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:
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
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
I was wondering why all this effort was going into book and movie reviews. The commission on those is pretty lame even if you sell a bunch.
ReplyDeleteAnd this also is a valid point regarding this matter. Why on Earth would anyone spend hours a day building pages that aren't going to earn them more than a few cents, if any?
DeleteMy experience with lenslet is bad. Little to no traffic. I created them in the toy niche so I could move them to one of my site.
ReplyDeleteI already did move one and lo and behold it made some sales from my blog. Same exact post, nothing changed at all. Why? Because it's in a niche blog with lots of related content around it I suppose. Not sure.
Anyway, in my case, lenses that make money are those offering a list of products, ideas and such.
Unless you are one of the chosen few that get featured over and over on the homepage (recently one lensmaster had 4, or 5, lenses on front page!!!!), don't expect lenslet to do that good (not saying you won't make sales, but certainly not as much as longer lenses with lot of picks).
I don't go much to the official forum now, because it's depressing. I love Squidoo but I feel it doesn't respect/love me any longer
My experience with lenslets is +/- the same as yours. I do think it's because of the niche focused sites or trust from your faithful readers? Who knows... As for my best selling lenses, like yours, they offer a wide range of products of the same category.
ReplyDeleteThe censorship and the accusation that those of us who were offering constructive criticism were being "negative" are just two of the reasons why I quit Squidoo.
ReplyDeleteYou also ask: "Why on Earth would anyone spend hours a day building pages that aren't going to earn them more than a few cents, if any?"
Exactly what I have been thinking for awhile.
Moreover, if we really want to build informational pages that don't earn money, we can do so on Wikipedia... The only place the traffic doesn't seem to fade away. Now Squidoo doesn't look like Wikipedia in any way.
DeleteIt's so hard to know what to do at this point. I moved many of my locked lenses but still have some that do reasonably well. But I have to say, I don't feel secure about my work there - not like I did for so long.
ReplyDeleteWatching and waiting it out..........
I dunno myself what to do and am more watching than acting in this matter. I set myself a limit to 31st December 2013 and then make a decision, however there's always that interrogation mark at the end of any limit: maybe... ?
DeleteSo I'm watching and waiting as well but doesn't really help me getting positive... :(
I've stopped building and maintaining lenses and will probably ditch the few that I still have if I don't see some changes by the end of January '14. Squidoo really screwed up what used to be a very good thing. Tragic.
ReplyDeleteI reapplied for Gianthood so I'm forced to build 5 lenses per year but once traffic will revert to 0 on all my lenses, I'll probably opt out from this programme.
DeleteI just can't believe what I see when I log into my account. Lenses with 0 traffic is something I've never seen for soooooooo many years. I even don't remember having seen that number at all except this year.