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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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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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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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

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

Starting New Year with a Bang!

Yeah, my lenses are doing very well - all six (6) of them are in Squidoo Top 100! In fact, they are all in first 36...

Here are their Lensranks as of today - Jan. 3, 2007:

http://www.squidoo.com/the-beatles-songs/
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music - at #7

http://www.squidoo.com/christmas-presents/
Best Electronics Christmas Gift Ideas For 2006 - at #9

http://www.squidoo.com/livingshadows/
Eugeniusz Tytyk - An Auschwitz Survivor, My Father, My Hero - at #14

http://www.squidoo.com/trading-currencies/
Trading Currencies - Introduction to Forex Trading - at #26

http://www.squidoo.com/amber-jewelry/
Amber Jewelry - at #32

http://www.squidoo.com/las-vegas-wedding/
Getting Married In Las Vegas - Romantic, Extravagant, Or Just Convenient... - at #36


Thanks for your support! By the way, have you voted at my Plexo lenses (Beatles and Las Vegas) - you should as it's a lot of fun...

Ilona Zuzalek
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music

Technorati tags: The Beatles, Beatles
del.icio.us Tags: The Beatles

Plexo module

I incorporated the new module - Plexo into my newest lens - The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music (URL: http://www.squidoo.com/the-beatles-songs/ ).

Now the vistors can cast their votes in a number of categories:

• The best The Beatles songs (Ilona's Top 15)
  
• The best The Beatles album
  
• Who broke up The Beatles?
  
• Anybody bigger than The Beatles?

I'm happy to see that my visitors get involved and do vote. They also can add their choices to the lists. As of today, the leaders are: "Hey Jude" and "The White Album". Also, Yoko Ono is the person most often blamed for the break-up of The Beatles and there is no clear candidate in the category Anybody bigger than The Beatles?

Ilona Zuzalek
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music

Technorati tags: The Beatles, Beatles
del.icio.us Tags: Beatles, The Beatles

My Squidoo lenses

Welcome to the blog about my Squidoo lenses.

As of this first day of Winter 2006/2007, I have the following Squidoo lenses:

Title: Best Electronics Christmas Gift Ideas For 2006
URL: http://www.squidoo.com/christmas-presents/
Created On: 10/28/2006
LensRank (current): #6
Peak LensRank (highest the lens has ever been): #5
Days spent on Top 100 LensRank list: 24
Average Rating (stars): 4.50
Number of people who have rated: 21
Clickouts: 1,519
Clickouts per module: 39
Number of times lens has been emailed: 103
Number of times lens has been marked as favorite: 4

Title: Hot Christmas Stocking Stuffers - Amber Jewelry
URL: http://www.squidoo.com/amber-jewelry/
Created On: 12/03/2006
LensRank (current): #11
Peak LensRank (highest the lens has ever been): #7
Days spent on Top 100 LensRank list: 10
Average Rating (stars): 4.00
Number of people who have rated: 9
Clickouts: 106
Clickouts per module: 5
Number of times lens has been emailed: 65
Number of times lens has been marked as favorite: 5

Title: Eugeniusz Tytyk (1920-2006) - An Auschwitz Survivor, My Father, My Hero
URL: http://www.squidoo.com/livingshadows/
Created On: 10/01/2006
LensRank (current): #16
Peak LensRank (highest the lens has ever been): #6
Days spent on Top 100 LensRank list: 13
Average Rating (stars): 4.50
Number of people who have rated: 45
Clickouts: 268
Clickouts per module: 9
Number of times lens has been emailed: 134
Number of times lens has been marked as favorite: 9
This lens was selected as Lens of the Day on: 10/24/2006

Title: Trading Currencies - Introduction to Forex Trading
URL: http://www.squidoo.com/trading-currencies/
Created On: 10/20/2006
LensRank (current): #17
Peak LensRank (highest the lens has ever been): #11
Days spent on Top 100 LensRank list: 13
Average Rating (stars): 4.00
Number of people who have rated: 11
Clickouts: 420
Clickouts per module: 14
Number of times lens has been emailed: 134
Number of times lens has been marked as favorite: 7

Title: The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music
URL: http://www.squidoo.com/the-beatles-songs/
Created On: 12/15/2006
LensRank (current): #23
Peak LensRank (highest the lens has ever been): #22
Days spent on Top 100 LensRank list: 2
Average Rating (stars): 5.00
Number of people who have rated: 4
Clickouts: 41
Clickouts per module: 1
Number of times lens has been emailed: 74
Number of times lens has been marked as favorite: 2

Ilona Zuzalek
Trading Currencies - Introduction To Forex

Technorati tags: The Beatles, Beatles, forex, forex trading, Auschwitz, Holocaust
del.icio.us Tags: forex, forex trading, currency trading, The Beatles, Auschwitz, Holocaust