Ma buddy Colleen was the first to let me know last week about the latest wanton infliction of grevious bodily harm by our fun loving friends over at Squidoo…
She proceeded to inform me that Squidoo’s cracking down hard with some new rules and regulations, and that many a peep has had their lens whisked from the face of the web in yet another digital genocide against affiliate marketers and shameless commission seeking web plunderers…
How vigorously verbose I am today 
What this amounts to is a crackdown on low quality lenses and excessive promotion.
Of particular note were their comments on what might constitute a junk lens:
“Junk lenses are often described by the relentless number of outbound links to the same exact domain.”
Good call I say.
And their reference, eerie for many I’m sure, to a few of everybody’s favorite Clickbank products (and the affiliates promoting them):
“how to lose belly fat, cure toenail fungus and how to get my ex back… [with regard to] sort[ing] the wheat from the chaff on Squidoo.”
So at the end of the day, a bunch of lenses are going to be shafted… again… and a bunch of people are going to be losing their incomes and having to start from scratch…again…
What’s the lesson??
Well, let me offer you a comparison…
While all this is happening (part of the reason I was late even hearing this news), I’m busy growing the content on, and building links for my own blogs and their individual blog posts…
They’re slower to rank at the start than a Squidoo lens or an article at Ezinearticles.com… sometimes by a month or more, but it doesn’t much bother me…
As I build my own blog, I stick up as many affiliate links as I want… Often a whole blog with hundreds of posts that link to the same product…
No one tells me what products to promote…
And if I mess up… Ain’t nooooooooo one there to get PO’d and shut down my site and my income…
And of course along the way, I might throw up a Squidoo lens with a couple of backlinks to my own blog that no one can take objection to, that help build the rankings of MY site… not Squidoo’s…
So I’m happy about the Squidoo slap.
I’m happy that a new bunch of people are going to be shocked into the realization that they need their own site to build a real business and that building content of a promotional nature on someone else’s domain rather than your own is amongst the most futile money making practices you can engage in short of sending spam emails.
Because make no mistake about it, this isn’t a Squidoo only change. WordPress.com closes blogs with affiliate links, hubpages.com is like a prickly pear for excess promotion, and you can bet your bottom dollar that other sites will be sure to follow suit.
So take inventory of your methods my friends. And remember…
The easy way is rarely the easy way
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Hey Andrew,
While I have been earning $100′s every month from Squidoo for almost 2 years now, I could not agree more. I actually just launched an entire blog based on the principles you’re talking about here (building your own long-term sites, and patiently boosting residual income from value-added content).
In the end, the affiliate marketers that follow this strategy (and variations of it) are those that will triumph.
Great post!
Kyle
AffEmpire.com
Hey Kyle,
I see you’re pretty famous these days… I saw you on a certain sales letter recently – very nice!
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Is the world against online marketers or (and this is my viewpoint) is this a way of sorting out the wheat from the chaff?!
Diseases come and go in life to sort out the weaklings and leave the strong to continue. This is no different, and only helps to make us hard working marketers stronger and better. After all i does get tedious when some fresh faced wannabe comes along and makes tons of cash with very little effort, before disappearing into the ether never to be seen again.
I see my online journey as exactly that – a journey – (the hare and the tortoise comes to mind!). I for one intend to be around for a long long time.
Hail Squidoo I say! Bring it on!
Regards
Jon
Hey Andrew.
I am happy as well about this. Maybe it will help “clean up” Squidoo for those of that market quality products and services, provide unbiased reviews, and promote things that can help others with their situations. I look forward to the “shakeout” over this.
Keep up the great posts.
Hi Andrew,
Point well made. For those who might be a little shocked or upset there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
All change isn’t so bad, especially when it forces one to reexamine their business model with respect to any free web propertties like Squidoo, etc.
Just another case of the many ruining it for the many…
Somehow these things (tactics) always get abused by the greedy types that believe in More’s Law… If some is good, more is better and too much is probably just right!
I know we’re all impatient and want traffic and profits quickly but laying waste to Squidoo, the other social sites or the web in general makes it tough for all of us.
Build your links with quality sites and more slowly and we’ll all benefit and these slaps will happen less and less severely…
I hope I’m not in the minority on this as I think there is way too much junk and too many fake sites already. As Andrew said, build your own quality site and stop abusing others…
Phil
It was bound to happen sooner or later. With HubPages.com beating them earlier this year I think in the Google Page Rank system, they were bound to see sooner or later that something really cool got out of hand by newbie internet marketers and spammers.
I agree with you; Internet Marketing is a fair dinkum business and in order to treat it like one, you have to own a piece of virtual real estate, like a blog. It’ll pay off in the long term.
Still, some people just aren’t comfortable with that, they want to start slow. All someone has to do is make a Squidoo/Hubpages type of website created specifically for Internet Marketing…
Johnson.
