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.
The point is that it seems that's a new surge or URL reclaiming on Squidoo and even some marketer selling locked lens URL lists for more or less $25 - actually prices increase after each sale.
Why were reclaimed URLs locked as well?
I wonder if those lensmasters who reclaimed their own URL posted the exact same content on these lenses, or didn't rewrite the content. They may well have just built a thin content page or worse these days: a shopping cart styled one.
What's Squidoo's position about reclaiming URLs?
I don't remember having read anything regarding this matter on Squidoo HQ's blog but with the huge amount of information - oftentimes contradictory information - that we've got from HQ these past months, I might have missed the post.
Are we allowed to reclaim one locked lens URL?
First, we can't claim a locked URL because it's locked and, therefore, we must wait till the lens is deleted and removed from Google's index. An alternative is that as soon as one of our lens is locked, we delete it - if there's no money sitting in it and we reclaim the URL. That would be the frank and perfectly honest way to do it.
There is another way to do so, but I consider it less frank: creating a new account and reclaim the URL from that unknown account - no locking history that can follow the person. Personally I wouldn't do that but well, we aren't all made the same way.
Is the reclaimed URL going to get locked as well?
If the purpose of such behavior is posting the exact same content on it, it will more likely end up locked in less than 24 hours. Moreover, we never really know the actual reason behind a lock, therefore that reclaimed URL might very well have a bunch of banned backlinks that will get the brand new one locked in less than 24 hours as well.
Is the reclaimed URL going to get as much traffic as the former locked one?
That is another question and it's left to Google's (or any other search engine) sole discretion. How do we know how well that new lens is going to perform? Unless we consult some fortune teller, I'm not sure that a locked and de-indexed lens is going to benefit from the former one's traffic AND page rank...
In my opinion, a page that was de-indexed shouldn't benefit from its previous rank since it's de-indexed, disappeared from Google's archive - or cache - and, since there's no history attached to the page any more how could it benefit from its past history? Still, I'm not a search engine specialist so I can't provide an answer.
What's the point selling former locked deleted lens URLs, then?
That is the $1,000 question! What's the point doing so!
I've seen some articles relating to this matter - because one well known marketer put those lists for sale. I read those articles and didn't comment - apart from one forum post made about it - because I consider putting for sale someone else's deleted URL unfait.
Don't take me wrong: if I deliberately delete a lens URL and don't reclaim it, I don't mind anyone else claiming my former URL. Mainly, I deleted not performing lenses or shopping cart ones that I didn't want to take the time to edit and turn into something Squidoo would agree with. So if anyone can benefit from those URLs, good on them!
However if I were in the position of a punished lensmaster whose lenses were locked or whose account was entirely locked and hard work entirely deleted in 7 days, then I would consider this particularly offending! Those didn't deliberately deleted their lenses, most of them were so surprised, upset, depressed that it makes sense that they didn't act as quick as some outside marketers would act!
In this case, I consider selling these URLs particularly unethical, even worse: a particularly dishonest step in marketing.
All in all I think that by locking too many lenses, Squidoo has opened a new opportunity for Internet marketing "gurus"... Although locking a big part of the lenses published these past years was necessary, I think that they went too far in their endeavours in order to salvage the site. And as I can see things going on these days, I suspect that a new bunch of junk is about to be created just because the door was opened - with probably the best goals in mind...
But as we say: Hell is paved with good intentions :(
Posted by Squidoo Angel Prosperity66
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