It's Traffic, Not Sales!

There have been revolutionary changes lately in the Squidoo rankings - especially in the Top 100 by LensRank (LR), but also in the Top 100 by Most Profitable (MP) and Most Visited (MV).

First of all, current (as of Feb. 14, 2007) Top 100 by LensRank is no longer dominated by 3 groups - illuminati, videosense and affiliate marketing contests. No, they are almost gone, with exception of illuminati - they still have 17 lenses, but it's much less than 2-3 months ago when they usually had about 20-30.

This time, the Top 100 by LensRank is led by the "free downloads" group. They have 18 lenses and I'm disturbed by that, because their lenses are of poor quality and the legality of services they offer are very disputable. In fact, I'm afraid Squidoo may be gone from the search engines because of them. This opinion is shared in the Squidoo Forum by others lensmasters…

Another big change - and it really is revolutionary - is the impact of Top 100 Most Profitable on Top 100 by LensRank. While in the past at least about 30-40% of lenses on the MP were making it to the Top 100 by LR, this time it is only 13(!). Two of them are "regulars" - mynameiskate's and Greendrv's handbag lenses (plus two other handbag lenses - this is very interesting…).

From the first 30 lenses that are listed on the Top 100 by MP, only 5 are also on the Top 100 by LR (incl. three "handbags").

So, somebody may ask, is there any visible trend among the lenses that are in the Top 100 by LR?

Yes, it is! The answer - TRAFFIC!

I didn't have time to analyze the whole Top 100 Most Visited (most traffic), but I looked at first 30 from the MV and the results are fascinating! 26 lenses from those 30 (i.e. 87%) are also on Top 100 by LR.

So what is the best way now to get the honor of being in the Top 100 by LR? The answer is simple - get traffic, as it's apparent from the numbers that the current LR algorithm prefers traffic to sales from the lenses!

I don't like that at all, because I know that the traffic numbers can be easily, very easily manipulated and giving lower weight to sales may - and I'm sure will - discourage many lensmasters who create lenses to make money.

I think there is a reason why Squidoo HQ decided to re-do the algorithm in this way. I also hope the change is also temporary… That reason can be seen on the graphs from alexa.com (they show the strategy is working - from Apr. 3 or so…):

http://alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=squidoo.com

Ilona Zuzalek
Squidoo Lensranking - How Important It Is And How To Make It Better
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music

Technorati tags: Squidoo, Squidoo lenses
del.icio.us Tags: Squidoo, Squidoo lenses

High expectations from the coming Squidoo payment

If you're a Squidoo lensmaster, what do you expect from this coming payment? It was promised to occur on March 9 or some days later - most probably in the next few hours!

Here is what I expect - based on the rules set in the TOS, further explained in the FAQ and SquidU, as well as on the fact that during January 2007 (the pay is for that month) I had 6 well-established lenses, with nice traffic, some of them even had sales and were blogged about:

1/ I should get "attributable revenue" - money earned that can be directly tracked to each of my lenses, coming from sales made through Squidoo affiliate links (e.g., Amazon, ebay). I would like to know how much of that revenue each of my lenses earned;
2/ I should get my share in the "pooled revenue" - revenue that can't be directly attributable by the HQ to particular lenses, but is being earned:
a/ from selling sponsorship ads on a Search results page - that's what it says in TOS, but I think it's just part of Adsense revenue that comes from clicks on Google ads that appear not only on search results pages, but also on every lens (if the lens is maxed) and b/ by Squidoo participation in affiliate programs that pay Squidoo income based on overall performance (nobody ever explained what such programs are).

I just can't wait for the payment announcement. Who knows, maybe this will the most important day in the modern Squidoo history, when we finally get some Adsense income... Well, that's what Lewis - January's Most Profitable Lensmaster - wrote:

"I am OFFICIALLY the most profitable lensmaster this month (adsense, and money-maker-module sales)."

And maybe soon we'll get other promised goodies - like better Stats and quarterly Squidoo numbers (so that everybody could see exactly how much money was distributed to lensmasters and to charity - TOS, p. 23).

Only time will tell if I'm a dreamer, but really - we, the lensmasters, are co-operators and we are owed those things!

By the way, in my newest lens - "Making Money With Squidoo" - I try to show the rules and policies that relate to making money by creating and working on Squidoo lenses. Very interesting stuff, I highly recommend reading it - the earlier, the better.

Ilona Zuzalek
Squidoo Lensranking - How Important It Is And How To Make It Better
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music

Technorati tags: Squidoo, Squidoo lenses, Squidoo lensrank, lensrank
del.icio.us Tags: Squidoo, Squidoo lenses, Squidoo lensrank, lensrank

There is something wrong with the new algorithm

The latest Top 100 by LensRank really looks very strange - it's so hard to find there any interesting lens with great content and layout. Instead, it is dominated by lenses on handbags, tattoos and free downloads.

Yes, free downloads appear to replace the videosense and affiliate marketing lenses. There are about 30 of them - about downloading music, videos, psp games, movies, etc.

I noticed that new trend while looking in the morning at the current ranking. In fact, I got shocked - all of my lenses went down and I had no lens in the Top 100 by LensRank!

I would accept that, because it is possible with growing competition, however I realized that on every lens the update date was described as: "Updated more than a week ago"!

It wasn't true, because I updated all of them 2 days before and the actual date was being showed correctly on the Dashboard. I sent a bug report and got confirmation of receipt, but nothing happened during the day - the update dates didn't change (only after I updated the lenses) and the LensRanks were not corrected.

