I just don't get it. People seem so naive... Ok, what do I mean? Well just that: the temporary and small traffic increase on Squidoo - due to Halloween and Christmas - seems to have provided them with a new kind of faithfulness. Ah, Squidoo's back in Google's good favors.
Hm... I don't believe it at all but if it helps them face life, well, I'm ok.
However I don't see any traffic increase on my Christmas lenses, only on those that have been "evergreen". I mean, those that brought traffic and generated sales all year long although being end of year focused lenses. The kind of traffic I can see, instead means a lot to me: Google definitely doesn't love Squidoo and their lensmasters as much as they used to.
And once again I will make so-called experts in Squidoo traffic scream but once again I'm pretty sure that anything they come up with is, not absolutely false, still... Google doesn't love unique content that much, they don't expect huge content pages either, they want FRESH content. And when I say "fresh", I mean... anything that is fresh! Even if it's scraped content, duplicate, stolen, whatever, as long as it's NEW.
That is why my Halloween and Christmas lenses, that always generated thousands of hits during the matching season didn't generate that much this year.
Was miserable. Never been that miserable! All in all, compared with last years, they could be moved to my Halloween site that's been neglected till 2013, they would get more or less the same traffic numbers.
Grease Halloween Costumes is the only one lens that generated more traffic than any other lens on the same topic and it's a first time for this lens as it had never got any kind of absolutely marvelous figures in terms of traffic. It's a low traffic lens although one that generates sales all year long. I mean, it doesn't get more visits in October than any other month of the year - it just generates more sales.
This year, Grease Halloween Costumes got more visits than all previous years but generated less sales - strange, hm... But given the economic crisis, I'm not surprised.
Addams Family Halloween Costumes generated 3.07 times less traffic then its very first year, 13 times less figures than back in 2012 as, as a reminder, MY lenses weren't hit as much as others last year (between October and December); instead some benefited from even more traffic than any other year.
So figures for Addams Family Halloween Costumes: 5,571 in 2009 ; inscrease for the next years ; huge decrease for 2013 : 1,809 visits this October! What a mess!
All these lenses were created back in 2009. All of them generated traffic during the season until... 2013.
Most of these pages were copied everywhere on the Internet, of course. Still, they never got hit as hard as they've been this year. And this is where I really question the Google's actual demands when it comes to content!
If they wanted unique, informative, correct, no sale page or shopping cart content written from webmasters, then they should index these pages accurately. However this is NOT the case! As most of these lenses were replaced in search results by pages that reproduced MY content!
For example, while looking for other places that would feature my lens content, I found, in the top search results:
So there's no need to be an expert to clearly see that Google does NOT only want unique content, they want FRESH content. Whatever some so-called experts pretend, adding graphics and other stat charts. I'm definitely convinced that FRESH content is king on Google's ORGANIC INDEXING nowadays. In addition, I noticed the trend on most of my niche sites and pages - this happens most of the time on holiday related stuff. Maybe a "desperate housewife" thing?
How could my personal Christmas pages rank between #1 and #5 for specific keywords when one knows that the pages are brand new and feature products for sale?
For example, in a series of Christmas trains I produced for my site, I could find some of these pages ranking really high in search results although these trains have been reviewed for a while and aren't that new. Not that I copied the content from elsewhere, I just neglected my site for years (because I was working hard on Squidoo) and didn't make these pages before this year. However, these trains do already exist everywhere on the Internet, some pages are so old that they should be ranked higher than mine.
Oh wait... NO. Google wants FRESH content! Chances are that by next year, these pages will disappear from the search results.
Now the example of Christmas trains isn't probably the best one since my Christmas train lens performs pretty sell since its very first day: it never generated tens of thousands of visits but it is some kind of evergreen lens that gets traffic all year long and makes sales at least once a week, whatever the season. The more Christmas approaches, the more sales the page generates. Bing and Google are my top traffic drivers for this lens.
I just made a how-to lenslet on how to make a Christmas train and, for the very first time ever, I've seen some traffic generated towards this pages. It seems that Christmas trains are a really popular topic. How-to pages are also really liked.
