Squidon't bother (squidoo.com)

Member Name: MarcoG

Product:	squidoo.com
Date:	22/01/09 (331 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You can earn $1 if you're lucky. You can learn HTML

Disadvantages: Where do I start??

Squidoo is an American online 'community' (I use the word community lightly, and I'll come back to that later) that allows it's users to create online content. In return, you can earn 'money' (I use the word money, also lightly, but again, more on that later). One could very easily draw similarities with Squidoo and the likes of Dooyoo and Ciao, with the massive difference being that you can write about whatever you want. There are no product categories, just subject categories, where you post your 'lens' (their term for article/page/review/post etc) about whatever you want.

Creating a lens can be easy, but some may find it tricky. You make a page using Squidoo modules, that sit together on a page. Squidoo has a big selection of different types of modules to make your lens dazzling and spunky or full of plain text, whatever you fancy. There are text modules, photo modules, modules that consist of surveys, links and all sorts of little gadgets you can add in, including modules that allow you advertise items from Amazon, Ebay etc. Within these modules you also have the option to add your own HTML, so your lens can look completely personalised to your design, but HTML knowledge isn't a necessity.

Traffic:
Once you've created your lens, you can sit back and wait for people to come across it and watch your earnings stack up...if only it was that simple. The only way to earn money, is to get traffic to your lens (traffic meaning, the number of times people click on a link to your page, or view it organically through Squidoo). There is a 'Top10' style chart within each category, and the more traffic you get, the higher up you go. So, how do you get traffic? Squidoo has a forum that you can chat to other members (about 10% of the 'community' seem to use this, it's THAT popular). The real trick to getting a good amount of traffic is to promote your lens, be it on forums, link sharing websites, social networking, that sort of thing (more on that later).

Now, it gets even more complicated...

Earning money:
The payment scheme in Squidoo is calculated by your lens falling into payment tiers which depend on the performance of the lens. Then you earn a proportion of the revenue from their adverts/ad pool. For example here are the figures from December 2008: If your lens falls into the top tier (across the whole site, not the top lens within each subject category) between position number 1 and 2,000 then you get 25% of the ad pool, somewhere in the region of $6 per lens that sits there, the next tier (between position number 2,001 and 10,000) then you get 17% of the ad pool, somewhere in the region of $2 per lens and the last tier stops around the 85,000 mark, where you earn 8% of the ad pool, on average about $0.02 per lens. (If your lens has a greater lensrank than number 85,000, then you earn zilch). To me, those figures don't make sense to the amount of revenue you earn. Although it doesn't sound too bad, until you realise that the payout and the tiers only calculate the position of the lens on their AVERAGE position per month. So, although you may hit the number 1 spot for a day, and the rest of the month it sits at number 48,000, you will get paid for the 3rd tier. Also, even though you may have a lens at number1 within a music category, it might still only be position number 243 overall. Clear as mud? Tell me about it! Now, to make matters more complicated, Squidoo change how much you can earn each month and there is no transparent rhyme or reason for this, only that is a 'percentage of the ad pool'. Their algorithms are about as crystal as charcoal...One month the top tier could earn $4, the next as much as $7. To make earnings just that little more complicated, as I mentioned before, you can add modules to sell things through a third party, such as Amazon. For example, if you had a lens about Rihanna (and her um-ba-rella-ella-ella) and had a link to buy her album, or MP3 download, through Amazon, then you work earn a percentage of a sale if it was made through your link. This has never happened to me yet, and I'm not sure how successful trying to make money using this method would be.

Self Promotion:
If you want to earn big bucks, then you need to promote your lens, that's the key. Whether or not you use facebook or myspace, or belong to a group of online folk who will visit your lens...either way, you need the clicks and visits to your lens. Although people on Squidoo will find your lens, there is no guarantee that just by making a lens, you will get ANY traffic. On sites such as Dooyoo and Ciao, whatever you publish will inevitably get a few visits due to it appearing on a 'new reviews' list, but there is no such thing in Squidland. However, If you belong to a group (for example, my Rihanna lens is in a 'Female Singers' group as well as others), then when you update your review, it will move to the top of a 'fresh lens' list, thats IF the group even has a featured list module at all. The problem with groups is, that there are so many, and anyone can make a group, so there is no 'official' group you can join that belongs to Squidoo. The more I write about Squidoo, the odder the site seems to me. Whilst I'm explaining about 'Self Promotion', it's worth reiterating that you can make lens about whatever you like, you are even allowed to create them about your own work or business (unlike Dooyoo and Ciao), so there A LOT of lenses from people who have and sell THE best diet pills in the world (supposedly) as well as people with THE best options to make money from your very own home...needless to say there is A LOT of junk lenses on Squidoo.

