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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Chan Do Internet Success System Blog

Another interesting post by one of the biggest online marketing masters - Patric Chan:

Chan Do Internet Success System Blog

He's really good...

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

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Another LensRank Tweak? Not exactly...

No, we didn't have a new moon yet... In February the new moon is on 18th, we have to (?) wait two more weeks or so.

There was some action, though, and all of my lenses were around 25,000 - 28,000 early in the morning, but later that bug was fixed and the current results don't differ much from what we've been seeing since Jan. 23, 2007.

In general, it looks that eveything returned to "norm", however, there are a few new and returning lenses that were not present in Top 100 lately. It may mean that there was indeed a minor algorithm adjustment after all...

So what are those interesting lenses? Well, imagine "Michelangelo's David's" return - at #50 or much, much higher - at #4 "SquidLens: The Official Lens on Squidoo", at #47 - "National Parks and Monuments", or at #97 - "A DAY FOR HEARTS - Congenital Heart Defects Awareness Day". We'll have to wait and see if it means a higher weight in the algorithm for the content. That would be very positive...

We also had today a very unusual case - at #63 "Valentin Elizalde (Hoy en lugar 64)" - a lens in Spanish. It has some "videosense" content, but I don't think the author has very close ties to the party that I call here "the videosense group".

So the count today is: "illuminati" - 26, "videosenses" - 7, "affiliates" - 6; 39 in total. Nice gain for independent lenses - from 54 on Jan. 23, 2007 to 61 today!

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

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Dealing With The Super Bowl Hangover

According to a popular Super Bowl Indicator legend, the result of yesterday's Superbowl will have impact on stocks...

Whose stocks will go down? I have few candidates...

This article is not fresh (from the last year), but it has a lot of interesting information about the Superbowl Monday phenomenon. Just look at the resources at the bottom of that article from Snopes.com. Even such heavy hitters like The New York Times or The Washington Post were writing about it! Go to:

The Super Bowl Indicator

Happy reading!

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

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What's new in Squidoo's Top 100?

Not a big change, but there are some interesting developments - as always...

Although it looked that Gil was only joking when he said after the last tweak (it happend on Jan. 22/23, 2007): "Every third sunday we keep the lensrank algorithm on 'random' just to screw everyone up :-)" it seems that the current LensRank algorithm is here to stay... At least until next third Sunday, most probably.

So, what do we have now?

Independent lenses made some progress - at the expense of "illuminati", whose share decreased from 30 lenses to 26.

Also the "affiliate marketing group" got some advantage over the "videosense group". While both had 8 lenses each on Jan. 23, today videosenses have 6 lenses in Top 100 and the affiliates - 9.

In other words, the independent lenses presence in Top 100 increased from 54 to 59.

Among the "illuminati", relache has huge lead - 14 lenses, jeffryv has 5. He beat MrLewisSmile who has now 3 lenses in Top 100. The other Citizens in Top 100 are: KimberlyDawnWells - 2, boredofeducation - 1 and oniyagi - 1 lens.

I don't count here Alumni Citizens, but something tells me that I should... Maybe soon I'll change that.

There are interesting developments lately among the "affiliates". That group has a few new rising stars - Barkely even made it today to Top 100 as a newcomer.

Today's Top Rookie - the highest new lens in Top 100 by LensRank is at #71 Toe Socks. It is surprising to me, because the lens itself and its numbers don't fit Megan's recipe for success: she said, a good lens should have great content, be handmade, well promoted and well talked about... So what is this lens missing? It:

• has absolutely no content - only CafePress and ebay modules, amazon plexo, empty(!) Guestbook and empty Netflix module;
• was updated more than one week ago (!);
• has only 4 ratings (5 stars, OK)
• is not on Top 100 Most Blogged and not on Top 100 Most Visited (found following jeffryv's links on his blog; not available anywhere else)

Its only"achievement" is #34 on Top 100 Most Profitable! Yesterday and 2 days ago, it had the same position on Top 100 Most Profitable, but wasn't in Top 100 by LensRank yet... In fact, it started from #37 among Profitable on Jan. 30, 2007 and is going up since then.

So it's a nice proof that it "pays" to have a profitable lens! Sure, it's always good to earn money and having a profitable lens will help you to be high on Top 100 by LensRank. It helps a lot, it seems... 39 lenses from Most Profitables are in Top 100 by LensRank and extra 10 lenses are not, but their owners have lenses that are. In total there are such 49 lenses (39+10).

I'd like to mention two lenses from Top 100 that I found very interesting - although for different reasons. Barbro at #4 is an excellent example of a lens that is very, very well done and it tells about a current news - death of a Thoroughbred colt, named Barbaro, his incredible career and tragic end after an accident. The lens is fresh and has 26 ratings - all of them 5 stars! Well done, Ghost_Moth...

The other lens that attracted my attention is at #8 - Homemaking & Housekeeping - Get Yourself Organized. It was already higher before. What is really strange, are its tags - almost all of them are art-related and none has anything to do with homemaking and housekeeping and getting yourself organized! But it must work, if the lens is so high (I have to give the lens credit, though, for its content - from this point of view, it's one of the best!)...