However, I noticed the same trend on my Christmas village pages. The Halloween village page I created for the other site never brought that much traffic, however Christmas villages are highly demanded and these pages are also quite popular on my site. I should have make a lens about them.
I won't pretend that all the traffic my lenses get come from Google, it would be untrue. For example most of my fun Christmas printable games traffic comes from Pinterest. Strangely, although until last year, the Halloween printable games got most of their traffic from Google, it doesn't receive traffic from Pinterest - at least not buying traffic while the Christmas one does but doesn't interest Google.
My overall Christmas traffic looks like this - please note that, depending on the actual subject of the lens, my Christmas traffic may be higher in November than in December. Unless specified, these figures are those of the month of November.
These aren't my best performing Christmas lenses but those of which the difference between figures are the most dramatic. Now the outdoor decoration lens hasn't dropped like the others, this also must be acknowledged.
All in all, Christmas is miserable for me this year on Squidoo, though Halloween was even worse. I've never seen such a low amount of traffic reaching Squidoo although it's certainly 10 times more than during the year. Still it is miserable and isn't promising for the after holiday season: if traffic is that low now, it's going to be even lower after December.
Whatever the expert amateurs out there pretend, Google has certainly a hidden agenda and that what some of us experience these days on Squidoo doesn't always relate to actual UNIQUE content... It also is a question of freshness. It all depends on your niche, I think.
And, apart from Google, nobody has the answer to what happened to our traffic, and this includes me.
Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66
Hm... I don't believe it at all but if it helps them face life, well, I'm ok.
However I don't see any traffic increase on my Christmas lenses, only on those that have been "evergreen". I mean, those that brought traffic and generated sales all year long although being end of year focused lenses. The kind of traffic I can see, instead means a lot to me: Google definitely doesn't love Squidoo and their lensmasters as much as they used to.
And once again I will make so-called experts in Squidoo traffic scream but once again I'm pretty sure that anything they come up with is, not absolutely false, still... Google doesn't love unique content that much, they don't expect huge content pages either, they want FRESH content. And when I say "fresh", I mean... anything that is fresh! Even if it's scraped content, duplicate, stolen, whatever, as long as it's NEW.
That is why my Halloween and Christmas lenses, that always generated thousands of hits during the matching season didn't generate that much this year.
Halloween season on Squidoo
Was miserable. Never been that miserable! All in all, compared with last years, they could be moved to my Halloween site that's been neglected till 2013, they would get more or less the same traffic numbers.
Grease Halloween Costumes is the only one lens that generated more traffic than any other lens on the same topic and it's a first time for this lens as it had never got any kind of absolutely marvelous figures in terms of traffic. It's a low traffic lens although one that generates sales all year long. I mean, it doesn't get more visits in October than any other month of the year - it just generates more sales.
This year, Grease Halloween Costumes got more visits than all previous years but generated less sales - strange, hm... But given the economic crisis, I'm not surprised.
Addams Family Halloween Costumes generated 3.07 times less traffic then its very first year, 13 times less figures than back in 2012 as, as a reminder, MY lenses weren't hit as much as others last year (between October and December); instead some benefited from even more traffic than any other year.
So figures for Addams Family Halloween Costumes: 5,571 in 2009 ; inscrease for the next years ; huge decrease for 2013 : 1,809 visits this October! What a mess!
- Halloween Ghoulish Party Foods: 9,538 in 2009 ; 1,141 in 2013 --> 8.35 times less traffic
- Scooby Doo Halloween Costumes: 1,701 in 2009 ; 988 in 2013 --> 2 times less visits.
- Halloween Homemade Scary Decorations: 12,020 in 2009 ; 3,725 in 2013 --> 3.23 times less visitors.
- Halloween Homemade Costumes for Kids: 7,662 in 2009 ; 742 in 2013 --> 10+ times less readers.
All these lenses were created back in 2009. All of them generated traffic during the season until... 2013.
Most of these pages were copied everywhere on the Internet, of course. Still, they never got hit as hard as they've been this year. And this is where I really question the Google's actual demands when it comes to content!