Thanks Andrew for another super post. Your emails are all saved for continuous learning and revision.
Keep up the great work .God Bless
Shakuntala
good post Andrew. i’m not a very savvy blogger or marketer YET, but all those ‘links’ and the way it was all done, always felt a bit ‘strange’ to me. I couldn’t put my finger on it exactly, but always had a ‘gut’ feeling that it was a bit ‘unethical’.
That being said, I did , just recently, have Elysia set up a gold pkg. for me so now I’m wondering if my lens will be deleted. shouldn’t be, since i’ve not done anything with it till this point.
Thanks for keeping me posted and I’m looking forward to getting into Firepow next month. Best regards,
John
Nice post Andrew
I bet a lot of people woke up and felt like they just stepped on your Crap Cutter site header…with bare feet lol
I have never really been a fan of Squidoo. In my niches, I have never found a Squidoo lens that I have not been able to outrank with one of my NMOC sites
Good points. That last line sums it up well. It’s been my experience as well that spammy methods tend to yield poor results, because the powers that be will make corrections (slap!), eventually. Thanks.
– A Recovering Spammer
Although I have a couple Squidoo lenses that make a small amount of money, I really can’t consider myself a Squidoo “fan”. Now that they are getting rid of the really crappy lenses (and yes, a I’ve seen a lot of them), maybe I’ll take another crack at making good use of it.
Hi Andrew. A good post and I think we have to face the fact that people are never going to learn simply because the path of least resistance is being chosen all the time. People do what is easy and “easy” is never effective.
It’s much easier to add a few more CB affiliate links for eradicating Celtic Toenail Fungus to the same, (spun for the 127′th time), article than it is to spend a few hours knocking out another half decent article with just a couple of relevant links.
Time and time again in the forums we all hear people griping about Weebly, WordPress, Knol, Hubpages, Propeller etc etc deleting articles and submissions and banning IP addresses. Go figure…
Of course this is good and bad for those of us trying to play the IM game properly. Now, when I say properly I don’t mean to imply a shining white hatted knight, what I mean is that we learn to play by the rules to suit ourselves. Some sites we can get away with using mass submission software and others we can’t. We all need to be a dark shade of gray at times just to stay in the game.
If we want an article to remain permanently, for instance, on a WordPress hosted blog then we have to take the time to make sure the article has at least a modicum of value and, to be super safe to avoid deletion, then just use one toe nail fungus anchor text link – preferably pointing to our own site referencing a decent article. Having a shedful of direct affiliate links is just plain daft IMHO. In fact it’s incomprehensible.
I believe that Squidoo has already had one shake up and this is probably the next big one but is anybody really surprised? We know that Squidoo wants to keep on the right side of Google and the more the content becomes irrelevant the harder Google will slap Squidoo content – which has already been done of course.
(I have a vision of a robot and a squid slapping each other so maybe it’s time for the quiet room!)
I have to agree entirely with what you say about having your own site but as we know it is presently very effective to learn how to use the social media platforms for our linking strategies.
As you say, “the easy way is rarely the easy way” So true.
Ade
Great suggestion on self hosted blogs and having your own site that you control. I have several blogs and all are self hosted giving me full control. The average newb promotes an affiliate link and thinks it’s sooooooo hard to get a site. Sheeesh….domain name registrations are under $15 bucks per year….hosting can be had for under $10 a month, most hosts provide site builders (mine does),blog installers, ready made forums….ok now I’m just rambling…but you get the idea
Hi Andrew,
Nice post… yea its nice that they are removing junk lenses…
What i think they should really do is… remove all incomplete lenses… so many people have registered good names and dont do anything with it…. Its high time they remove those URLs are make available registration again.
Hope someone from Squidoo is listening
Anish
Yeah I wouldn’t mind that either
Andrew
Excellent message. I get so sick of hearing all the talk of promoting affiliate products on Squidoo, HubPages, Blogger, and the list goes on. It’s all basically a form of spamming.
What you said about owning your own site is paramount. Sure, it may take time to build organic traffic from the search engines. But, if you have your own blog or site on your own domain hosted with your own money, it will really pay off over time when compared to being at someone else’s mercy.
Great post.
G’Day Andrew
I hear ya and agree. However you said , quote “As I build my own blog, I stick up as many affiliate links as I want… Often a whole blog with hundreds of posts that link to the same product…
Then at the end of the post you said, quote “Because make no mistake about it, this isn’t a Squidoo only change. WordPress.com closes blogs with affiliate links”
I’m new to blogging and have just joined Firepow, do you mean there is an issue with too many affiliate links in a WPress blog?
Thanks, Vince
that’s blogs hosted at wordpress.com – they get touchy with affiliate links
But that’s not what we make at Firepow. We make self hosted blogs that give you all the control,
no regulations from wordpress.