Another strange thing is that this lens doesn't have an Adsense ad in the sidebar - like all others lenses have (except for two more lenses in Top 100) and its two Adsense ads have background while other lens don't have. And it is not as wide as other lenses. Fascinating... Will other lenses get also get such fix? But why one of the Adsense ads is gone?

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

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What illuminati know and we don't...

It pays to read blogs...

I've just found this interesting post by jeffryv on his post of Jan. 28, 2007 at "Lensmastering" blog:

Lensmastering: Other Top 100 Lists

That post shows that even though the Most Visited and Most Blogged disappeared from the rankings presented to the public (since Jan. 22 or 21, 2007), they are still being prepared and Jeff has access to them. Other Citizen Squids possibly too (see the "shhh"). Other - regular - lensmasters don't...

Top 100 by Rating (star system) was officially gone long ago. Top 100 Lensmasters (by Average LensRank) - which has - in my opinion - very negative impact - was discredited ages ago...

So why does jeffryv blogs about those categories? Is it an indication they they are still included in the current LensRank algorithm? No wonder Gil jokingly calls it a "screwed up" version...

Ah, talking about Gil and his famous sense of humor - if you go to Jeff's blog, you'll see "Staff Favorites". The only lens listed there is "All About Gil" by giltotherescue!

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

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Should Jeff be unhappy with my post about Topics and tags?

HQ introduced today new set of categories (Topics) and posted them with examples of tags. I realized that there must be something wrong with those tags, or rather with the lenses they were coming from - the lenses were simply wrongly classified, many of them...

So I wrote at the Forum and presented some ideas, it was like these:

"Here are my proposed changes to newly-established Topics:

Animals & Nature
dog, animals, cat, charity
Remove: charity. Add: birds, bird-watching, aquarium, pets

Arts & Literature
arts, art, music, photography
Remove: photography. Add: TV, theatre, radio, painting, sculpture

Cars & Trucks
cars, autos, car, recreation
Remove: recreation

Business
marketing, business, money, internet marketing
Add: real estate, investing, trading, forex, small business, home business, WAHM

DIY & Hobbies
home, real estate, family, gardening
Remove: real estate. Add: crafts, photography, home improvement."

It's apparent from the listings of the lenses in many of the categories that people either do mis-classification on purpose (to avoid competition) or do that by mistake. I wanted to help them and gave a number of suggestions for most of the Topics - so that they classify their lenses properly and - as I wrote - so that "we built together "a social database - a human index of the best stuff on a given topic" - just like Seth wrote in his book "Small Is The New Big"."

But suddenly, a fireman-on-duty - jeffryv - appeared and he looked quite annonyed (did I disturbed his slumber?) either by my stubborness in promoting reasonable and accurate classification of lenses or by my messing with his nomen-omen pet project... Here is what he wrote:

Hi zuzanna

Re:Topic tags

As I mentioned to you before the words (Tags) under the Topic headers are ever changing tags.

( The most popular at that moment)

Try it out. click on one and you will find in the list of lens ones that are not even in that "Topic"
eg. Click the "Kids" tag under the Parenting Topic, you find me#1 with a "Animal/Pet" topic one second.

If you look at them 3 week from now they will be different, they have been changing since Squidoo started.

Cheers
Jeff

Last edited by jeffryv (Today 12:11 am)

So, the tone of it didn't sound too good and I was thinking how is he helping the public with post like that... What was his point? In fact, he just admitted exactly what I was saying before and that's why I wrote the latest post - that the lenses are being marked incorrectly! Isn't that what is he saying here :

"click on one and you will find in the list of lens ones that are not even in that "Topic"
eg. Click the "Kids" tag under the Parenting Topic, you find me#1 with a "Animal/Pet" topic one second."


Is Jeff proposing any better solution? No... He's just trumpeting that I'm repeating myself... but I'm not - as we have new categories and I was just telling other lensmasters about the best way to use it and improve it. Apparently jeffryv doesn't like the Rule #4 of the Forum - "The SquidU forum is a place for lensmasters to interact, to share ideas and inspiration (and yes, gripes... maybe another lensmaster can help) and have fun with their lenses."

But just for fun - I clicked the "Kids" tag under the Parenting Topic - exactly like jeffryv was suggesting and indeed I found him quickly (I always say Squidoo is very fast!). But he actually was #1 - "Learning Letters and Numbers Resources"!

Not exactly a "Animal/Pet" topic, but kid-related indeed. So I really don't know who of us is winning at this point of this forced argument, but the truth is the second lens under tag "home" was not Jeff''s, but GramaBarb's Golden Retrievers - Dogs with Hearts of Gold I think I'll admit here for a second that jeffryv was right here, but in fact he "borrowed" the lens from Grama to show me... It absolutely is a "Animal/Pet" topic, although that great lens should be rather under Animals & Nature Well, I'm always pro-family, I like pets and I like both of those lenses very much so I am happy now...

