Squidaholic, Squidoo's New Policies and More...

A few days ago, some lensmasters discovered the last brand new - ah how to call it? - "invention" of Squidoo: the Squidaholic.com site has been retired! 

From a note written by Bonnie, one of the Community Organizers, Squidaholic was broken and there are no plans to reinstate it in the future. We are supposed to be able to check our stats from our own dashboard.

Yeah, I hear you Bonnie. But how do we check as to whether the cheating still continues on Squidoo? Hwo do me make sure that a lens gets artificial boosts? How do we see that you're giving way too much of a boost to average lenses?

In addition, Squidaholic... broken??? Are you joking? Last time I checked it out, it worked very fine!

Squidaholic was the ideal tool for us lensmasters to see which lens benefited from special "love" from HQ or other angels and lensmasters. This is how we could get information regarding the famous "curtain" lens that was pointed out when that low content hullabahoo started not long ago - after all, nobody except us is able to see our dashboard stats!!!

This is also thanks to Squidaholic that I checked some lenses that outranked mine, while being low traffic lenses, no sales, no likes, etc. lenses compared to mine that made sales every day, that were getting 5 times the other lenses traffic and got more likes that the competing ones would ever have !

Yeah, Squidaholic was the perfect tool allowing lensmasters see who was playing the fool with them.

I'll miss this site very much!

My title includes "Squidoo's new policies"... indeed, I've read their new policies, applied them to my flagged lenses and still, I see a lens of the day that doesn't meet the new guidelines. It's not the first one in one month. I'm now convinced that Squidoo's playing the double standard game. If I wasn't today's LOTD is a real eye opener!

Pictures not credited and empty Amazon modules were the two things I noticed without even reading the lens! I haven't read it, in reality, I was too disappointed!

Bootlickers will certainly bless the lens, like it and thank Bonnie for having come up with this "gem" - that's been made on their brand new coffee theme.

Squidoo's becoming a very unfriendly place, a place where you're afraid to publish anything, a place that you never know if you'll be allowed to create content the way you want - while sticking to the rules. A place where writing has become so frustrating that other platforms like HubPages, Wizzley and others are going to outrank it very quickly. 

Last but not the least, their forum. Ah, the Squidoo forum. I made a few posts on there, and all of them but one have been deleted because they stated the plain horrible truth. Nothing more, nothing less. Just the truth!

One post only was left - probably because other lensmasters replied so quickly that the forum moderator couldn't delete it whithout making it obvious that it was deleted.

It seems that now we're only allowed to post compliments... and don't think new comers don't do it: they just provide HQ with dozens of compliments; to the point that I seriously wonder that what HQ should require for getting eventually a "no" as answer.

Posted by Squidoo Angel Prosperity66

How to Use Pinterest Deserves Multiple Blessings

I haven't been posting a lot about bless-worthy lenses these past weeks - and even months - and this is for the reason that I'm not often at home, often gone abroad, living in two different countries, no laptop, no way to get in touch with the Internet apart from cyber centers, which are places I don't really like.

However, will all the troubles I've been into with Squidoo's news policies, I visited the forum more these past days and discovered a wonderful lens that's not just bless-worthy... It is also blessed five times a day, so I just can't bless it. Each day, I pay the lens a visit, in case one blessing has fade away so that I could sprinkle some angel dust on the lens myself but I haven't succeeded yet.

All in all, this new 5 blessings a day policy is some kind of artificial traffic increase since angels have to get back to bless-worthy lenses over and over again. Another downside of this new policy is that, angels might never get back to the lens because they don't have time to waste getting to the same lenses several times a week.

Naturally, I'm 100% with THAT policy I was one angel asking for! Yes, I love the new rule, I love the fact that we can't bless more than 5 lenses a day. But in reality, I would have loved seeing only experienced lensmasters become angels, and those that trade blessings or bless in the hope of getting likes and blessings in return, have their wings folded for good ! They're well known, so I don't see why HQ didn't enter into action regarding this matter.

Anyways, the lens I'm looking to bless is Using Pinterest Properly, A Promotion Guide For New Users, made by lensmaster Rockinpics. It is an outstanding lens, very easy to read, how-to's are easy to understand, more than many online marketers already explained this new phenomenon. I recommend paying this lens a visit.

Have a good day everyone. See ya soon!

Posted by Squidoo Angel Prosperity66

Where have my deleted lenses gone?

As said in a previous post, I managed to fix my flagged lenses before the deadline and, in the process, deleted some tiny content lenses that I moved on to my own website.

