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| RIP SquidU our in-house archive Image: courtesy of Squidoodles |
From the average Squid who never really cared about his membership to the one that got so much involved in the site that they sacrificed their entire life to HQ's many silly and useless inventions, like the latest "Best of Squidoo" (hahaha) and their famous "Contributor Club" (where they exploited their faithful followers to death).
These Squids feel misled and who wouldn't? Though, I'll never undestand why they placed 100% of their faith in someone they've never seen, never met in person, that never shown he cared about them, and that is not a close friend or family member. And even so, sometimes one notices that they can also cheat on us.
There was clear evidence that the site was sinking, that it was hopeless trying to save it. The culprit is in my opinion - an the one of many others - HQ who didn't hire the appropriate people to save the ship. In my opinion, this closing is deliberate and long planned. I will never think otherwise unless proved otherwise. It was probably planned 2 years ago and these 18 past months have been awful agony for the site. If anyone needed more evidence, it is mostly because they didn't remove their pink glasses and still lived in La-La-Land.
Anyways. One particular article stands out from the crowd and it is the one that is named Why Squidoo Failed: Or How Its Abusers Cannibalized One of the Most Promising Sites on the Web and was published earlier this week on HubPages by a former Squid.
Here I am going to reply point by point to the 9 reasons Why Squidoo Failed. Because although this article does point the mistakes perfectly, the writer doesn't want HQ to take their part of responsibility in this mess. And because the way the article is written, it is offending for most of my former fellow Squids. And when I write "fellow Squids", hear: all honest Squidoo member, those I liked and those I didn't like at all. Because honesty and integrity don't care how much you like someone or not.
One thing I'm going to be missing to support my reply are the old SquidU forums, which are a gold mine of evidences. Also note that I won't write a thousand words in reply to each point.
So here we go.
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| Piracy on Squidoo Image: courtesy of Squidoodles |
1. Affiliate marketers were abusers
It is not new that, whenever there's a hole that enables marketers to exploit a site, they are going to rush to take advantage of it. It would have been easy to put an end to the exploitation but HQ didn't take measures. Some of these ways to exploit the site were even born in the old SquidU forums!
Do you remember one of the many affiliate marketing challenges that was backed up by HQ 4 years ago and that would take place on Facebook? What was taught? Using members' own affiliate links and skip Squidoo's integrated commercial modules.
By the way, the credit to the picture at this point in the Hub should not be "unknown" since the marketer's name is on the ebook image.
Next come those that used to build lenses using a well known software. Well, it wouldn't have been hard to "nuke" these lenses. They were recognizable...
2. Parasites on Squidoo
The writer seems to forget that only ads displayed in SOME SPECIFIC MODULES were entirely paid to lensmasters. Amazon and eBay integrated modules' earnings were entirely paid to Squidoo that would split fifty-fifty the earnings between the commission generator and themselves.
ALL ads displayed on Squidoo lenses were paid to Squidoo that would split fifty-fifty between paying tiers and themselves. So at this point I'm quite sure Squidoo didn't lose any more money than on lenses that wouldn't feature a single product, whether a in-house one or an external one!
Moreover it was not mandatory to use any commercial module! The one new feature that asked us to add a commercial module at some specific point of our lenses (5th module if I remember) was introduced AFTER the Google slap last year.
Though on Squidoo we were kindly provided tools for not sharing our earnings with HQ. Anybody recalls SQUIDUTILS? A site that would enable you to use YOUR affliate ID only. The software was praised and promoted in the official forums and a plugin to add to our Squidoo account was developed by SquidUtils (a plugin that would provide us with a more elaborate dashboard, not a link builder). So don't tell me HQ wasn't aware of how did the SquidUtils Amazon link builders worked!
Squidutils' owner was even hired by HQ at one point. So if not using such a software and thus not sharing our earnings with the site owner was putting it at risk, why didn't HQ take measures?
HQ should have made it clear from the start (back in 2005) that everybody was supposed to add at least ONE in-house commercial module!
3. Those that used to game lensrank
Aaaaaaaaaah, my favorite ones. It's been a very long and hard battle between those abusers and those that would report them to HQ since 2007! Once again one regrets the disappearance of the old SquidU forum as it was filled with related topics!