But, when I look at other Topics, I'm not impressed again and that's why I erh... dared to share my ideas on the Forum. For example, as of 11:50 PM PST, here are some of the most serious misclassifications:

DIY & Hobbies has "real estate" as a second most popular tag - shouldn't it be under business?
and as a 3rd tag it has "family"! Shouldn't it rather be under "Parenting and Kids"?

Even better example(s) - the following lenses can be found using jeffryv advice by going and clicking the "home " tag that is currently the most popular tag under DIY & Hobbies:

1. UpDos For Proms, Weddings or Just Everyday by relache
2. Affiliate Marketing Tools for Social Networking on Squidoo by Writertiff
3. The Arts & Crafts Bungalow by naturalisagenix
4. Color Trends by Color_Expert
5. Perfect Paint Colors for Your Home's Interior by Color_Expert
6. MLM LEADS | MAKE MONEY IN ANY MLM!!! by briandavis

Some of them make sense, but affiliate marketing? Or MLM leads. Why? Home business? Not the best try...

And most interestingly, somehow jeffryv's tag methodology doesn't work too well and the explanations are not too good in case of #1 lens under DIY & Hobbies - Homemaking & Housekeeping - Get Yourself Organized (LensRank: 5).

You would logically expect it to be under tag "home" - the most popular in that category (strange or not), or maybe among the first 2-3 there... But they are: real estate and family and that lens - which really is one of the best we had lately in Top 100 - isn't there. And it isn't in the next 7 tags - gardening, dogs, design, property, pets, crafts, houses or further. Why? Because for some reasons, its first tag is art! In fact, most of its tags are art-related and none of them is homemaking and housekeeping-related, which is rather strange for such excellent lens...

So should jeffryv be annoyed by my writing again that something has to be done about those tags? I think that he should allow me to tell people that properly choosing the tags (of course they should depend on the content - not MLM or affiliate marketing for "home"!) and based on that properly classifying the lenses is the best way to go...

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

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Sexy Sadie, you made a fool of everyone…

Jan. 29, 2007 - what a day of hot discussions, with a number of heavy-hitters involved, especially Orthia, N376, jeffryv - all of them attacking lensmaster Margaret and me too for our stand against violation of the TOS by at least one adult lensmaster.

In fact it was me who fueled the whole-day discussion by starting in the Squidoo Lounge a thread that had a title: "Time to celebrate? Mature lenses gone!"

I wrote yesterday that the "Mature" segment (aka "Adult") was gone from Squidoo. I posted that last night at 10:16 PM PST and very quickly there were responses from adult lensmasters telling me that I was wrong and that "Mature" lenses were still present and doing well at Squidoo. One of them even show the users a link to her porno site so that everybody could see. Thank you!

I also wrote that lensmaster Tammy aka Ladylove for the nth time violated the TOS by failing to mark her adult lens "Blow Job" as "Mature" and submitting it instead as belonging to "People" category.

From the morning today (Jan. 29, 2007), the discussion was very hot and intense, but I was too busy to participate in it. I noticed though by looking at today's ranking that the situation didn't change - Ladylove repeated her tricks with even better "success" - her two lenses - were today at:

"How to Give Your Man the Best Blow Job" (LensRank: 85)
"Sex Guide - Adding Spice to Your Relationship" - lensrank of this lens was unknown because is doing again the same trick - 3rd day in the row - she was shifting sidebar (that should be on the right) so much to the left that the category, which was in fact "Mature", was not visible. I saved the PrintScreen pictures of that, but won't show them here as it is a family-friendly place...

Anyway, as I said the discussion in that thread was very intense. I even got insulted by Orthia when she wrote:

"Anyone whining about seeing adult content is failing to take any responsibility for themselves. If you don't like the adult content, turn the Safe Search feature in your account preferences to ON."

For her it was my responsibility to try to avoid seeing adult lens ("Blow Job") in a place where it shouldn't be (People category)!!! Obviously, she didn't criticized Ladylove for showing her lens in the People category - not as an "Adult" lens or for the disappearing act with the "Sex Guide".

Jeffryv was trying to encourage lensmasters who don't like presence of adult lenses to leave Squidoo ("do not use this site") as the Safe Search is not 100% effective. Margaret didn't like that idea; I also don't like it. We all love Squidoo!

Jeff also didn't address the fact that Ladylove clearly violated the TOS, for the nth time, but he wrote what may happen when a naughty lensmaster misleds the community and doesn't marks a "Mature" lens as such - he or she could a) get "reported" by fellow Squidoo members as inapppropriate b) get locked for administrative review.

Finally, jeffryv appealed to the Adult lensmasters - "If your lens contains Adult content, please mark it as such. You can always change it in the righthand sidebar of your Lens Workshop." If only Ladylove listened to him… She didn't - her right sidebar in the "Sex Guide" lens was moved so far to the left that most of the info from it was invisible - especially that part telling that it was a "Mature" lens. I saw that trick being done 3rd day in a row (haven't seen to be done at any other lens).

And her "Blow Job" was again listed in "People" category, having full-blown, official LensRank of 85, higher than "Mastering The Office Prank" (LensRank 86), OMG, the sky must be falling down…

But seriously, it was interesting that Orthia enlightened the public by saying that it was the Citizen Squids' job to deal with the adult lens classified incorrectly:

"If there are adult lenses that are NOT correctly marked, as Jeff pointed out, that's one of the jobs that the Citizen Squids handle. You can help them by reporting lenses that are not marked as adult content."

