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Any benefit from Squidoo and HubPages?

Discussion in 'Link Development' started by PhiladelphiaIM, Jul 31, 2014.

  1. #1
    A few years ago, Squidoo and HubPages were very popular link building options among webmasters. However, I haven't been hearing much about them after the last few Google algorithm updates. What are your thoughts on these websites? Do you find that there's any benefit from utilizing them?
     
    PhiladelphiaIM, Jul 31, 2014 IP
  2. 01123581321345589144

    01123581321345589144 Active Member

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    #2
    Unfortunately I haven't made any studies of the latest updates on Google and so forth, and these article revenue sharing sites. I do have some articles up, but they're not for link building but trying to earn off the revenue percentages. It's not going very well. I think you might as well build a couple links to your website through Squidoo, Hubpages and the others like it. It probably can't hurt, right?
     
    01123581321345589144, Jul 31, 2014 IP
  3. DiggitySEO

    DiggitySEO Active Member

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    #3
    Good question. This used to be my bread-and-butter for pillow links. Pillow links are your non-critical anchor texts such as brands, URLs, and misc (click here, read more) anchors where are necessary to look natural in G's eyes. The great thing about web 2.0s like Squidoo and Hubpages is they're monetizable, so they're not only providing that diversification, but they're also generating money as well.

    In 2014, I've migrated away from using web 2.0s for a few reasons:

    1) Harder to rank

    It used to be the case that, since they had such a high DA, you could spam them with cheap backlinks and get them ranking fairly easy. Nowadays, even web 2.0s are resistant to rank. I've recently seen much better performance if (spoiler coming) you add 1200+ words and hit them with moderate-quality backlinks. Namely, PBN's with not so great backlink profiles. Not completely spammy, but decent. This is confirmed by my personal testing and not speculation. Costs are higher, but they still rank. However, the following reason is the nail in the coffin on why I dont use them anymore.

    2) Completely unreliable

    Both Squidoo and Hubpages (and others) are completely self-serving and like to keep their revenue to themselves. They have clear "Terms of Service's" but frequently will delete pages for literally no reason if they realize someone else is making money. I've managed web 2.0s that have brought in 10k visitors per day and I've probably made each of these sites over six figures, but my pages were removed for "re-directing traffic". Sure, I had links to my own sites but the pages completely followed their TOS', yet were taken down anyways. Furthermore, Squidoo/Hubpages/etc are losing money steadily, and don't have any support whatsoever. So when your site gets taken down, you're out of luck to figure out why.

    Also, Google is giving less credit to web 2.0s recently and commonly de-index web 2.0 sites.

    ....

    So what am I doing now for pillow links? Strictly PBN's. It's not worth my time on such an unreliable backlink source. I'm trying to stay ranked in 2015 and beyond and PBN link building from quality, completely undetectable sources is the way to go.

    Hope this helps,
    Diggity
     
    DiggitySEO, Aug 4, 2014 IP
  4. Ferzy

    Ferzy Member

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    #4
    squidoo went completely no follow last i heard, and hub pages is no follow until your hub has a score of 70 or so, then they become do follow.

    The fact that their sites have been penalized by google was a factor that lead to them losing their link juice , and fall out of favor with seos.
     
    Ferzy, Aug 4, 2014 IP
  5. PhiladelphiaIM

    PhiladelphiaIM Notable Member

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    #5
    You're completely right, my friend. I just discovered this the hard way.

    I published a lens regarding a travel destination in the United States. The content is completely original, written by a native English speaker, and full of valuable information for readers. To be blunt, it is better than most lenses churned out on Squidoo and it's totally within their TOS. The content had ONE backlink - to a local business from the travel destination. The link, mind you, was totally in-context and natural. Today I get an e-mail that the lens is locked due to "the content you're linking OUT to." The content I'm linking out to? Seriously? There's no way to dispute this, either.

    Long story short: Done with Squidoo. Don't waste your time.
     
    PhiladelphiaIM, Aug 5, 2014 IP
    DiggitySEO likes this.
  6. dannycarrey1

    dannycarrey1 Peon

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    #6
    Could you please write more about PBN?
     
    dannycarrey1, May 11, 2015 IP
  7. Vozzek

    Vozzek Active Member

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    #7
    They have clear "Terms of Service's" but frequently will delete pages for literally no reason if they realize someone else is making money

    Exactly. And they don't even notify you when they do this. You could have a lense/page that was up for years - and popular too - and suddenly it's totally gone.

    I've been done with Squidoo and Hubpages for a long time now, and I haven't looked back.
     
    Vozzek, May 22, 2015 IP
  8. Karen May Jones

    Karen May Jones Prominent Member

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    #8
    Hey, I went to squi doo yesterday to see about my earnings, 'cause I'm literally scraping the barrels. What I found out is my lens is no longer published and squidoo is now hub pages. RAWWWRRR! I deleted my lens, and took my 1900+ words and moved it to a health category on one of my blogs in progress. I mean... after all th is time (near three years), I was expecting a little something something from all that work - but I didnt even know they hid my work - pending me reactivating/republishing it on hub pages. Of course, years ago, I had the opportunity to use hub pages, and it wasnt quite my bag. On squidoo, I really liked the social aspect and the support and the cheering when you did something good. --- now I'm just like BLA, so I republished my stuff on my own site. Like @Vozzek , I am DONE! = PS, my squidoo was a few years old, I even got some reviews from Digital Point members to tell me how I could improve and what did they think about it. I hate when companies buy other companies! lol /rant
     
    Karen May Jones, Jun 3, 2015 IP
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