To say the truth, I moved former lenses to Holly Day, a site that, as suggested by its name, relates to holidays and celebrations (like most of my sites) and that now hosts former Christmas lenses (filled with more content than the actual lenses) and former printable game lenses as well.

While HQ greenlighted my Christmas Party lens in a little more than one week (10 or 11 days, as far as I remember), I succeeded at making my Halloween Potluck Party lens unlock itself (while asked for a greenlight as well) and have all my remaining lenses unlocked because of my hard work.

However, in this huge list of 28 flagged lenses, there were a few that needed too much work and stress and weren't that profitable or worth the huge work.

Indeed, since a few weeks, Squidoo traffic dramatically dropped: even more than in last Fall and Christmas; which isn't an incentive for me to work harder than ever. Also, I don't have time to devote to Squidoo: I'm leaving abroad next week and must have my own sites ready for the time I'll be outside the country.

Another thing that makes me not want to focus on Squidoo is that the way they handle things: it seems more important to modify and fix a poll module than take care of spam, junk, etc. It's more important to add more unfocused on-page ads than take care of lensmasters.

When I see that many low traffic lenses, brand new ones, or so outrank mine because of artificial quest boosts, I'm so disheartened that I just don't want to pay more attention than I do. Artificial rank boosts have always been unfair, most good lensmasters don't like them either, but it seems that Squidoo likes playing such games. So, when I see a lens that gets 10% of my traffic and is a few days old while mine is X years old and has made tons of sales, I get a bit angry and don't want to devote too much time to Squidoo any more. 

Ah well, anyways. The post is supposed to let you know where my former lenses have gone.

As said, they're all now hosted by HollyDay.com, my holiday niche site. All these former lenses can be found on the home page's rss feed. It's easy to find them, click on them and go see by yourself. 

While the printable games haven't been changed and simply moved on there, the Christmas lenses have been modified and are now unique. Moreover, even Amazon links have been filled with content...

They've also been properly pinned and I'm going to change their link in the site's blog so that people don't go to Squidoo to find nothing but a blank page.

See you next time for a new rant or good news ;)

Posted by Squidoo Angel Prosperity66

Squidoo Clubs, How Long Are they Going To Last?

I've joined Squidoo back in February 2007 and even nowadays, I'm still amazed seeing how we're repeated the same things over and over again, just using different words.

On the 11th April, HQ made an annoucement for all lensmasters to joing their "groups". Ah... Squidoo's groups. I remember those groups very well ! 

There have been a bunch of groups on Squidoo over the years, none of them survived more than the time it was allowed. Whatever their name, whatever the purpose, no group lasted for long. I don't speak about groups like RocketSquids here - I'll talk about them later. No I mean : groups, like those that do exist now : the veggie group, the pop culture group, and so on...

First they allowed some lensmasters to use Squidoo pages to create these groups. These Squidoo groups were managed directly from the group's main lens and to say the truth, I only joined one of them more or less at the time HQ put an end to these groups.

So group leaders were left with nothing to manage, Squidoo was left with a bunch of useless lenses, that were nothing but links and made the site look like junk.

I remember the next types of groups very well. These were named sister sites, groups, clubs, cobrand or whatever, they still were some kind of groups or at least clubs. Who remembers SquidWho, SquidFlix, SquidBoo Club, SquidPaw club, the Horse Club, the Big Red Bow, the Cupcake Club and so on?

Many of these groups used to have a bespoke designed template on which you could build your lenses. The day they removed those groups/clubs/cobrands/whatever, the template became the basic blue Squidoo template that was introduced a couple of years (not sure about the exact year) after Squidoo's birth and that made SquidBoo, cupcake, SquidWho and other lenses look like junk. I had to manually review all my lenses and set a new template for each of them.

As said: how long did these groups last? Not very long. Each were given a temporary life. What a mess, what a waste of time ! Even the Cupcake Club disappeared although its leader is one of the community organizers!

As for the other groups, well, I do remember the RocketMoms - probably mothers of RocketSquids??? - the Giant Club where we used to get challenges for making our Giant status. There were more groups but I've never joined any of them and don't remember their name.

Some friends and I joined the Giant Club three month ahead of making Giant and worked hard. We were encouraged doing things the right way, it was lots of fun. But Ning replaced its free platform with a paying one and these groups disappeared too. 

There's only one group of this type and on Ning left: the Fresh Wonders of which I'm a proud member. The Fresh Wonders is run by Michelle Willow who never left her members down the road. And we all make a yearly donation for the group to survive.

So, when I head to read HQ's post saying that they wanted us to join the groups, I asked myself: "Do you really want to join a group and work hard while knowing that won't it last long ?" 