I don't know where she knows that from, but she must be wrong, because I just wrote that jeffryv - a prominent Citizen Squid - participated in the thread discussion and didn't say anything that he would spank Ladylove for her transgressions - repeated violations of the TOS with her "Blow Job" and "Sex Guide" lenses.

No, I don't think Orthia is right about that… By the way, jeffryv was the only Citizen to take part in that discussion.

There was much more going on to report on and I see it's after midnight (PST) already, but I have to at least write about one unfortunate incident - when N376 was the second person today to violate the Forum Rules and he insulted Margaret and the Amish community she's helping with her Amish lenses. It was really very, very bad and I didn't like that at all…

Margaret, tired by her big battle taking almost all day, let it go rather easily. I expect some consequences, though, from the HQ.

I also just mention that there were some arguments trying to explain the problem (or maybe solution) with the "Adult" issue by blaming it on the technology, various versions of browsers, but that didn't convince me - as that again didn't address the main issue - the problems exist if the rules are not followed!

I'm not a big expert on those AJAX and php coding tricks and most of other computer geek talking so I was falling asleep reading two last posts - N376's and Margaret's, but found her concept of "leakage" very, well, refreshing and funny too…

Because I remembered that the top "Mature" lens today was, Ladies and Gentlemen:
"Used Panties For Sale" - at LensRank #194. No kidding.

By the way, I found a partial solution for those who don't want to see the Mature/Adult category - just clear the cookies and it will disappear from Squidoo Topics - http://www.squidoo.com/browse/topic_list . Detailed instructions are as follows: In your Interenet browser, go to the top of your screen and click on Tools (in Firefox, there will be something similar in IE), then select Options. You'll see there a number of tabs. Select the Cookies tab and click on Clear cookies now button, then click OK. Finally, reload the browser (click a button with such name) and the Mature/Adult category will be gone! You have to Reload to make it work! I'm sorry it's a partial solution only, because the cookies are very naughty and any time I did that, after 15-30 minutes they were bringing back the "hot stuff" again. Really annoying, but still, you may find it worthwhile as it works.

Obviously, as Orthia says, you can - or rather you should, if you consider yourself to be a responsible non-adult lensmaster - turn the Safe Search feature in your account preferences to ON. OK?

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

P.S. For those missing my analysis of the current Top 100 by LensRank (as of Jan. 29, 2007), here is the summary - illuminati - 26 lenses, videosense - 7, affiliate contest - 9. The highest new lens in Top 100 - at #61 - "Tribal Belly Dance" by relache. Congrats! By the way, instead of Top 100 we had only Top 99. And whose fault it was? Sexy Sadie made a fool of everyone - see above - "How to Give Your Man the Best Blow Job" (LensRank: 85). But what LensRank? There seem to be two kinds… With and without "Adult" lenses. And what if the lensmaster misleads and uses a wrong category? Then we have a mismatch and maybe spanking...

P.P.S "Ob-la-di-bla-da" - it's what Gil said about the latest algorithm tweak. Which in the geek language means - "Every third sunday we keep the lensrank algorithm on 'random' just to screw everyone up :-)"

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Eventful day at Squidoo. Is Mature - Adult segment gone?

It was a very interesting weekend, with lots of important events within for me with regards to this blog and my Squidoo presence.

I had a number of interesting discussions in the Lounge and got another praise for this blog - this time from Rick (RickPhillips), which I appreciate very much because I consider him to be one of the best thinkers among the lensmasters. And he knows how to rock'n'roll...

I also made some comments on importance of proper classifying our lenses. I did that by using a very powerful quote from Seth's book. I didn't think at that time that this issue would become hot in the evening...

Here is what happened. I think I helped Squidoo to get rid of the whole Adult (Mature) segment that was making so much trouble every day.

On Saturday I sent a feedback email notifying the HQ and asking them why Ladylove is still with Squidoo despite being found violating the TOS. On that day her lens "Sex Guide - Adding Spice to Your Relationship" was at #44 of "All Lenses by Popularity", today it was at #62. She wasn't in Top 100 by LensRank and was classified as Mature/Adult, but that info wasn't visible - somehow the sidebar showing that info was shifted so much to the left that nobody couldn't see that!

Plus because of her inclusion in the "All Lenses by Popularity", all the lenses below it had mismatched their LensRank - they were too low and some fine lenses were out of Top 100 because of that - at least they were not being shown on Top 100 by LensRank, which yesterday became Top 99 and today it was only Top 98!!!!

The impacted lenses were - "Google Earth" and "Mission Lamps".

But that lensmaster did even worse trick today - Sunday. Apparently encouraged by her success with tricking the HQ with the "Sex Guide", she delivered today even more explicit-sex lens - "How to Give Your Man the Best Blow Job" and instead of marking it as "Mature", she placed it in the "People" category. I know that she didn't do it a first time!

From the morning, this lens was on #98 of "All Lenses by Popularity".