As a former SquidAngel I reported thousands and thousands of lensrank gamers to no avail. Some of us were even required to shut up once for all. Some were told that it was NOT their job to police the site and its cheaters.
The writer tells in a comment that she was in the beginning, a Zazzler and came to Squidoo to promote her Zazzle store. Well I would say that, once again, a check at SquidU would have been helpful as Zazzlers were one of the site's worst lensrank gamers ever! How many Zazzle threads did we report? Zazzlers planning a huge Squidliking spree or asking for mutual likes and/or blessings if one Zazzler appeared to be a SquidAngel!
The writer also forgets that there was a time when we used to have the option to take an eye on Squidoo lenses stats through Squidaholic.com. The site that was taken down one year ago so that we couldn't get access to any kind of stats! From Squidaholic, we could see how many visits a lens would get, it was a gold mine of information. And we thus would know why a lens would dance in tier 1 - the most attractive tier ever.
Here again I've seen a wide range of lenses that actually deserved to be in tier 1: those that used to drive traffic. I'm sorry but when a lens drives 40,000 visitors/ week to itself, and thus sales follow, it deserves a place in tier 1. Though when a lens with 100 visitors/week, 10 angel blessings in a row, 100 likes from a liking spree and HQ's favors, I think it didn't deserve a place in tier 1.
Once again, HQ is the culprit in these games! They provided too much weight to internal traffic despite the fact that money was brought by EXTERNAL traffic! We told them but the answer was as usual: we don't care.
Same answer applies to the coloring pages! They all started with the huge popularity of ONE specific lensmaster's original coloring pages. Then one other lensmater exploited Disney's coloring pages. And was followed by the crowd. When HQ was warned of the risks, they asked us to shut up.
And I don't even mention those that used to update their lenses each and every day like clockworks. Once again, they were reported but HQ didn't pay attention. Instead they encouraged these updates for years. Softwares were used for updating large accounts, once again, we told them, once again no reply or a short "shut up".
4. Those that copied others' lenses
The copycats... Well I remember the time when HQ suggested to all Squids, to take an eye to the existing lenses and that if they were not as good as they should be, then we would take them over - hear create our own lenses about the very same subject but make it better.
Here again the writer doesn't seem to know that.
In addition, these past 18 months, HQ made it nearly mandatory to create multiple lenses on the very same subject with their silly quests.
How many of us posted their worries in the official forums or blog? How many of these posts disappeared within the 5 minutes of posting? How many of us were simply banned from the official forums for not cheering any stupid idea that would KILL the site HQ would come up with? We're countless lensmasters permanently banned!
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| Squid under cover Image: courtesy of Squidoodles |
5. Lens transfers and sales
Lens marketplace was set up for whatever reason, I must admit that I don't remember which one. But one thing I clearly remember is that those custom built lenses were supposed to be edited and updated - adding content, affiliate links whenever useful.
Then here again, the lens marketplace was pubicly opened in SquidU and HQ could see the threads, the complaints, the worries, the warnings... They didn't do anything against that, except that they removed the transfer feature last year. When it was too late, once again.
Yes this opportunity enabled undelicate people to sell rubbish to others, create rubbish for themselves, etc. However Angels, greeters and many other lensmasters were there to report these lenses. Once again HQ's reply was... "We don't care" - or no reply at all. Because communication was not one of HQ's strengths... Most of these reported lenses were still active on the site even months after we reported them in mass.
Then HQ introduced the "gift lens". That was when we used to create a lens and then transfer it to another lensmaster. As Fresh Wonders' members we did it once. We created How To Squidoo best practices lenses and transfered to our leaders' account. We never gamed the system. And most lensmasters didn't either.
6. The lenslets
Squidoo was in December 2012 for some and in March 2013 for others, penalized by Google - hear we were HIT dramatically. I'm of those that think it was actually penalized in March 2013 for massive updating of lenses and mass deletion. The penalty was never removed since massive deletion of lenses never stopped.
These are my thoughts, which you are not obliged to share. Each of us has their own beliefs when it comes to penalization.
