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
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