Interestingly, it was not on Top 100 by LensRank, which was really puzzling because only lenses from the Mature category didn't show up on the LensRank ranking and it was under People... Anyway, this created another mismatch...

Ladylove misled the Squidoo community few days ago with the "Sex Guide" lens and it was on Top 100 by LensRank at #81 and #62 between Jan. 21-22, 2007 because she wasn't showing it as a "Mature" lens.

That owner was warned and she changed the classification of this particular lens to "Mature", but she was playing tricks with the lens so that nobody could see that it belonged to "Mature" category. How? As I mentioned above, for the second day (I checked it yesterday too), the sidebar on that lens was showing the category was screwed up! It was moved to the left so far that the category couldn't be seen!

I checked that both in IE and in Firefox, so I know it wasn't my computer fault...

I was so shocked because I saw that in the People category that the "How to Give Your Man the Best Blow Job" lens was being placed right above my lens - "Eugeniusz Tytyk - An Auschwitz Survivor, My Father, My Hero" - and it made me very unhappy. It was a real blow (nomen omen) to the Squidoo image - to have such different lenses next to each other. That just shouldn't have happened...

I was starting to write a protesting message to the HQ when I noticed - around 7 PM PST - that the HQ reacted appropriately and not only those lenses were gone; it looked that all the Mature segment - that was creating so much trouble - was gone too; I hope for good...

I cleared my cookies and the cache on my computer and right now I don't see the Mature category among the "Squido Topics". It was always at the bottom of the page, but it's gone from the page. I think it's fantastic news for the Squidoo community.

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

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Where in the world are cute animals?

I know, it isn't always easy to determine what our category our lens should be and sometimes we make a mistake, but I think a found a significant number of lenses that are in categories that have nothing to do with their subject - what they are about.

Not surprisingly, I found most "offenders" in the Entertainment category. I believe that 4 of the lenses shouldn't be there - especially those 3 of them talking about earning money from so called "funny videos":

• funny videos cash money (LensRank: 54)
• How to have a Lucid Dream: virtual reality SECRET FANTASIES? (LensRank: 66)
• THE LATEST TREND - THEVIDEOSENSE (LensRank: 78)
• lots of funny top rated videos : fantastic amazing outrageous (LensRank: 81)

Arts and Literature category also has a number of misclassified lenses - 3. Here they are:

• Dog Gone Knit - Free Dog Sweater Patterns (LensRank: 8)
• Create a custom MySpace overlay (LensRank: 33)
• Karrine Steffans news (LensRank: 39)

There are 2 lenses in Recreation category that I think could be placed better somewhere else:

• OOAK Polymer Clay Babies (LensRank: 45)
• Holiday PEZ (LensRank: 85)

And here are other - single - improper classifications in various other categories:

Computers and Technology - Most Innovative Churches (LensRank: 47),
Education - Creating a Profile on MySpace for Thevideosense (LensRank: 63),
Health and Medicine - The Ins and Outs of Body Piercing (LensRank: 94),
Home - UpDos For Proms, Weddings or Just Everyday (LensRank: 10),
Kids and Teens - World of Warcraft - bots - cheats - walk thru guides (LensRank: 88),
Movies - You Can Make Money Sharing Videos Online - Revenue Share Program (LensRank: 65),
People - Japanese Tattoos (LensRank: 4),
World - Cute Animal Pictures (LensRank: 52)

There were few more, but they were borderline… But those above - they are obvious. 17 lenses out of 100. I hope they will be moved to proper categories before we start Topic-specific lensranking.

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

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Why the LensRank positions on Dashboard and in Top 100 don't match

Many lensmasters complain any time the numbers they see on their Dashboard don't match what is being presented in Top 100.

We have such situation today - Jan. 27, 2007. In fact, todays Top 100 is only Top 99 and one of my favorite lenses - "Google Earth ( My Passion )" by jeffryv - is out of Top100 - where it deserves to be! [as of noon, 01/27/2007]

I looked at All Lenses by Popularity list and found out why!

At #44 we have - Sex Guide - Adding Spice to Your Relationship by Ladylove.

I have no further comments.

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

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Who Was Who on Jan. 25, 2007 Squidoo's Top 100

I don't remember anything like that happening - it's almost 11 AM PST when I'm starting to write this and the LensRank numbers on my Dashboard are not changed yet from yesterday. There were even questions in the Lounge about that, but no change yet…

Wouldn't that be a result of my previous post? Who knows… Well at HQ they know, but I don't expect them to follow what you I'm writing here.

Still, Megan wrote in the Lounge a nice comment about my blog - good for Her! I really appreciate it and I wrote there a "thank-you" note.

However, with that unusual delay in showing the LensRank numbers, I really got a feeling that they must have realized at the HQ that the current LensRank algorithm is one of the worst they ever had and they are think hard and fast about how to change it. And there are at least few places in the Lounge when this important issue is being discussed, with a number of smart, experienced lensmasters involved.

It can only be good for Squidoo…


But before I see a newly-reworked Top 100, I will tell you some interesting things about what we had in Top 100 by LensRank as of Jan. 25, 2007 and how it changed since the first day of the existence of the new algorithm that was introduced on Jan. 23, 2007.