HTH
Andrew
I see this as a very positive thing as it will get rid of a lot of “questionable” practitioners of IM. Through the school of ‘hard knocks’, I have learned that the “Free and easy is not so Free or easy” (I wonder if I should patent that?). If you can’t afford to get your own site, should you really be in business in the first place?
It will be interesting to see what remains after the slap.
You definitely hit the nail on the head – again!
Andrew, as with all slaps that are made to raise the quality of any given recourse I say great. This will only make Squidoo more valuable in the eyes of the search engines. The only people that get hurt by this type of correction are those that try to game the system.
I use Squidoo as a resource for promoting my sites or my clients I happy to see the team at Squidoo take this action!
I am happy that I never had time to spam Squidoo with lenses. I think I have two up over there.
About getting your own web page – I picked up a .info name for a redirect a couple of months back for only .99 for the first year. Shoot, I think you can find hosting for $4.00 a year. So there really isn’t any excuse to not having your own website.
Yeah I noticed some of my squidoo lenses get he slap but for the last 3 months I have been busy building my own websites and seeing profits rise the slow way. The hare won the race right? Excellent post. I’ll stick around to see some more content.
Very true Andrew. It is far easier to convert from your own blog as well because you have the ability to change the layout and control the actions of the reader. Kills me how people rape and pillage these great article sites with “crap” content and mess it up for the rest of us that do things the right way. Oh well, cheers to another great article!
DEFINITELY easier to convert – I should have included that. Thanks for sharing mate!
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
I couldn’t agree with you more.
Thank You
Great post, Andrew. In the long run this change can only be of benefit to all of us. A much-needed spring clean…
Yak yak – so seems I will be the only one to step into your mass hailing of the new Squidoo-found-autocracy
Although, I have to admit it is Their site/webspace/real-estate, so they can do whatever they wish with their guests!
I just Don’t like if somebody is restricting my (anybody’s) freedom of speech/expression. Originally coming from the communist regime I do have a Deep aversion to any of the Big Brother techniques which are being implemented more and more here – on the last (at least relatively) freedom frontier
If you Don’t like it – Don’t read it!
I don’t see a reason Why should I buy and build a new website for every idea I would like to get opinion of other peoples, or just share my experience. And Squidoo was perfect for this. So it was good for research to find out what worked for other people. And if they had a good experience with some product/service Why for Emino’s sake I would be upset if they sent me there through some affiliate link. I didn’t have to pay more, and I Don’t mind if somebody else got some extra money for a good tip/saving me time. I am not affected by the illness called “jealousy of more successful people”
And I find it Extremely Ironic that at the same New Rules page they are talking about not allowing to promote many/most Health products they have a Huge Banner ad for some stupid Beauty or Anti-aging product.
Thanks Andrew,
I’m not surprised. So many people have been promoting squidoo lately as a quick fix to getting ranked on google. While this is good, too many have taken advantage and loaded their lenses with affiliate links all pointing to, as you so rightly say, the same site.
Squidoo is one of the best places to be to get ranked on google, but you have to have a good lens. I now use my own blog/blogs and though they do take longer to get ranked, they are MINE. nough said.
Robin
It would be interesting to listen what PotPirGirl (one week marketing) has to say about this.
I only use squidoo as a 3rd party linker to my blogs, I no way rely on them as a sole source. I knew last year that this was going to happen. There needs to be control or the site overall will suffer.
Andrew,
I always believed that one should use Squidoo as a medium to achieving a few links from a high PR site, not as a full-blown business site. I know some people have used it for this purpose and they therefore should not be surprised when their business is closed down.
Besides which, one should not have all their eggs in one basket. Squidoo should be a part of your overall promotion strategies, not the only one.
Great post. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Kind regards,
Barry
Hi,
No doubt there will be many who will complain that the Squidoo slap like the famous Google slap is an unfair restriction on their profit making opportunites. Like most of your respondants I think Squidoo is doing a good thing.
Complaints would be rather like muggers and shoplifters moaning about the security provisions at the local market.
Another great article that I have ever found.
Your writing and ideas are very useful. I have just the one blog at the moment. But after reading your ebook I decided that I need to start up some new sites. Blogging did seem to be q bit too much if I had to write and post for several of them daily. So small content websites will be the way forward for me.
Thanks once again.
Great post Andrew,
I have a few lenses up, and all point to my blogs. I do have one lens that has a link to a clickbank product. I have always felt that I want everything I do to point to my blog first, then send them straight on to the aff. link.
At least then, I will have the links coming in to me, and not somewhere else… also, maybe google likes me better when I get traffic coming to me from somewhere besides its search engine? Heck, I don’t know.lol
Great post nonetheless, and am going to check out the scanners you recommend above.
David
Hi there… Found this blog trough Google.
Just wanted to say hi and complement you on this blog.
I’m not a very experienced blogger, yet, but working on it.
This blog is a good help