Then the writer pretends that "baby" lenses (hear small lenses) were the culprit. Strangely, in response to the Google slap, HQ came up with the idea of what we call "lenslets".
These lenses are very short: 250 words min, a very few number of modules can be added, three or four max, I think and sold them to us as "quick and easy to build lenses". Or "the 1 hour lens". Wow! In one hour, I'm pretty sure one is able to create a page that stands out from the crowd!
The thing became even worse when HQ made it a requirement to build three of such awful silly lenslets as a way to renew our Giant status!
Who gamed the system? We or HQ?
7. Spamming
There have always been spammers all over the Internet. But who encouraged lensmasters to post their links everywhere? I bet you know...
Latest spam game: Love Squidoo Friday... Post your lenses with Love Squidoo hashtag to Twitter and spam your followers.
One of their favorite game: spam your Facebook contacts, and all kinds of social media.
This has always been encouraged by HQ.
8. Those that didn't want to sink with the ship
Whenever a lensmaster would scream "me, me, me" or "don't wanna lose my traffic", it was ALWAYS for good reasons! Lot of times HQ introduced new banners, new ads, new pop up ads that you couldn't close - no need to tell you the impact on our readership!
We would know exactly where the brand new feature would lead. We knew exactly how many readers we would lose.
Then came the latest stupid band on top of all Squidoo pages. Those where we were forced to share our traffic with those that
- reported us to HQ so as to have us banned,
- those that didn't do a thing to promote their work,
- those that would game the system,
- not being seen with the rubbish that's included in these best of things,
- and so on.
Yes it was absolutely normal not to want to share OUR hard work with them.
9. Those that left before the end
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| Squidoo's death penalty Image: courtesy of Squidoodles |
Those are the lensmasters who left Squidoo when the "ship" started sinking. They were often very old timers, those from the early beginnings. They were Squidoo's best assets. They got their lenses locked, some of them got their entire accounts locked and even sometimes deleted.
Why would they have stayed?
Would you have been faithful to a site which HQ's deletes the best content pages you built and seems to never lock and/or delete the real junk?
Then there are those marketers who helped build the site's traffic as well. With the reduction of Amazon links, sales dropped dramatically. Those that joined Squidoo for the earnings they could get had obviously no reason to stay on there. But as said earlier, most of them had so many locked lenses that it was worthless trying to save their accounts.
By mass locking their biggest traffic drivers, HQ signed the end of Squidoo.
Phew, it was long...
I have another point to make. Squidoo was set as curation content site that would enable you to make money at the same time. Making money has ALWAYS been Squidoo's goal.
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| Squidoo as seen in 2006 Yes you could even get paid building Squidoo lenses! |
And then on Friday 15th August 2014, Seth Godin popped up for the first time in ages and let us know he SOLD Squidoo's "key content" (without more details) to HubPages and if we wouldn't agree with the move (and the selling of OUR work out of which we wouldn't get a single red cent), we would also even lose the money Squidoo owed to us.
This last part was corrected a few days later. But still the cocktail was bitter...
For me and most of my fellow lensmasters, yes, HQ is responsible for the end of the site. Megan's departure signed the beginning of the end. The fact that it seems that nobody was there to take the lead was a very bad sign. The owner taking distance with the site for 2 - and even more - whole years affected the community as a whole, its faith in the leaders, its faith in the future. And the way the remaining team at HQ led the site was the axe that translated Squidoo into a thing of the past.
I do think it was deliberate. I'll never think otherwise unless proved otherwise. I wrote many articles predicting the end of Squidoo by the end of 2014 and even sometimes by June 2014. It is finally on October 2014 that Seth Godin is going to proceed to the lethal injection.
And although the author of the mentioned Hub is not wrong in everything, I pretend she is wrong about the culprit.
Then I'm definitely disappointed with some reactions of lensmasters I respect and like.
NB Some of the former SquidU forums' archives can be accessed through the Wayback Machine - the Internet Archive. Just make sure to first access SquidU.com archive and on the result page select a link that you want to read, then clean up the link and remove Wayback Machine's link and paste it into the WayBack Machine once again to read what was saved from the page.
Here is an archive of the Chatter Box...
Posted by Holly Day a WAHM who is able to turn any day into a holiday.
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