On Jan. 25, 2007 there were 23 NEW lenses - i.e. lenses that were not in Top 100 by LensRank (LR) on Jan. 23, 2007.

The highest NEW lenses were:

#37 - One Deal a Day Sites by EllenC,
#46 - World of Warcraft - bots - cheats - walk thru guides by tmdblogger
#49 - Couplestouch.com - Swingers & Swinging Lifestyle-Lifestyle Couples & Singles - Swingers dating! By JadeHernandez

[Note: all of them actually became NEW on Jan. 24. Totally NEW on Jan. 25 were: #60. Top 10 Valentine's Day Gifts for 2007 by MrLewisSmile, #69 - Most Innovative Churches by kevinhendricks and #74 - How To Get Backlinks by thefluffanutta]

By the way, among those 23 NEW lenses, the videosense group had 2 new lenses (#51 and #100) and the affiliate marketing contest group had 1 new lens (#71) in Top 100.


Which lenses made the BIGGEST JUMP UP?

Congratulations to relache whose lens Corsetry, Tight-Lacing and Waist-Training was up remarkable 46 spaces - to #21 from #67.

How well did the videosense and affiliate marketing contest groups do?

Well, nice moves too, but not as big as relache's:

Up 32 spaces - to #34 - funny videos cash money by fran1326 (videosense group),

Up 34 spaces - to #43 Affiliate Marketing 101 by Writertiff (affiliate marketing contest group), but this was tied by #48 Affiliate Marketing Guide by bhopkins


Now, worse news - THE BIGGEST SLIDE…

Sorry, relache, but it was your lens No-Knead bread (no kidding!) that went down a lot - 47 spaces - to #90 from #43. In fact, another of relache's lenses also was down by 47 spaces - Temporary Tattoos - to #97 from #50.

And, again, how did the videosense and affiliate marketing contest groups do in this "category" - BIGGEST SLIDE?

Down 42 spaces - to #98 - Make Money Simply Sharing Videos by thevideosense

Down 22 spaces (only!) - to #55 - Beating The Warrior Affiliate Marketing Competition by Simonj007.


How many lenses DIDN'T CHANGE position from Jan. 23 to Jan. 25, 2007?

It isn't the most important "category", but let's notice that - #1, #2, #4, #16 and #99 - 5 lenses in total DIDN'T CHANGE position from Jan. 23 to Jan. 25, 2007 .

In fact, I should restate what I just wrote - it's very important to the lensmasters involved - congratulations especially to the owners of the first two lenses - #1 - Funky, Chic and Cool Laptop Bags by mynameiskate and #2 - Handbags: Deals and Steals by Greendrv.

It really doesn't matter to them what the algorithm is, what tweaks are being done - they just stay on the top all the time! It's very impressive and I salute these both fine lensmasters for doing such incredible job!


Would you like to know how do relate to the Top 100 LR the other rankings made available by the HQ - Most Emailed (ME) and Most Profitable (MP)?

I wrote it before - ME appears to be irrelevant - only 5 lenses from the ME are also among Top 100 LR. Which are they? Here you go:

#20 on Most Emailed - Metal Clay - Precious Metal Clay by MSchindel
#28 - Blogging Starter Checklist by rajesh301
#53 - Funky, Chic and Cool Laptop Bags by mynameiskate
#57 - Google Earth (My Passion) by jeffryv
#58 - New for January '07 Gemstone publishing's Disney Comics! By seitler

Interesting combo, isn't it?

Finally, how many lenses from the MOST PROFITABLE ranking also appear on Top 100 by LR?

There are 34 lenses from the MP ranking that also are on the Top 100 by LensRank. But I believe that it is also important to notice the lenses from MP that are not on LR, but their owners have OTHER lenses there. I've got a feeling after careful looking at both rankings that it is important element of the algorithm. Anyway, there are 9 lenses like that among the Most Profitable.

Here are the highest ranking lenses from the Most Profitable that made it to the Top 100 by LR:

#1 - Funky, Chic and Cool Laptop bags by mynameiskate
#2 - Handbags: Deals and Steals by Greendrv
#67 - Your Guide To High Definition TV by Mt_T

So here you go… Just look at those numbers over the weekend, read again my previous post and think what you can do to be on the top.

I hope to see you there… Yeah, I just looked at the Dashboard - it's 11:45 AM PST and noticed that finally there are new lensrankings and my lenses are doing much better today. And actually, I have one lens back in the Top 100 - The Beatles lens… Congrats to myself. But seriously, I hope to see you on the top!

Ilona Zuzalek
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music

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Another LensRank algorithm tweak at Squidoo - who's happy and who's not…

Encouraged by the recently published Squidoo Forum Rules, I decided to use its point 4 - "The SquidU forum is a place for lensmasters to interact, to share ideas and inspiration (and yes, gripes... maybe another lensmaster can help) and have fun with their lenses".