Then I thought about the last things that happened, especially the filter that entered into action right before Easter, when all of us were so busy promoting our Squidoo Easter lenses, having so many other things to do than fixing those flagged pages. I also wondered if working hard for one or more groups was a good idea: with the traffic drop the site is experiencing.

Then the answer was quite quick and short : NO.

Still, I told Bonnie that none of the former groups lasted for long. But new Squids have no idea what we, old timers have known and experienced. They'll learn with time. And probably like many, be highly disappointed. 

Ok I'm free to leave, to move my work elsewhere, but in the end, I worked too hard to see all my work vanish forever.

Posted by Squidoo Angel Prosperity66

Did I Manage to Fix my 28 Flagged Squidoo Lenses?

The answer is... Yes! I managed to fix and even to delete some of my 28 flagged lenses! 

Let's start with those "content" lenses that look like nothing but garbage now. Indeed in order for these lenses to work (including the Best Vacation Destinations lens that shouldn't have been a problem) I had to remove the greatest part of the commercial aspect of the lenses.

However, as someone told me a few days ago : I don't write for run or for therapy (I'm fine, thanks, no need of a psychiatrist!), I work online while having fun doing what I do and my small Squidoo income is indispensable to me ! 

So here's what I had to do in order to get rid of the flags :

• Removed most illustrations from those lenses (I generally use affiliate links like CJ, SAS, All Posters and Zazzle links to illustrate my lenses)
• Removed eBay modules
• Removed most standard Amazon modules
• Removed most sidebar Amazon modules

So, when I speak about things that could come in handy in some cases, I wasn't able to feature them. This makes my lenses look like newbie lenses, you know those lensmaster who never saw Squidoo before, created whatever lens on whatever topic and didn't care about the overall design and appeal of the lens.

My recipe lens that was flagged, while carrying 2 different recipes - one very long and one shorter plus a bunch of text - required the removal of some commercial modules either. So, I think it's left with 3 Spotlights and one eBay (not sure about the eBay). The problem is that I couldn't feature the products and tools I used which are important, so the lens looks like... ah well... nothing but junk.

Referring to my flagged commercial lenses, Squidoo's double standards worked pretty well, once again ! As a matter of fact, I was able to republish those lenses with less effort and less heartbreaking actions than for the content lenses.

Does this make sense?

Commercial lenses are what Squidoo always loved. Passing the filter with flying colors is easy: just add a description in your Amazon modules and you're done. The filter doesn't understand what you say so, you could write whatever you want. 

The other thing I noticed is that it seems that it has been set to flag pages that don't carry a certain amount of words regardless of the commercial module descriptions. That is something that's beyond my understanding since when you require from members to play by the rules, you should implement a system that says the same things than you did.

Luckily, I'm proud of my Giant status and I'm also a SquidAngel who used to ding junk lenses and bombarded HQ with reports for policy violation; which resulted into a "ban" that prevents me from commenting on lenses. I just couldn't write anything that doesn't make sense, so I took the time to visit each and every Amazon link I featured on thoses lenses and wrote personal descriptions of the product. It took me more than one week to get rid of the flags on thoses lenses !

I've been a Giant for many years and when I look at my content lenses that had been flagged, I feel like a total noob. Perhaps Squidoo doesn't want us, old timers, Giant lensmasters who worked so hard to earn their badge, to compete against the lensmasters who are bombarded with silly quests every day and are rewarded with artificially inflated lensrank.

Is this artificially inflated lensrank the reason for the huge traffic drop on Squidoo? In 6+ years, I've never seen such a low traffic! It's almost incredible! I have the impression that I'm not on Squidoo but on HubPages!

Because of that dramatic traffic drop, I'm convinced that, apart from my Christmas lenses, my lenses won't earn me money any more. It makes me feel that I wasted my time building 200+ lenses. But here again, I fixed things: I won't be building a single lens in the future and will slowly move the lenses that don't work well to my own sites. With a bit of work, I can turn them into something new that will earn me money.

Be loyal to Squidoo and you'll be rewarded with a kick in the ass.

Posted by Squidoo Angel Prosperity66

Five Lenses Deleted and Totally Disgusted!

Starting last week I've been working on fixing my flagged lenses. After having made decision on what to do with the shopping ones that couldn't be fixed - don't have time or the need or simply don't mind these lenses to be modified and have to let them go elsewhere - I started working on the "content" ones.

Correct me if I'm wrong but content, unique content, written by you content, personal content is what HQ wants nowadays... Hm... So, I considered that content lenses deserved to be fixed while others would be deleted and earn me more money on my sites and blogs.

