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? 

I'd say yes... However, it all depends on your topic or niche if you prefer this word.

As an example, I have a lens about Eleanor of Aquitaine. I'm pretty sure that removing some books from the lens won't affect its traffic since readers come to the lens because they want to learn the history of that French queen that became later queen of England. Not to buy an Eleanor of Aquitaine cutlery set nor shower curtain.

So they don't really need visual appeal, they actually need CONTENT.

Instead, my Halloween gypsy costume lens doesn't need a lot of content since my visitors come TO BUY gypsy costumes. They actually want to see the range of gypsy costumes that's available online, they want to see if those costumes are provided in their size, they eventually will buy the costume from my lens and not from another site that didn't perhaps provided them with the needed information.

This type of visitors don't need content, they actually need PRODUCTS.

Both are legit lenses, in my opinion, however I'm pretty sure that my Halloween gypsy costume lens won't get as much traffic as last year since it doesn't provide my visitors as many different costumes as they used to see on it. Needless to see that they're quickly going to check another site that will give them what they want and won't recommend my lens to anyone - last year, they did recommend it.

I'm going to post a few modified lens stats. You'll find traffic 2011, 2012 and 2013 for the month of July  PLUS June 2013 in order to see the before/after impact.

Grease Halloween costumes:

• July 2011: 425 visitors - lens provided a bunch of different Grease costumes
• July 2012: 772 visitors - idem
• July 2013: 262 visitors - lens was modified, most costumes removed, keeping one costume/character.

June 2013: 304 visits

Halloween pin up costumes:

• July 2012: 352 visitors
• July 2013:  59 visitors (modified)

June 2013: 73 visits

Addams Family Halloween costumes:

• July 2011: 580 visitors
• July 2012: 466 visitors
• July 2013: 99 visitors (modified)

June 2013: 111 visits

Scooby Doo Halloween costumes:

• July 2011: 188 visitors
• July 2012: 197 visitors
• July 2013: 89 visitors (modified)

June 2013: 82 visits

And so on.

These lenses were modified between the beginning of July and the 15th. None of them recovered traffic since then, instead, traffic dropped.

Yes, the month of July isn't finished yet but still, I'm conviced I won't get 400+ visitors to my Grease costume lens in two/three days (here we're 2 1/2 day from the 1st of August).

The only lens that didn't seem to have been hit by those modifications is the Scooby Doo one but in this case I wouldn't put that on the back of the change: instead Halloween's approaching and it's the last Halloween lens I modified - July 16th. So the 7 additional visitors can't have come to see less Scooby Doo costumes. Instead, I might have gained people interested in the Mystery Machine story.

Did I mention that I don't plan on making any new lens? Although I'm fond of Halloween stuff and get ideas every day, I just don't plan to write them on Squidoo as they won't be safe. In addition they won't pay me for the work I do while building these lenses.

I could move my entire Halloween collection from Squidoo to another platform, however it's not worth the hassle right now since Halloween's only in 90 days and that these pages won't get the deserved traffic and, therefore, me not getting the deserved payout.

Although I don't expect any kind of great payout for fall and winter holidays, I will leave the lenses on there. I might delete and move them once I get my payout.

What's the point leaving lenses on a site where they don't perform any more, a site that doesn't want them in their original and best performing form. A site that doens't care what I can do and how I feel regarding the mess they're pushing most of their oldest and faithful members.

Posted by Squidoo Angel Prosperity66