My story:
(Cue some sentimental Steve Wright style music) I had time on my hands over the past few months, so thought I would give Squidoo a try. I started to experiment and make a few lens about some of my favourite things (as you do), I also used some reviews I had posted on Ciao and Dooyoo, but added some pictures, polls, music, that sort of thing, to make them more interesting. After a month, I earned...nothing! Puzzled, I had a look around the site, visited the forums, read lens from 'HQ' about payment, and it turns out you get paid 2 months in arrears, you must wait 2 months for a payment. So, you get paid in March for what happened in January. But you can't have a decent average lensrank worked out until your lens has been around for a whole month, so really, you have to wait 3 months. You can monitor how your lens performs by using their stats function. I was getting relatively good hits to my lens, and spent a hell of a lot of time promoting them, by using link referal websites, traffic promotion forums, that sort of thing. One other thing about Squidoo, is that they encourage you to keep your lenses up to date and this also affects your lensrank. When you log in, your first page is full of stats about which of your lens are doing best, which ones are failing, which ones need updating and when they were last updated etc. The theory is, the more you update, the more people see your stuff. Are you getting the impression that the whole site and process feels tedious? Well you'll be right. Anywaaay, I spent a good deal of my time creating, updating, promoting my lens, ready for my first payday. 2 months after I joined, I found the hallowed blue box on my stats page telling me how much I had earned. I worked out that I had created about 5 lenses, all performing relatively well, sitting nicely within the mid tiers. So, how much did I get...wait for it...I was given a whole $0.10! Somewhat disgruntled, I carried on creating, editting and promoting and eagerly awaited the next months payment, clearly some of my calculations were wrong. Within the next month, one of my lens had reached the top tier, so I was excited about my next payment...and I earned...ready for this...around $5 (a whole £3.75 approc). Hmmm, that really made my work and effort on the site feel appreciated! Since then, I have added up something in the $7 into my 'hopper'. By this time I had 13 lenses, and the all I got for ALL of them was $5. If you want to collect your fortune, you are able to cash out whenever you like, at $1, $5 or $10...you can choose. You can also choose to donate all your earnings to charity. You can also create a lens that earns no money, which allows you to create a page that has no adverts on it...so essentially you can have a space on the web that you can design MORE OR LESS how you want (obviously, there would be the Squidoo headers and so forth) without the banners and ads from Squidoo.

The community and ratings:
As I have already mentioned, there is a help forum, but it is not directly attached to Squidoo. You may post links to your lenses, but it doesn't seem that anyone really cares about visiting other lenses, just about promoting their own. There are 'SquidAngels' who can come along (from the forums) and 'bless' your lens, but again this doesn't really make any difference to the performance of your work. As with Dooyoo and Ciao, there is a rating system, using stars, these effect your lensrank too (apparently). If your work is top notch you can get 5 stars, or people can rate you 1 star if they think it sucks. The only problem here, is that all rating is invisible. So, whilst this may deter revenge raters, it means that people can secretly give you 1 star if they have a similar lens and want to get a better ranking...I have no idea if this happens, but it certainly could (and judging by the mentality of a lot of Squidoo's, I wouldn't put it past many). There is also a comments box that you choose to add into your lens. If you have one, you can delete any comments that you don't like. I have had some cracking ones, for example on my Rihanna review, a 'SquidAngel' asked me: "Did you really write all that", through an email conversation, it turned out that she thought that I must have copied it from wiki (which is perfectly acceptable, by the way, as long as you quote where it came from, for copyright), as surely someone wouldn't write that much without copying! Again, I'm not sure what this says about the site as a whole, accept that you REALLY can make a lens about ANYTHING and no-one will care where the information is from, who wrote it, or what it is about, as long as there is content on the Squidoo site that is getting the bosses some revenue. Maybe Squidoo should be renamed, 'Spamdoo'...?

The staff and support:
I really thought I liked this site, but the more I dissect it, the more issues I have. To cut a very long story short, I came across some very offensive lenses that were racist and highly derogatory to minority groups. I thought that surely this was unacceptable and complained to the people who run the site. I heard nothing, so complained again. Did I hear back? No. Are those lenses still there? Absolutely. Even if the admins at Squidoo thought the lenses in question were OK, it would have been best practice to get back to me and tell me, right? What I value about Dooyoo and Ciao, is that if I message anyone who administers the site, I always hear back, even if it is a automated response. The customer service on Squidoo is non existent. The big bosses, including founder, Marketing Guru 'Seth Godin', add lenses from time to time, giving advice about making lenses...and one random one offering someone an apprenticeship with Mr Godin (Weird huh?) but never appear to have direct contact with the members, devaluing the community aspect of the site.

Am I happy with Squidoo?
Um...no! It seems they have their own rules about how money is distributed and they categorically refuse to reveal how it is calculated. The community aspect is pretty much non-existent. And to be honest, I just don't enjoy the whole experience. If members were rewarded in a way that was appropriate to the amount of time spent on working on lenses, or that was directly proportionate to the amount of visits or clicks, then I think it wouldn't be too bad. On the plus side, I have learnt a lot about HTML that I taught myself, which by pure coincidence is helping my job at the moment. Overall, if you are looking for a site that rewards members for making content, I would steer people towards Dooyoo or Ciao in a heartbeat...but stay far away from Squidoo, such a waste of time. Having said that, I do know of people who do well, RLeigh (guide extraordinaire) has a great lens that explains how his earnings have increased and how many lenses he has and how they perform (it's a really interesting read...I'd love to know his secret.) I just can't be bothered anymore.

The actual site is very nicely presented, probably it's only saving grace. There is a lot of orange and lots of big one-eyed squids all over the place, but hey. I do like the odd quirkiness on the site. For example when you log in, there is always a random (although automated) greeting such as 'lolcats have nothing on you' (did I mention that they didn't make sense?). The ease of use is somewhat complicated at first, but after a month of using it, I got to grips...but there is still stuff I don't understand, but don't care to either. Squidoo does offer a referral bonus, whereby you both earn $15, as soon as the person who gets refered...if you want my link, you're welcome to it, drop me a message...but in all honesty, don't waste your time.

I've given 2 stars to this site, as it seems to work for some people and I have learnt HTML! Bonus! But in terms of effort needed, and rewards given, the site is just not worth the time, in my opinion.

(If you want to check out some of my lenses, you can find the URL in my 'about me' section, probably.)

Not recommended.

Thanks for reading :)


© MarcoG 2009

Summary: meh