Google has seemingly “slapped” Squidoo by decreasing lens SE results ranking – across the board. I was first made aware of the issue before it hit Income.com or other websites, inside The Immediate Edge, where Ed Dale lovingly coined the “Squidoo Slap” name.
Techcrunch speculates the Slap comes as result of Squidoo’s harboring, and allowing, thousands of spammy webpages to bloat their site; Squidoo has responded with new measures to clean up their, and their LensMasters’ act.
It, of course, remains to be seen if Squidoo will ever regain it’s favor with Google – it was a great site to get quick indexing from and lenses ranked uncommonly well in Google for their target keyphrase.
There is a lesson to be learned here, of course – never put all your social marketing efforts into one basket, or website, so to speak. If your business, you income, is currently based on traffic you receive from Squidoo, you’re Squid-screwed right now.
I employ a healthy mix of traditional SEO with new social media techniques. And my social media techniques are scattered all across the internet. It is, truthfully, a pain in the arse to have logins to hundreds of websites, pages and profiles and articles, lenses and networks from here to Katmandu, but it pays off when one of them loses favor – or even shuts down.
I always have a backup, I always have hundreds of sites working together to boost my SE rankings and send me natural traffic. Which is precisely why I didn’t notice the Squidoo Slap until it was pointed out to me.
I’ve been considering releasing my own, personal, social marketing hotlist – that is, the sites I work with for links and traffic and exactly how I do so. I’ve been putting together Camtasia tutorials for my employees and have even thought of releasing those – they are unedited and pretty raw, but they’re exactly how I publicize a new website.
This is a good reminder to look at your own traffic generation methods and see how you can diversify.
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Great idea Michelle! If you do put something together for release, and it includes a section on PlugIM, be sure to let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. I’d love to get involved with a project like that.
“you’re Squid-screwed”
that’s funny. my fist time here, but i too would love to see your social marketing hotlist published. i’ll be keeping my eye out.
Thanks Ryan! It would, of course, include PlugIM if I decide to release it – I love PlugIM!
I think it is a good thing that they have removed things like iframes, the pornsters were abusing that fucntion.
I also think people are panicking without thinking, I can’t believe that anyone was using squidoo as their only source of links and income. So it is a blip, not the end of the world. Ed dale did mention that the lenses with backlinks were still doing well, so the same rules as always apply.
Backlinks make the world go round.
I would love to see that list, and the videos sound interesting as well.
Paul Forcey
Yes, that is really funny… This is my fist time here too, and of course I’d also love to see your social marketing hotlist published…
Jorge Sampson
Hey Paul,
Unfortunately, there were tons of folks depending on Squidoo, and Squidoo alone, for their traffic/income.
For those people, this is a huge wake-up call.
Right now I talk a lot about using online video – and I think it’s integral to one’s marketing campaign for several reasons I’ve espoused in other posts – but I would NEVER suggest one abandon other techniques and depends entirely on YouTube/video sites for all traffic.
That’s just dumb.
Diversify!
Anyway, I’m confused a bit about what Squidoo is going to do, what now constitutes spam, etc. Because one of the main points of Squidoo is that it allows affiliate links and promotion of products/services. That was it’s big selling point originally. So now everyone’s all “Oh, spammers ruined Squidoo…” when in fact, the “spammers” were often doing exactly what Squidoo was originally intended for.
(Porno Iframe redirects, obviously, not included…)
I’m curious to see what the new expectations/rules will be. In the meantime, I’ll focus elsewhere and let it all play out….
Hi Michelle,
I had the opportunity to interview Seth Godin on the “Squidoo Slap”
Diversify, diversify, diversify…
There are an aweful lot of Social Bookmarking, Social News, Social Media and Social Networking sites out there with huge memberships.
The issue becomes finding them and having time to ‘effectively’ work with them…
I would think that the more we can ‘effectively’ work with the better. I don’t mean spamming the sites but working with them on a one at a time basis. But I also think it’s okay to communicate the same or similar message or post to many sites.
Sorry for the shameless plug but I honestly agree… We should never put all our eggs in one or even ‘very few’ baskets…
Greg
hi Michelle – Great post
There have been a lot of comments and questions on what really happened with Google & Squidoo
I interviewed Seth Godin on the “Squidoo Slap”
http://www.searchingdot.com/2007/07/17/interview-with-seth-godin-on-the-squidoo-slap/
take care
Howie
Hi Michelle,
Thanks for the great article on the Squidoo Slap.
Google loves content and it’s good to see that Squidoo has indeed taken measures to ensure quality.
I used to get a lot of traffic from squidoo this has unfortunately dried up. I agree with the comments of social buzz master, there are now many social bookmarking networks, however they take time and dedication to benefit from them.
A once long time fan of squidoo, it is a shame to see the traffic stats dry up. I guess this is only natural with the development of many web 2.0 products
It doesn’t need a plug in its common sense