don't get the traffic they used to generate. Low traffic for low traffic, I'd rather see them adding a few full commission figures to my personal affiliate accounts than sharing them by 50% with Squidoo.

Meanwhile I already deleted 5 recipe lenses that I plan to post on my related blog. I just need a few more hours in a day to move all the removed content from Squidoo to a new home. 

Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66

And So Traffic on Squidoo Is Still Doing Well? Hm...

Although banned from the official forums, I still login into them each day and read the very few (1 or 2) "fresh" threads that raise pompons to Squidoo's new policies. So from what I could read it seems that traffic's rising and that everything's gonna be alright.

Let me doubt of it. Don't try to fool me, please. Don't fool other old timers, they're not fools and most don't believe in your numbers unless they write in a niche that has a low competition rate and a niche that requires specific skills - I often refer to arts... but indeed, not everybody can write in this niche and it definitely needs expertise and high skills.

So traffic's rising... Hm... I'm going to share a few stats with you.

Moving Lenses out of Squidoo | Part 3

So now you subscribed to your new webhost, got a domain name and made a decision on the CMS you're going to use. Time has come to choose a template to work on. WordPress and Concrete 5 come with default templates, this helps webmasters save time searching for templates on the Internet. The most skilled of us will adapt the default templates to their own tastes. The others will use these pre-installed templates the way they are supplied. Another part of webmasters will just use templates they found else where whether for free or for a fee.

What's the best option when it comes to templates: free or not?

Moving Squidoo Lenses | Part 2

Here we go for more information on how and where moving our locked/deleted/no traffic/no sales/not performing Squidoo lenses. So now that we have chosen a webhost (as said earlier, I recommend HostMonster as it's the greatest webhost I've ever subscribed to) and a domain name, we can go further on our new online endeavours. 

Next stop is choosing the platform or the type of website that we're going to put our content on. There are many different options - although I haven't tried all of them - some are easy, some are less easy, some are for developers or Internet savvy only. It all depends on your own knowledge.

How and Where Moving Squidoo Lenses

You might want to move your Squidoo lenses in case their traffic dropped too much and are unsure as to whether traffic will recover one day or another. You may want to move them in case they've been locked and then deleted by HQ. You may want to move your lenses off of Squidoo if they don't meet their policy requirements any more. There are a lot of reasons for you to want to move your lenses out of Squidoo.

However because you're familiar and comfortable with Web 2.0 platforms, you're reluctant doing so and not sure how the moved lenses are going to perform else where.

Squidoo Traffic and Sales Still Dropping Like Stones

It's the very first time I experience such a drop in traffic and sales since my first day on Squidoo. In the beginning, I didn't pay real attention to traffic and even less to sales since I joined back in 2007 to provide my own self-hosted websites with some social traffic - Squidoo was primarily meant to provide curated info pointing to OTHER sites and wasn't meant to become a content site itself.

New Group Added to Subdomain Test

And the show still goes on! Now HQ is going to add a new group to the silly subdomain test. One month and a half before Halloween! Needless to say that they could just shoot at us once for all if they want us to never recover from all their tests and blind measures that negatively impacted most of us!

Now we're going to be placed in subdomain test. Yeah! Good... My username is one that I don't use any more - I haven't used it in years ! How could anyone recognize my account if they switch it into "prosperity66.squidoo.com"? Nobody will even know who I am - not to mention that my niches aren't related to the username either.

Not Happy on Squidoo? Pack and Leave, Then!

If you're not happy, pack and leave! The title of this post pretty sums up Squidoo HQ's message to those that aren't happy with all the changes, the double standards, groups that open here and there to praise HQ's decisions and aggressively post about those that don't understand why their hard work was deleted without warning, and so on...

So, if we're not happy we can pack and leave... Makes me think to Dion and the Belmont's song "Little Diane"... 

"I wanta pack and leave and slap your face

Bad girls like you are a disgrace..."

However, the song wouldn't fit the one that tells us to leave and we aren't bad at all even though Squidoo doesn't like us any more and despite the general message that's been sent these past months.

New Amazon Link Limit Filter In Action!

Squidoo has rolled the new Amazon link limit filter out! I woke up yesterday with 30 flagged lenses! On a general number of 166 lenses, it didn't look too scary.

I thus started modifying my lenses to comply the new Amazon link limit policy. To say the truth it's hard to remove most of my Amazon links since these lenses were series of product focused. Keeping your links to 1 or 2 is easy if your lens relates to ONE product. Keeping your links to 1 or 2 is easy if your lens is a personal one. But keeping your links to less than 20 when you list the most beautiful Christmas ornaments for a tree or the best gifts to get a wine lover, is harder. Then when you made a top 100 products it's definitely impossible !

Does the New Amazon Link Limit Affect Lens Traffic?