A number of people were complaining in the Lounge, so I decided to do some analysis of the current situation in the Squidoo rankings.

The results were shocking!

Imagine that profitability is no longer the most important factor. I have never had any problem with it being a significant ingredient in the LensRank formula because Squidoo needs revenue in order to exist, we want to earn money for the charities and we also want to be rewarded for our work.

However, after this tweak, only 24 (!) lenses from Top 100 Most Profitable are also on the Top 100 by LensRank. This is much, much lower than before. I think it's a bad decision, because Squidoo will get less money for charities and lensmasters will not be rewarded as much as before for being creative to find ways to earn money. It simply will have discouraging effect.

But, I did even more analysis and I found Gil's new magic ingredient... His silver bullet this time is traffic!

Yes, by looking at the less known Top 100 Most Visited (most traffic) - http://www.squidoo.com/browse/top_lenses/traffic I found out that 67 - i.e. every two out of three lenses from that list - made it to the Top 100 by Lensrank. It obviously means that that the latest tweak gives the biggest importance to traffic.

I think it is not acceptable, because it is one of the factors that can be very easily manipulated and we had examples of that in the past.

I'm still waiting for full response to my bug report as apparently something was wrong and all of my ranks were lowered because of that. By the way, a look at the Dashboard also confirmed that the traffic is very important now, as my lenses (all updated on the same day) were listed in the reverse order based on the traffic for the last 7 days.

Ilona Zuzalek
Squidoo Lensranking - How Important It Is And How To Make It Better
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music

Technorati tags: Squidoo, Squidoo lenses
del.icio.us Tags: Squidoo, Squidoo lenses

What's Up In Top 100 One Month After The Last Algorithm Tweak

It's time to report on interesting developments in the most important Squidoo ranking - Top 100 by LensRank (LR). Here is the summary of those developments and the trends I noticed when comparing the rankings of Jan. 23, 2007 - when the last algorithm tweak took place and of Feb. 22 - a month later.

- 38 lenses from Jan. 23 were still in Top 100. Of those 38 lenses, 14 belonged to illuminati, 3 to the videosense group and 3 to the affiliate marketing group, which is 53% in total. It shows strength of those groups. However, on Feb. 22 illuminati delivered 24 lenses, the videosense group - 6 lenses and the "affiliates" - 4 lenses; therefore the current share of those 3 groups is 34% - a lot less than 53%! It will be very interesting to see if they can get again over 50% a month from now...

- Top 2 lenses from Jan. 23 were still on the Top 100 by LR - Funky Laptop Bags and Handbags.

- 13 lenses that were in Top 20 appear again among twenty best lenses. New lenses on the top by LR were: #6 Disney Pins!, #7 ASG, #8 Law Of Attraction, #11 Balenciaga Handbags, #14 My Dog Indigo, #16 Affiliate Marketing Guide and #17 SquidooSecrets.com

- only one lens from Top 100 by LR was listed on three other Top 100 rankings - Most Profitable (MP), Most Blogged (MB) and Most Visited (MV). It was at #5 Great Disney World Photos. Interestingly, this lens was the winner of the January People's Choice Award in the Content Lenses category.

- the highest ranked lens that didn't appear on neither of those three rankings (MP, MB, MV) was at #14 My Dog Indigo.

- still the best way to get into Top 100 by LR is to have a profitable lens(es). 40 lenses from Top 100 MP made it to the Top 100 by LR. It's even better - much better! - when we look at Top 20, because 18 lenses from Top 100 MP made it to the Top 100 by LR. The only two that didn't were: Squid Lens and The 3" Dunny Page.

- moreover, having top position on MP list gives you an excellent chance to be also among the best of the best - on Feb. 22, 12 lenses from Top 20 MP were on the Top 20 by LR.

- it's strange to me in the times when blogging is such a big thing that being most blogged is not that important in the current LR algorithm. Only 6 lenses from Top 100 MB were among Top 100 by LR.

- being most visited gets rewarded more than being most blogged. Most visited lenses don't get top spots on Top 100 by LR, but they appear there quite often. 29 lenses from Top 100 MV were on Top 100 by LR. Some of the lenses that appear to be rewarded most for having a lot of visits are: Funky Laptop Bags, The Law of Attraction, Japanese Tattoos, Make Money Online - all in Top 100 by LR.

Ilona Zuzalek
Squidoo Lensranking - How Important It Is And How To Make It Better
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music

Technorati tags: Squidoo, Squidoo lenses
del.icio.us Tags: Squidoo, Squidoo lenses

My 7th lens - Squidoo Lensranking - How Important It Is And How To Make It Better

My 7th lens - "Squidoo Lensranking" - How Important It Is And How To Make It Better is doing very well. Today it was at #196 and I expect it to break the #100 barrier tomorrow!

Yesterday I announced its publishing in the Squidoo lounge and bookmarked it on a number of social bookmarking sites. It seems people are very interested in the subject of this lens. It's also encouraging to see the surfers answering the questions about Squidoo I asked in the plexo modules. I hope that the HQ will consider the results...

According to the sitemeter stats, "Squidoo Lensranking" - How Important It Is And How To Make It Better had today almost 50 visits. That's very good!

Ilona Zuzalek
Getting Married In Las Vegas - Romantic, Extravagant, Or Just Convenient...
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music

Technorati tags: Squidoo, Squidoo lenses
del.icio.us Tags: Squidoo, Squidoo lenses