Well, as I could see, content lenses are those that CAN NOT be fixed and whatever the modifications you do to the lens, it's going to be rejected! Yes! REJECTED by the filter, by Squidoo, whatever, whoever! And that is disgusting!

I just took an eye to their Cozy Magazine; which is supposed to feature only high quality lenses - you know those that they want you to do, with PERSONAL, UNIQUE content, and without a bunch of Amazon, CJ, SAS, ZAZZLE or eBay links.

The truth is that what I could check and see that the Cozy Magazine is filled with junk. Almost empty lenses with a bunch of Amazon personal links - not even those of Squidoo - in them and what... one or two lines content? Well probably not the entire magazine but out of 10 featured lenses, 8 are nothing but junk or against their new policies!

Are these lenses Squidoo's new standards??? ROFLMAO. Nothing changed, still the same junk.

Back to my fixes...

First lens I successfully republished was a shopping lens that I tried to republish after having just added a few lines in the standard Amazon modules - nothing really funny nor creative, just a few words. I could republish with success.

The next one was my Christmas Party lens, a lens that provides a lot of content, I reduced the keyword "stuffing" to 2% and still the lens couldn't republish. Then I filled all Amazon modules with accurate, proper, correct, creative content since it is a lens that really care for, and no way to republish.

Then I removed a large part of the Amazon modules and, once again, impossible to republish the lens. Finally, what I did is ask for a greenlight. It was done last week, one week later : still no answer from HQ. Good... The way HQ deals with members is so disappointing... Feeling like I never did anything for them, apart from creating content that earns them money, of course.

The next lens was my Radio Flyer Trike. I removed everything Radio Flyer that was NOT a trike and the lens republished smoothly.

The next one was the European Vacation lens. Once again I could republish the lens without problem. Those two lenses are also content lenses, although the trike one doesn't carry as much content as the vacation one. Then I republished with success my Free Halloween Graphics page that was filled with html codes for people to pick up and post to their blogs or sites or mails, etc. Some kind of Halloween greetings. Such a lens has been republished without a problem.

It seems that HQ wasn't able to set their filter for empty lenses to be flagged but only to keep off content lenses from being republished. If they want from us to delete all our good lenses, they should let us know... This would allow us to NOT work for nothing, NOT WASTE time reworking lenses that we can republish in any way.

Will keep you updated on how things are going - I think I've 2 content lenses left to fix and then 15 to delete... And I made a decision on NOT writing a single additional page for Squidoo. I'm really done with working for them. After all the work I did for them, I get that kind of "thank you" note... Well, message received. Thank you Squidoo !

Posted by Squidoo Angel Prosperity66

Flagged Lenses - What Am I Going To Do?

So I've got 28 lenses caught in Squidoo's new filter. What am I going to do with these lenses?

Well, I made a decision on trying to fix the content lenses - I mean, those that are filled with huge amount of text. The others are going to be deleted and moved to Holly Day, Make Any Day a Holiday and Best Gift Ideas 4 You; which are two of my personal websites.

I noticed that pages set up like the Squidoo pages I build work pretty well on Holly Day while short gift posts work fine on Best Gift Ideas 4 You. So, no need to waste my time fixing the empty lenses, they're going to find another home, for the best of me... and me.

How am I going to do that?

For example, my party game printables (Easter, Christmas, weddings, baby shower and even the Halloween one that's been online for many years and earned me and Squidoo a huge amount of money) are going to be moved to Holly Day. They'll find a place where to be enjoyed by readers. After all, those that are looking for party game printables MUST see the images as well as get a description of the game, isn't it?

That is what Squidoo doesn't want any more... So, if I can't provide people with accurate information, images AND links where to buy those games, the lenses have nothing to do on Squidoo any more.

The Best Cupcake Tier Designs is going to be deleted and moved to Holly Day as well as I noticed that cupcakes are enjoyed on this site. I'll just find new pictures to display along the page and will publish the page there.

My Red Flyer Trike is going to be fixed - however if the publishing process doens't work, I'll delete it and will move it to Best Gift Ideas 4 You - after all, we can offer a tricycle as gift, hehe.

The Friends Episode List is also going to be revamped - I worked too hard on my three Friends lenses for letting them go without trying to do something. After all, if HQ didn't remove the pages options from Squidoo, this lens wouldn't have been flagged since it wouldn't have been split in three different lenses !

