I've been reading a lot on these forums, and the word lens has appeared a few times, and i'd appreciate it if somebody could tell me/explain what a lens is and what it's for
A squidoo lens is a place where you can write about anything you like. It's like a one page website which you can add content to and a selection of widgets. They are another source of backlinks and traffic. Check it out here - Squidoo Lens
I just started using them, reading and trying different methods that they tell you about there. So far I have 4 out of 5 that have pretty good scores and have been accepted to a few groups. The traffic parts sucks though, so I need to work on better headlines.
I lens is a webpage of Squidoo. It can only be one page, but you have the ability to add textures, pictures, videos, rss feeds, etc. Squidoo lenses make great backlinks, and generally they rank well in the search engines. Squidoo's main competitor is Hubpages, where you create "hubs" - which are basically the same thing. I've generally found that hubs rank higher and faster then Squidoo lenses in the search engines.
I agree with the Hubpages part. The only thing is that the hubs look very cluttered and ugly... I love the clean and structured look of Squidoo lenses
Hubs? No way, squidoo lens is better. I tried writing hubs they always rejected, BUT didn't with squidoo.
I've always thought a squidoo lens is really a waste. They can be put up with little time but they aren't going to get any real traffic (from my experience) and in terms of SEO link building they are horrible to. There are always a LOT of (external) links on the page I made which degrade the relevance of the links I put up on the already insignificant page it appears on. sounds good on paper...