So now Squidoo lensmasters are required to not use more than 20 Amazon links - this means:

• 20 Amazon modules featuring each 1 product  or
• 10 Amazon modules featuring each 2 products or
• 4 Amazon modules featuring each 5 products, and so on.

However, depending on the content your lens carries, you can also see the Amazon link limit alert. If you write a 400 words article, I'm not sure you'll be allowed to present 20 Amazon products (not to mention eBay modules). 

Does this new limit affect lenses? 

Things Change All the Time...

Things change all the time, we must accept it as it's always for the best.

Hm... Let me doubt about it!

However this is what you can read all around the Web nowadays, said by people who work for Google or simply just want to get in Google's good graces. Not only on Google's graces, though... Even in Squidoo's good graces, or any other web authority that might hurt them.

Some are so blind that they naively think that changes are always for the best. They just don't want to know how horrible changes can be in most cases. Or too stupid to just want to open their eyes?

A Brand New Search Term Introduced by the Lens Locks

While on checking this blog's stats today, I found a brand new search term that brought Web surfers to it. 

This new search term is certainly the result of the many lens locks these past months, lens locks that resulted into multiple forum posts relating to "getting your hands on Squidoo locked URLs" and then on some sales pages relating to "buying Squidoo URL locked list".

But people looking for a quick couple of bucks to make out of other people's misery are always extremely creative. So now one of the popular search terms is "where to buy locked lens URLs".

I'm truly sorry (joking, I'm not, I just don't like that kind of behaviors) for them but this blog will never provide them with the searched information! I don't plan on teaching anyone where to buy such URLs because if I was one of those "punished" lensmasters, I wouldn't want my URLs to be sold by anyone.

Well, there are times when I think that "now I've seen everything, I've heard everything". Nothing can surprise me any more. I've definitely seen and heard anything that's weird on Earth.

Seems that it isn't the case. Every day I keep on being surprised or puzzled with something. If only it could be happy stuff...

Posted by Squidoo Angel Prosperity66

A New Beta-Test Running on Squidoo? Or Does the Locking Madness Still Go on...

I woke up late today because of some family things that happened yesterday. I thus got late in bed and slept late - I'm someone who wakes up very early in the morning in general. Anyways... While drinking my first morning coffee cup, my eyes still half opened, I checked one forum and saw a bunch of threads relating to some kind of locking madness happening once again on Squidoo.

Then I quickly went to the official forums where the news were even worse! 

What happens right now? Well seems that HQ is currently locking lenses which have a lot of "no follow" sites linking back to them. 

But didn't Squidoo not long ago switched all their links back to other sites from "follow" to "no follow"?  Yes, they did !

So what's wrong with having a site setting outbond links to "no follow"?

Who Am I on the Internet?

Today I want to talk about a subject that I already raised on this blog and that led into Google penalizing some sites - Squidoo perhaps? - I mean "expertise".

I already posted in this blog that I don't believe in the word "expert" or "expertise" when it comes to the Internet. Not that I don't think that there are true experts on here - and I surely spoke to some of them in forums or Facebook or whatever other means of communication.

So it seems that Google's putting the highlight on experts - how do they decide who's an expert or not?  That is beyond my understanding since they never met those experts in person.

Therefore they certainly wrote some algorithms that would lead into their robots to differentiate "actual" experts from "false" or "so-called" experts. What's their algorithm? How do they differentiate the fake from the real?

Too Many Lens Locks Lead Into Any Kind of Behaviors

It's been a while that the Squidoo lens locking process has brought some Internet marketers discussions in many different forums. I mean professional forums - most white and black hat forums as well as professional marketers forums.

Not long ago I went to a post that explained how to reclaim a locked lens URL. Naturally the initial post was directed to the lensmasters whose lenses were locked by HQ. However, some marketers took the idea and claimed those locked URLs for themselves in order to make a profit from it.

Suddenly, a new batch of forum posts led into the idea that reclaimed URLS were locked as soon as published. I don't remember if these were the lens' owner new-former-URL or people taking advantage of other's misfortune's URLs. But that is not the point of this post.

Sites To Check for your Stolen Content

Duplicate content is a big no-no on Squidoo these days. However, although some lensmasters-marketers tried to actually game the system using duplicate content, most of us have no control on what other webmasters do with your content.

Stolen content - I mean content from your lens published elsewhere by someone else pretending its theirs or not crediting their source (although once again Squidoo isn't an article directory that would allow anyone to use their lensmasters' content elsewhere even with a credit line) - results into your lens getting flagged, now days more likely locked for duplicate content.

Sadly we don't laways have control on what others do with our work, we can't spend 24 hours a day checking as to whether someone stole our content and published it elsewhere.