The Christmas lenses - nativity sets, teapot ornaments, baby ornaments, shoe ornaments, coffee ornaments and chocolate ornaments - are also going to be moved to Holly Day without a single modification: they're going to do pretty well on the site since I made a decision on moving It's Christmas Time to Holly Day as well. It's Xmas Time is a Christmas site that isn't doing well these times - I haven't taken the time to update it, therefore, I'm going to make it a part of Holly Day. The ornament and nativity sets pages are going to be a wonderful addition to this category!

Android phones and tablets - which are commercial AND content lenses are going to be moved to Best Gift Ideas 4 You.

My Easy Paella Recipe lens is going to be fixed - although it doesn't carry a lot of affiliate links and even not a lot of Amazon modules - if the modifications don't work, it'll be moved to My Food Secrets, my latest recipe blog...Now it's been a while that I'm thinking of moving all my recipe lenses to my own blog since they don't work well on Squidoo - Americans don't like European food :(

The lens that makes me feel sick is the Halloween Potluck Party one on which I worked as hard as on the Christmas Party or Vacation Destinations ones. I'm disgusted... However, I'll try to fix it and if it doesn't work, this one is going to be moved to My Happy Halloween, my site dedicated to the 31st of October and that gets thousands of visits during the accurate period.

Ah my Thanksgiving recipe and ideas lens is also going to be revamped but just in case the publish button doesn't work, I won't ask for a greenlight, I'll just move it to Holly Day - it is a mostly appropriate page for this site and I was just looking for more Thanksgiving content to add to it.

I'm well known for making lensographies filled with more content than everyone else and oftentimes I've been asked why I added so much content to a lens that would just be some kind of library - curated content and links, you see. Well, I like to provide people with information on what they're going to find in the pages showcased on the lens.

However, two lensographies were caught by the filter ! Yes ! And this is so upsetting that if Squidoo didn't owe me so much money, I'd delete all my lenses at once and would leave. What a mess! So, I'll try to fix the lensographies and if it doesn't work, I'll wait until payday and will let the lenses be locked and even deleted by Squidoo.

My unique cupcake calendars will also be moved to Holly Day. 

Voila. I was looking for content for my blogs and sites and completely lost because in less than three weeks, I once again leave and will be out of office for three whole weeks as well. So my sites and blogs wouldn't have been updated in a long time.

Posted by Squidoo Angel Prosperity66

28 Squidoo Lenses Caught in their Stupid Filter

So, on Monday, I got an email stating that 28 out of my 200 lenses were flagged by Squidoo's new filter. You know that filter that has been set to catch duplicate content, keyword stuffing, overly commercial lenses, poor content lenses, etc. 

Out of those 28 lenses, 24 are CONTENT lenses, content that I wrote myself although English isn't my primary language. These lenses carry more than 2,000 words pure content, while some may even carry 3,000 or more ! Especially the Vacation Destinations lens that has also been caught in their filter.

So, what did I do ? I said that I wouldn't fix any of them but since most are content lenses, I find it hard to have to delete everything of this hard work. Yes, I've been working hard on Squidoo and consider that it is a note of lack of respect to set up the filter to catch CONTENT lenses instead of overly promotional and commercial ones !

Indeed, I noticed that my "commercial" lenses that were caught in the filter passed the fixes with flying colors! That means that, I just had to add a few words in their standard Amazon modules for my lenses to be published while the fixes on CONTENT lenses were rejected!

It just happened once again with my Christmas party planning lens. Don't tell me that there's a problem with my keywords, I removed almost all of them from the lenses, now if someone looks for "Christmas party planning ideas", they won't find my lens anymore. Even not for the keyword Christmas ! 

I asked for a review - however, how does HQ see that the lens has been fixed and content added where it was missing ? How do they know that I removed the "offending" links from the lens? The lens didn't re-publish... So what will happen with my lens and, in the event it ends up locked for good, to my whole account?

I've been part of the duplicate content filter beta test team years ago and know how it works... I wouldn't have written a single lens that would be similar to anything else. 

And a quick look at the top lenses just made me feel like if I was insulted. What's still dancing on top of Squidoo's lenses ? On their "best of the best"? Overly commercial lenses that weren't flagged or just fixed like I did with mine. 

This game is quite unfair for the amount of time we spent working for making Squidoo the site it has become. Worst, it makes me feel that I wasted my time working with them. They tend to forget that happy lensmasters make them make money, built the Squidoo that everybody knows nowadays. 

I'm really disappointed by the way Squidoo treats their lensmasters and even more with those that always agree with everything, thank them for having caught their lenses or even complain because their lenses weren't flagged! Oh my... where are we? Playground for kids? Or adult environment?

Posted by Squidoo Angel Prosperity66