Squidoo has been locking a lot of lenses lately (heavy alliteration there) that have anything to do with many of Clickbank's products. If you ask me, this is pretty sh$tty, because I've had lenses up for a long while that were never locked until now. This means they either changed their policies, or they don't initially look at lenses when first published. Either way, that pretty much sucks. Thank God I never relied heavily on Squidoo, and used various other means of building links and sending traffic. I had recently dabbled in Squidoo only because it seemed like it would be nice to send some traffic from that corner of the internet. Overall though, I think Squidoo's interface is pretty goofy-looking. IMO, good content should be GOOD CONTENT, even if you're promoting a Clickbank product. They should lock lenses on a basis of substance and potential offering, not based on "topic". But I suppose locking things by topic is easier, and it takes a lot less time to read. Go lazy go. In conclusion I'll say that NOTHING beats having your own website. Having total power over your content is a key part of becoming an independent affiliate marketer. Advice for anyone relying on lenses or hubs to make money: If you want to get serious, get out there, learn some html, and start programming. Anyone else have this experience with Squidoo lately?
Totally agree, When I first started last year I started with squidoo and quickly realized I need my own websites.
Loads of my Squidoo lenses have been locked as well. Luckily I don't get much traffic from them so it doesn't bother me.
Yup, mine were giving me crap traffic as well. I think the Squidoo ship is probably sinking, and I got on it way later than most (about 5 months ago). Sad part is I really concentrated on making 10 really good, quality lenses. Good keywords, all unique content, photos... the whole shabang. In that time I could've written 3x that many articles, but I figured I'd give it a shot. I wouldn't recommend Squidoo to anyone other than an internet hobbyist.
I agree! I have several domains, and haven't really utilized them like I should. Next year, though, is the year I go back to my affiliate marketing. I've built quite a bit of content in the last year, so now I just have to get it on some blogs, monetize it, and promote more.
I have 8 lenses, all pointing to clickbank products, and haven't had any locked yet. One of my lenses is doing very well. I created it only 2.5 weeks ago and it's getting about 300 hits a day now. I have 16 articles on 3 directories providing 75% of the traffic. All in all, I've made about $500 from clickbank sales from my lenses. Squidoo is great place to get started, test out some keywords, see what works and what doesn't. Then once you've found out what works, buy a domain and try to replicate it. That's my next step.
You see, I gotta question this logic. 300 hits a day is great, and I commend you for it. But wouldn't you rather have 16 articles on 3 directions pointing to a page on your own website? A page you'd never have to worry about going away? This works fine until you wake up one day and your Squidoo lens is locked or deleted, along with a funny little "Whoops!" page that jabs you playfully about breaking their rules. If I'm going to write 16 articles, you can be damned sure they're pointing to my own site. Not only that, but your sales page gets to look exactly how you want it, without any goofy squid crap.
squidoo is getting really strict these days. Many lenses have been blocked including a few mine, while I see many crap lenses not getting shut down. I agree with the idea of getting your own domain and have all links pointing to it, your own domain gets all the backlinks without the fear of getting locked/deleted.