If they wanted unique, informative, correct, no sale page or shopping cart content written from webmasters, then they should index these pages accurately. However this is NOT the case! As most of these lenses were replaced in search results by pages that reproduced MY content!
For example, while looking for other places that would feature my lens content, I found, in the top search results:
- Paying traffic positions - since they disappeared from the sidebars - they didn't use my content, of course;
- Stolen content pages - yes sites/blogs that used my STOLEN content ranked higher than genuine pages,
- Pinterest pins - most people who pinned my lenses also added MY content as description, which lead into the disappearence of my own lenses from Google's page results.
So there's no need to be an expert to clearly see that Google does NOT only want unique content, they want FRESH content. Whatever some so-called experts pretend, adding graphics and other stat charts. I'm definitely convinced that FRESH content is king on Google's ORGANIC INDEXING nowadays. In addition, I noticed the trend on most of my niche sites and pages - this happens most of the time on holiday related stuff. Maybe a "desperate housewife" thing?
Christmas Season on Squidoo
How could my personal Christmas pages rank between #1 and #5 for specific keywords when one knows that the pages are brand new and feature products for sale?
For example, in a series of Christmas trains I produced for my site, I could find some of these pages ranking really high in search results although these trains have been reviewed for a while and aren't that new. Not that I copied the content from elsewhere, I just neglected my site for years (because I was working hard on Squidoo) and didn't make these pages before this year. However, these trains do already exist everywhere on the Internet, some pages are so old that they should be ranked higher than mine.
Oh wait... NO. Google wants FRESH content! Chances are that by next year, these pages will disappear from the search results.
Now the example of Christmas trains isn't probably the best one since my Christmas train lens performs pretty sell since its very first day: it never generated tens of thousands of visits but it is some kind of evergreen lens that gets traffic all year long and makes sales at least once a week, whatever the season. The more Christmas approaches, the more sales the page generates. Bing and Google are my top traffic drivers for this lens.
I just made a how-to lenslet on how to make a Christmas train and, for the very first time ever, I've seen some traffic generated towards this pages. It seems that Christmas trains are a really popular topic. How-to pages are also really liked.
However, I noticed the same trend on my Christmas village pages. The Halloween village page I created for the other site never brought that much traffic, however Christmas villages are highly demanded and these pages are also quite popular on my site. I should have make a lens about them.
I won't pretend that all the traffic my lenses get come from Google, it would be untrue. For example most of my fun Christmas printable games traffic comes from Pinterest. Strangely, although until last year, the Halloween printable games got most of their traffic from Google, it doesn't receive traffic from Pinterest - at least not buying traffic while the Christmas one does but doesn't interest Google.
My overall Christmas traffic looks like this - please note that, depending on the actual subject of the lens, my Christmas traffic may be higher in November than in December. Unless specified, these figures are those of the month of November.
- Stunning Outdoor Christmas Decorations: 1,026 in 2009 ; 16,007 in 2011, 2,454 in 2013
- How to Plan the Best Christmas Party: 130 December 2009 ; 2,579 in 2011 ; 332 in 2013
- Homemade Christmas Wreaths: 584 in 2009 ; 7,014 in 2011 ; 584 in 2013 (funny - same figure than when created!)
- Homemade Christmas Gift Baskets: 144 in 2009 ; 2,144 in 2011 ; 282 in 2013
- Themed Christmas Tree Decorations: 618 in 2009 ; 19,253 in 2011 ; 409 in 2013
These aren't my best performing Christmas lenses but those of which the difference between figures are the most dramatic. Now the outdoor decoration lens hasn't dropped like the others, this also must be acknowledged.
All in all, Christmas is miserable for me this year on Squidoo, though Halloween was even worse. I've never seen such a low amount of traffic reaching Squidoo although it's certainly 10 times more than during the year. Still it is miserable and isn't promising for the after holiday season: if traffic is that low now, it's going to be even lower after December.
Whatever the expert amateurs out there pretend, Google has certainly a hidden agenda and that what some of us experience these days on Squidoo doesn't always relate to actual UNIQUE content... It also is a question of freshness. It all depends on your niche, I think.
And, apart from Google, nobody has the answer to what happened to our traffic, and this includes me.
Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66
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