Squidoo Crackdown on Spam and Junk Lenses
Squidoo’s announcement in mid-June has a lot of affiliate marketers running scared – especially those who use article or bum marketing methods and rely heavily on Squidoo for free advertising.
In the supplement to their Terms of Service, Squidoo plans to limit or remove lenses that include:
- Spam
- X-Rated or Porn
- Junk topics
- “Overly promotional lenses”
- Plagiarism
Bum marketing affiliates should be most concerned about #4 – Overly promotional lenses.
In the terms of service supplement, Squidoo says:
So to help you focus your lenses, and sell even better–and to help surfers find our pages more useful overall–we’re introducing a limit to the number of outbound links to the same domain that you can have on a lens. If you have more than 9 links to the same domain on a single lens, your lens could get locked for review.
I can’t imagine why anyone would place 9 links to the same domain on a lens, so that shouldn’t be too big a deal.
However, if you are an affiliate who actively promotes Squidoo’s ever-growing list of Blacklisted domains such as Blackhat SEO sites, reverse phone lookup sites, paid people finder sites and dating sites like AdultFriendfinder – you will find that even one link to those sites will get your lens locked from view.
Get ready to change, delete or move your Squidoo lens
If your Squidoo lens falls into any of the above categories, then you should get ready to change, delete or move it before mid-July as Squidoo advises:
In mid-July 2009, we will start turning on our systems for scanning the site for junk topic lenses, overly promotional lenses, and X-rated and Adult lenses.
If your lens hits our radar for any of the above outlined policies, then and at any point in the future, we’ll lock your lens from view and send you a note to let you know why.
At that time, you will have 7 days to fill out a form requesting a hand review of your lens. We’ll point you to the correct form at that time.
We will have 30 days to review your request. If we believe your lens was flagged by accident, we’ll unlock it for you within that time. But thanks to the ever-sophisticated tools we’ve built, we’re betting on very few false positives.
If you are an affiliate who relies primarily on article or bum marketing methods, I suggest that you read the Squidoo terms of service supplement.
More importantly, I would suggest that you remember the old phrase “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”.
Over-reliance on one marketing method is dangerous and could prove fatal for your business in the long run. There have been far too many instances in which tricky linking methods, Google plays and arbitrage advertising have led to to the partial or complete demise of an affiliate marketer’s hard work.
I feel for those who bought into a program that promises riches through use of only one ‘free’ marketing method. The truth is, that there is no such thing as ‘free’. You will spend time and effort to use that singular method only to risk all that you have worked for.
Use a variety of marketing methods…
In the Super Affiliate Handbook you’ll learn 26 ways to market your affiliate site – and get warnings about 5 marketing strategies that are just a waste of time.
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Posted / Revised on July 5, 2009 under Affiliate Marketing, Article Marketing, Make Money  |
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Rosalind Gardner is a Super Affiliate blogger, author, speaker, and Internet marketing consultant. For more info, subscribe to her No-Hype, No-BS, No Spam NPT newsletter and join Affiliate Blogger PRO to get answers to all your affiliate marketing questions. Thanks for visiting!
Anything that can be done to filter spam and porn out of an otherwise fine system should be met with cheers and accolades, not grumbles and gripes. Most of the Squidoo lensmasters (aka authors) that I know will have no problem whatsoever with these new restrictions. As a Squidoo group owner, I’m looking forward to it.
This may be due to some kinda spam. It will all cool down in sometime or so. As Squidoo is used to derive traffic as well as back links, many people may use it. The post is simply great and it may great a great fuss among people.
Probably about time. I use squidoo, like every other marketer, but I really try to add some value. I try to post up a few articles before adding any links also. If anyone has been abusing and gets deleted, oh well.
I’ve built a lot of squid lenses using paid written articles that seem to get past their checks. They are pretty strict and am not sure yet if the time spent posting everything is worth it
I am just glad that I have tried to make decent quality lenses with the purpose of getting traffic (and a bit of link-love). From your list it seems like I’ll be of the hook
Mikael
Thanks for the update, and I agree that it isn’t wise to have all your eggs in one basket. Squidoo has coped the brunt of internet marketers and I can see why they would want to protect the integrity of their site.
Thanks!
That is a great deal of work that Squidoo had done. I think they should have done it quite before. As per my knowledge hubpages and my opera had implemented this strategy quite before in order to reduce the over-promoting of any website, and same is what Squidoo is doing now. I really think it is a good move made by Squidoo.
Nice post, Ros!
As always: we know we can rely on you!
Thanks!
Leo
My only experience with Squidoo was a good one. Some guy had set up a “dating” lens on Squidoo, and went around the web stealing articles for it. One of them was mine. I emailed Squidoo that the article was plagiarized, and the lens was gone in 24 hours.
It was bound to happen, when ever there is a good thing some people will abuse it.
Great post, Ros! There are a lot of good lenses in squidoo that I love to read. But there are also a whole lot of not so necessary postings. Its a good thing they have taken some time to clean it up.
David
I think Squidoo is taking a right step in the right direction,It will not only maintain its image but also discourage people using this site for wrong purposes,I have also been planning to set up a lens at squidoo but i was little skeptical but now that this measures ahve been taken by squidoo the image comes out as squeaky clean.Now atleast we have some place where we can expect genuine people with genuine subjects and intentions!
Cheers!
With such heavy spamming, I guess all the major and popular sites have to take such steps to keep the site interesting and non-irritating. It is good for readers as well that they get quality contents on Squidoo lenses. Internet users can be assured that they will not be taken to spams or junk lenses when they are searching for some quality information. I think Squidoo took a good decision and nobody will mind this. After all the marketing affilites too want that people come to a site where they are not spammed but find only their quality lenses.
I really think it is a good move made by Squidoo.
Great information and indeed some of my squidoo pages will get deleted
I think the recent squidoo announcement is good as it stop spam lenses being setup, however squidoo should be carefull to not abuse it power as at the end of the day there are other platforms that people could use isntead of squidoo
This is a great article. Very informative. I dont use Squidoo yet but was considering it for Affliate Mktg. Your newsletter is very helpful for a beginner like myself.
I think Squidoo took a good decision and nobody will mind this. After all the marketing affilites too want that people come to a site where they are not spammed but find only their quality lenses.
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Squidoo did a good job since their site is being abused by spammers & it’s about time to clean up their site.
Your Squidoo lens is magnificent, I’m totally looking forward to reading more from you.