So just to start, I decided to share with fellow lensmasters my analysis of Squidoo's most important ranking - Top 100 byLensRank by using data from Jan. 24, 2007 and Jan. 23, 2007. Something, I'm sure will be of interest to both seasoned lensmasters and the greenhorns…

Just recently, Squidoo experienced a little shakeup - not only one naughty lensmaster was expelled; we also got rid of two rankings - Top 100 by Most Visited and Top 100 by Most Blogged and finally - we had a serious tweak to the LensRank algorithm.

On Jan. 22, 2007 Editor Megan wrote: "Just a headsup that we're doing another (small!) tweak to the LensRank algorithm tonight, so if lenses shift around a little in the morning that's why. As ever, we're constantly trying to come up with combos that reward a) good handbuilt content that is b) promoted well and c) recommended by readers."

Apparently Megan was using here her unparalleled sense of humor, because when I woke up on Tuesday morning (Jan. 23, 2007), I found out that the tweak wasn’t so small - all of my lenses were gone from Top 100!

It took me two days to get composure after seeing that on the tweaked ranking my best lenses were at # 109, 111, 116 and 123 while a number of lenses without any content, with very low star ratings and just visibly worse than my lenses had better LensRank positions… I got so frustrated that I basically didn't touch any of my lenses for two days. I know it's not healthy for my lenses, but hey, I checked a number of those allegedly better lenses and many of them weren't updated for more than 7 days. But what really shocked me was when I saw that the lens that I consider to be the best ever made - "Michelangelo's David" by Margaret_Schaut was at #91, while a lens such poorly made as "funny videos cash money" was at #66! … OMG - this lens doesn't even have proper title! Just please don't tell me that this is "licentia poetica" - it simply is an error and grammar untidiness.

[Important update - today - Jan. 25, 2007 - "David" lens is no more in Top 100 and "funny video cash money" climbed to #34.Think for yourself…]

Now, I really feel that if the Squidoo HQ announces a LensRanking tweak and the ranking is re-done, a situation after that is like a point zero for each lens – we’re are being showed how we measure up against each other as of the day of the tweak. At least that’s what I understand based on FAQ, Q&A, SquidU and Forum posts.

Otherwise it wouldn’t make sense to bother with tweaks and all the rankings, too.

So I believe that the new-looking Top 100 by LensRanking shows the direction in which Squidoo is heading as well as what kinds of lenses in opinion of HQ are the best and deserve further promotion and showcasing. No one can dispute that lenses that are not in Top 100 get much, much less of that.

So, without any further ado (already said a lot), let’s take a look at the most fascinating stuff – let’s analyze what kind of lenses made it to the revamped Top 100 by LensRank – with a bit of Most Profitable ranking too.

For this analysis, I’ll be using the rankings of Jan. 23 and 24, 2007. Ladies and gentlemen, here is the scoop!

As everybody noticed, two rankings disappeared from the public eyes at the beginning of this week – Top 100 by Most Visited and Top 100 by Most Blogged. Based on that, it can be assumed that those two factors - visits and blogging - are gone from the LensRank algorithm, which leaves us with only two other categories that are made public - Most Profitable and Most Emailed.

The fact is, however, that the Most Emailed is totally meaningless; I looked at the first 5 lenses in that category on the first day of the tweak and their average LensRank was awfully low - 2,800! I don’t think much changed since that.

So what we really have to work with is the Most Profitable (MP) category and it is absolutely a biggie!

I think that it can count for as much as 50% of the algorithm. Why? On Jan. 24, 2007, almost half (it was exactly 47%) of the Top 100 lenses were either in Top100 MP - 33 of them or in 14 cases even though the particular lens was not on the MP list, the owner had at least one lens on the MP list.

By the way, who had most of the MP lenses? Well, on Jan. 23, 2007 the honor was shared by relache and MrLewisSmile - each had 7 lenses, but Lewis had most of them in Top 50!

It's very interesting to know what subjects are most popular among Top 100 lenses. So here is a very important tip for you. If you make a lens on one of the following subjects, you will have a very good chance to get in top 100: videosense, tattoo, affiliate marketing, cellphones, automotive, social networking, animals, buying bags, warcraft, artistic hobby, cooking, TV shows and pop stars.

One thing that that probably not many lensmasters would expect is that being a Citizen Squid or a very frequent contributor on the Squidoo Forum almost guarantee a place on Top 100 list! I think not many people know what the Citizens' role is except for being most frequent participants in Forum discussions where they are most visible, but apparently being a Citizen helps a lot to get into Top 100.

I will explain here that the following lensmasters are the Citizen Squids: KimberlyDawnWells, Pandrogas (Alumni), AngelaHarms, seitler (Alumni), boredofeducation, Marti and oniyagi; sorry if I missed somebody. Sure, I know whom I missed - Mr.LewisSmile, of course! Now we have complete Citizen Squid Squad, I hope...

Who are the most frequent Squidoo Forum contributors? Let's see: AngelaHarms - 689 posts, relache - 625 , jeffryv - 455, boredofeducation - 400, KimberlyDawnWells - 362, MrLewisSmile - 347, oniyagi - 283 and Marti - 218. Each of them day after day tirelessly help smaller and younger squids learn Squidoo lenscrafting. Thanks guys!

