I see quite a few squidoo lens pages ranking for semi competitive terms (first page results). These pages aren't much more then "thin affiliates" as Google likes to call them. There basically ranking on the authority of Squidoo's PR6. I wonder when Google will place less importance on this site. To be honest, I haven't had the time to even setup a lens page, anyone benefiting from it much ?
Actually about two weeks ago there was something called the 'Squidoo Slap' where a large majority of Squidoo lenses pretty much dropped off the Google map. Also Squidoo itself is cracking down on thin pages, I believe they are now requiring a minimum of three modules or something like that.
I just got a notice from Squidoo a couple of days ago that talked about their new "anti-spam" policy. If a "lens" has less than 3 modules, they will consider it a work in progress, and it won't go in to their system. It does, however mention that the lenses without the 3 mods will still be able to be picked up by the search engines. I'm too new to Squidoo to see if the spam problem affected anything I've created, but I doubt they will get back all of their good ranking from the SE's after the spam attack.
As Carlito said, about 2 weeks ago, most Squidoo lenses, even quality lenses took a major hit in Google, Squidoo lens URL's were banned from being submitted at Netscape. Not all Squidoo lenses are garbage. But when a site such as Squidoo is given authority status by Google, and offers free web pages, it's inevitable that it will become used for parasite hosting which is exactly what happened. Google created Squidoo's popularity, now they took it away.
I don't really like the "parasite hosting" comparison, since squidoo profited alot from all the "thin affiliates" as well. If a lens gets traffic, it makes squidoo money and the only reason why squidoo didn't react earlier is that they made a nice cut as well.
I receive google alerts for certain keywords. I've got Lens which mention most of them - and I don't receive any alerts which include squidoo. I can't imagine squidoo is a huge issue for them.
With Squidoo cleaning up their pages, this penalty from Google wont be a long term deal. Google knows how valuable Squidoo pages can be, I am certain this will be a temporary thing. I'm fact, my Google positioning has improved over the last couple days for many of my lenses.
I think that Squidoo will not be the one it was before. As a matter of fact, the service become a bonus free hosting with the pit of content, which doesn't have any value and serves only to the lenses owners becoming for them a tool for money making. There were many examples of such kind, all faced the bonus earning, however lowering the position in the SERPs, and as far as I remember no one could regain its previous place. Squidoo has come and will be gone, there are some better variants not promoted that much.
To be honest, even with all this "Squidoo Slap" talk, I see lense pages ranking well. With all this slap talk it's heating up ... no pun intended.
I tend to disagree here, I also see some lenses slowly creeping back up, but I think these lenses will now have to rely more on link authority of other sites.. Good lenses with good link pop can still rank well, I don't think they will be getting the massive bounce they were receiving from just being hosted on Squidoo again, anytime soon. I doubt Google's worried at all about Squidoo, one way or the other, they only worry about that which they own and that which they will buy.