A Word on Banning Madness

This Saturday some lensmasters received an email from HQ. An email relating to negativity on Squidoo. Well, how would people be positive when so many weird things happen. Not that changes weren't necessary : as a SquidAngel, I've always asked - like most angels - for the site to be cleaned up from the rubbish. There were dozens of threads regarding this huge problem in the old SquidU forum and most of the time, we were aggressively replied to take care of our own things, do our angel duties without caring more than that about the junk.

Well it seems that Google took care of it since they introduced their new algorithms which resulted in Squidoo's decreasing favours in Google's eyes.

Now HQ takes measures. Problem is that measures taken aren't absolutely those recommended by Big G... Where did they ask for people to talk about PERSONAL things only? Where did they ask for us to write only desperate women type articles? Where did they say that selling was a big no-no? Nowhere !

It's HQ's personal interpretation of Googles policies that brought lensmasters to complain on Squidoo. Sadly for the site and its members as a whole, HQ doesn't include SEO experts nor marketing experts. Therefore, they can't interpret Google's requirement correctly. 

I have to specify that I was recalled by a lensmaster that I was probably banned for another reason than the one I thought at first sight. I forgot about this post but here's one I made regarding Googles updates and policies and the wrong way HQ handled them:

I would say that Google doesn’t like my lens content any more either. Strangely, traffic on my sites and blogs wasn’t hit by Google.

I really wonder if the need for more content and less promotion (affiliate links) isn’t the need to counter-balance the huge amound of ads HQ posted on our lenses these past weeks and if it’s not for this very reason that Google dislikes our lenses so much: have you added enough “personal amazing content” to your lenses? If not, that’s surely the reason.

Google actually HATES ads heavy pages and the way our lenses are monetized nowadays doesn’t help them recover Google’s love. That’s a fact. Eespecially those pop up ads we seem unable to close… not to mention that visitors HATE them either. Add the first and the latter and you’ll get the motive for this loss of traffic and sales.

So this post might have resulted in the ban. I won't ask for forum access being granted : they banned me, I won't cast my pride aside. 

And I don't think this comment was offending in any way. It's only the plain simple truth. At least what I think being the truth. Am I not allowed to clearly state my thoughts ? Then I'd rather keep off their forums and post elsewhere.

Now to be honest, that ban doesn't bother me. I'm member of other forums where I can speak freely. However, I needed to make this clear that the post I thought was responsible for my ban wasn't the one I was thinking about.

Ok. Now on that mail that some of us got on Saturday.

It makes things clear: negativity - therefore, freedom of speech and truth - aren't tolerated in the official forum. You can post anything positive, though. How can we be positive when anything we do can get our lenses locked? When even if you have a pure content lens, it may end up locked even though its content is unique and written by you ?

That is beyond my understanding.

The head of the site seems unable to manage honest statements. 

Is saying the truth negative? There are several SEO expert lensmasters who have been regularly ringing the alarm bell over the years. Still they could be listened to: they know their job, they know what they talk about, they're reliable. Why doesn't HQ want to listen to them?

Do I post inflammatory remarks when I  say that HQ doesn't include SEO and/or Google experts in their team? I'm convinced that I don't since it's a fact. All measures taken these past months show that they don't have a clue what SEO is and what Google wants. Even considering and featuring as a proof a video that dates back from 2008 as what Google wants NOWADAYS shows that they don't know what they're expected to do.

The problem is that by acting this way they excite the lensmasters' anger. It would be so easy to work all together to fix these problems. It's not a shame to not have the necessary knowledge: we aren't all experts... And we never die from learning from others. 

On the other hand, there are a few hard heads on the forums that systematically post aggressive comments to anything other lensmasters say. Beware if you post about locked lenses, it's going to provide you with a bunch of aggressive posts regarding the low quality of your work, the high quality standards that are required and that THEY only are able to produce, etc. 

These are inflammatory remarks ! But they seem to pass filters... Strange.

Naturally when such people who also are known for attacking HQ when THEIR work is hit but always attack other lensmasters when their own work isn't questioned, there are a few others who would take defense of the attacked lensmaster. In my opinion, it is a normal attitude.

Now, yes, many old timers post their own thoughts on their own blogs, just like I do. Mostly because we aren't allowed to make such posts in the forums or because our comments on the official blog are systematically deleted. What else can we do to be heard? 

All we want is to save Squidoo. All we want is to save our assets - and theirs by the way.

Unless they don't want Squidoo to be saved. But they should let us know. 

The same goes for the direction Squidoo's taking these days : is it going to become a resource for staying at home moms looking for things to keep the kids occupied? Fine then, but they should let us know : those that don't work that kind of things could move their art, history, and more serious topics elsewhere.

Are sales nowadays forbidden? Fine... Just let us know, people could then create sales pages elsewhere as well.

But all in all, all high quality companies that want to keep their customers and team workers will always listen to both and act in regards of their comments, feedback, whether positive or negative. And that isn't the case on Squidoo these days - this never was, though. 

Posted by Squidoo Angel Prosperity66