And they really know very well how to make excellent lenses and how to promote them, because when we look at the numbers from Jan. 23, 2007 – the first day after the tweak we see the following:

Thirty (30) lenses from Top 100 by Lensrank were delivered by the lensmasters from that group (I think I'll call them "illuminati"). Most successful among them was relache (18 lenses) who practically has no competition with so many lenses in Top 100. MrLewisSmile had also impressive number of lenses - 7, but he can only be distant second... jeffryv had 3, boredofeducation - 1 and KimberlyDawnWells also 1.

Now, it looks like the members of that group were resting on their laurels during the first day after the tweak, because they lost ground a bit the next day... However, the next day they still had 26 lenses in Top 100, which is a significant number.

I don’t know what your or my chances are of becoming a Citizen Squid soon – probably very slim – and I already participate in the Forum discussions, so we better look for other ways to win the place in Top 100. It’s easy to notice by looking at the ranking that getting involved in promoting videosense would surely help. The way it’s being done is described in detail, with full instructions on this lens – http://www.squidoo.com/squidoo-autopilot/ - don’t miss the Squidoo Congo line part!).

However, if you don’t like videos, I mean lenses about making money with videos, there is still another big chance for you – join the affiliate marketing contest! You can find the rules and the results being updated daily here – http://www.socialmarketing101.com/blog .

How strong are those two groups? Not as strong as the Citizens family, but still each of those groups was proud to placed 8 of their lenses in Top 100 (Jan. 23, 2007).

Very interestingly, though, I don't see many of them in the Top 100 Most Profitable. Actually, none of them was there on Jan. 23, 2007…

To realize how much – or rather how little is left – we have to add those numbers – 30+8+8=46.

Yes, it means that "independent" lensmasters - like you and myself – had only 54 spaces left on the Top 100 (58 on Jan. 24, 2007), but it seems soon it may be even less as those "videosense" and "affiliate marketing contest" groups are getting stronger (see their blog and forum) .

So what are the chances of other lensmasters to get into Top 100?

I believe that our chances will be good, if we do the following.

We have to create a high quality content lenses that are both informative and entertaining and they have to utilize the keywords (tags) properly.

As I said, Top 100 Most Visited and Blogged are gone, but it's hard to believe that good traffic and blogging (done properly - without spamming) could harm your lenses… Just the opposite! Do that and you will quickly get found by the search engines and will have plenty of visits. Also, don't forget social bookmarking! And for all of that you have to find a number of good keywords (tags) - taking into account both number of searches (demand) and number of pages (supply, or competition) on Google/Yahoo/MSN.

I just told you about very powerful and relatively easy ways of promoting your lenses. They are usually free.

Participating in a good Squidoo group, with a hard-working group master can make wonders for your ratings, links, guestbook comments. Everybody believes that all of that must be part of the LensRank algorithm. What else can be? Let me just list here – without bothering with trying to figure out how really each factor is – items that I think are included in the algorithm, both already mentioned and some more:

• Having a subject related to charities, coffee, social networking, affiliate marketing, warcraft, tattoos, cellphones, animals, painting and other crafts and hobbies, automotive, cooking, TV shows, pop stars, buyng bags, buying HDTV (could be some more).
• Having fantastic content – your lens should be informative and entertaining.
• Having particular lens on the Most Profitable list. The higher the Most Profitable position, the better.
  
• Having other lens(es) on the Most Profitable list.
• Being a Citizen Squid.
• Participating in Congo line ("videosense" group).
• Participating in affiliate marketing contest ("affiliate marketing contest").
• Updating lenses often (best – daily).
• Using many modules – especially plexus and commercial modules (especially ebay, Superstore, etc.).
• Using many outgoing links; the best are those to high-PR sites. Very important is how many times those links were clicked, especially if any purchase was made from them!
• Having many blurbs in your guestbook.
• Having lots of postings on Squidoo Forum (you should make them meaningful and helpful and don’t spam the Forum).
• Having well-designed keywords (tags).
• Having a lot of search engine listings, especially on Google, Yahoo and MSN.
• Being bookmarked in many social bookmarking places, best of them – technorati, digg, etc.
• Having your lens listed on Plexodex.
• Being listed among “Lense We Like”.
• Getting the “Lens of the Day” honor.
• Being among lenses rotated on the home page.
• Having lots and lots of friends never hurts, especially if they will do these about your lens: talking, blogging, digging (or other social bookmarking) or simply visiting (just tell them that spamming and excessive clicking is a very bad thing and that if Google learns about such sins we - the whole Squidoo - could be gone). Also please tell them that after recent changes they will not be able to vote down the competition on Plexo modules. By the way, online friends can be extremely helpful (e.g. myspace friends).
  

OK, you may say that’s a lot – but is it really? Not exactly… I do as much of that as I can (some other things I just forgot, about other I can't talk as I don't know much about them - especially using php, AJAX, etc.) and somehow I'm currently (Jan. 25, 2007) out of Top 100 - since Jan. 23, 2007…

But I'm sure that if you and I use most of those tips, we’ll soon be seeing each other on the top…

Good luck!

Ilona Zuzalek
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music

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