Seth Godin Sinks the Squidoo Spammers

On 26th June I wrote an article about Squidoo with the rather provocative title – Squidoo Bucks or ... ? - with the specific aim of provoking comment and finding out what other people think about Squidoo.

... Seth Godin

Well it was a resounding success! I got 1 comment! But at least it was a highly significant comment, as it was from Seth Godin himself, the founder of Squidoo and one of the most successful of the Internet gurus. The lack of comments from anyone else may also be significant.

I was not the only person to be writing about Squidoo, however, Michael Arrington at Techcrunch, to whom I referred in my first post, has also written about Squidoo in the past and has recently provided an update on Techcrunch, perhaps he was stung by Seth Godin’s comment on my blog that his last post about Squidoo was more than 15 months old!?

I had intended providing an update on my experiences with Squidoo next week, but I am doing it now for two reasons – a) because I am still interested in discovering if Squidoo is a viable money making opportunity and b) because Seth Godin has just sent out his own e-mail about the issues surrounding Squidoo. In his comment to my previous post Seth Godin said that Squidoo offers great opportunities for making money and I have no reason to doubt this, except that my own statistics so far have not been impressive.

You make money on Squidoo by a mixture of Adsense ads. which are placed automatically by Squidoo (or more precisely Adsense) and stuff you can sell via eBay or Amazon or other stores (not your own stuff, other people’s stuff on which you earn a commission if the sale is made as a result of someone clicking on the ad. on your page).

So let’s take a look at my impressive stats! On 26th June I wrote that I had made the magnificent amount of 44 cents and that my page rank for my excellent Louis Vuitton page had risen to 1842. Well I am now pleased to report that my earnings have rocketed by 25% to 54 cents ( !) and my page rank has taken off into the stratosphere! My Louis Vuitton page Designer Labels, about Louis Vuitton bags and how to spot fakes, is now ranked at no. 581 overall, but more significantly it was number 86 (it has just slipped back to 99 for some unknown reason) in the ‘shopping’ category, which is important as I am now listed in the top 100 of this category. I also had my first two votes, two people voted my page 5 star! Well done and thank you, they clearly are persons of impeccable taste. All very good no doubt, but the bottom line hasn’t changed :-(. I should point out that I do have a 'proper' blog about Louis Vuitton and Designer Handbags Louis Vuitton Designer Handbags

The rise of my page in the rankings is due, I believe, to two factors. The time and effort I have put into maintaining the page, which moved me up a few hundred places, but also I suspect due to the measures Squidoo themselves have implemented, as detailed in their e-mail. They have eliminated many thousands of pages created by spammers, which will make things better for the rest of us and which has no doubt contributed in part to my improved ranking.

In his e-mail Seth Godin reveals a number of interesting details.
"Since we went live with Squidoo just over a year ago, we (okay YOU) have done some amazing things:
* We've built more than 100,000 helpful pages, pages that make it easy for people to learn about new stuff online.
* We've raised a bunch of money for charity. We've built a school in Cambodia, funded scholarships for inner-city kids and done research on juvenile diabetes.
* We've built a community of really cool, extremely smart people who spend most of their time helping each other.
I couldn't be more proud of it."

Pretty impressive stuff, building a school in Cambodia is not something many people have done.

Over 100,000 pages is a lot, but not as many as I had imagined. This has the upside, however, that the competition is also less than I had imagined.

The e-mail also says that there has been a problem with spammers but they are getting on top of it.
"I'm confident that as the web sees that the problem is solved, we'll be back on track, and searchers online will continue to discover your good lenses.
In the meantime, the very best thing we can do is what we've always done: build great lenses (by hand) and promote them (by hand) to people who want to hear about them."

So the jury is still out, Seth Godin does acknowledge that there have been problems, but things are looking positive. I am pleased to see my page rising through the ranks but wonder when this will translate into earnings. It’s good that Squidoo has addressed the problem of spammers as this will improve its image and hopefully also its visibility.

My experience so far? Still mixed, I will continue with my attempts to improve my ranking and I would even go so far as to recommend that you have a go and set up your own Squidoo ‘lenses’. You can set up as many as you like and it doesn’t cost a penny (just some time). You can also vote for my lens Designer Labels while you’re at it ! A top 10 place would be nice. :-)

Reading Michael Arrington’s and Jason Calacanis’s posts it is clear that Squidoo still has issues to resolve, but Seth Godin is undoubtedly highly capable so it will be interesting to see how things pan out.

Please feel free to leave any comments and/or questions - I don't know much but I can think and type at the same time!

squidoo seth godin techcrunch calacanis arrington