Squidoography

Megan Casey has posted an update about the 2 week Squidoo ad experiment on SquidU. There are two main points to the update.

1. Leaderboard ads on the top are here to stay.

I already have explained why I don't like them in my previous blog post. I just don't think a few dollars higher lensrank payout justifies putting huge leaderboard ads on the top of all our content! It's not like it will double the payments from the ad pool, but it can turn off readers in the long term or reduce affiliate sales. I am sure everyone prefers visually appealing sites that are easy to read and aren't overcrowded with ads.

jeffryv nailed the problem perfectly with a screenshot of his lens where the ads are outlined:

2. Text links or inline ads.

The so-called inline ads appear in the content of your lens, turning random words or phrases into links. A lot of people dislike this type of ads. I'm no exception, but at least here Squidoo gives you a chance to opt out - and you don't even have to set your lens to send all its profits to charity for that! Simply login to your Workshop, check the according checkmark in your Lens Settings and Publish it.

Megan also said that if these text links will stay there will be a separate ad pool for them and that it would be optional. This is easily the best news from this ad trial so far, and I can only wonder why didn't they offer the same option (opt-out & a separate ad pool) for those annoying leaderboard ads.

If you visited Squidoo lately, you must have noticed the new leaderboard ads that appear at the top of every lens now. Here's an update from Megan Casey on the official SquidBlog:

Over the next 2 weeks, we’re going to run some advertising tests to see if we can reach previous levels. To start, we’re going to try a new display ad unit at the top of lenses. It will run from Sunday at midnight EST for one week. We’ll watch numbers, and if they’re considerable, we’ll work on a way to design that spot even better. If the numbers aren’t worth it, for us or for you, we’ll take the ad down. And try something else the following week.

I am glad this is just temporary because there are at least three things terribly wrong with those leaderboard ads.

1. The ads are not related to your lens content, e.g. are not targeted. At some point in the past the 300x250 Glam ad spot was replaced with a graphical Google ad. I was quite happy because those Google ads matched my lens content perfectly. Why they came back to Glam ads is beyond me (well, I guess they must make them more money, although I have know idea how they do it if the ads do not match the lens content).
2. The ads are obtrusive. I firmly believe that our content should always come first, and a few dollars higher lensrank payout does not justify potential loss of affiliate sales because our visitors get turned off by obnoxious ads. The new leaderboard ads are placed above everything, including even your lens title.
   
3. The ads are for US only (or at least for select few countries like US, Canada and possibly UK). I am from Lithuania and the only ads I ever see are for Glam advertising program itself (see screenshot here - all 3 ads lead to the same page). Lensmasters from other countries including Australia and Croatia reported the same thing. What a huge waste of ad space it is if only US visitors ever see real ads while others (over 46% of Squidoo visitors) have to see the very same ads promoting Glam advertising program over and over again. I wonder if they even make any money for non-US visitors?
   

If I have learned anything from those ads, it's that fashionable, smart and chic women all "crave" Glam Media advertising :-)

I won't even begin to complain about how the new ads mess up the look of the new themes. Thankfully, this particular trial will only last for a week. I hope Squidoo will decide not to keep ads in that spot in the end.

An easy fix is changing your lens to the "Min" style - or "unmaxing" it in other words. The layout does look outdated but at least it doesn't have the obnoxious ads. I've done this for my most visited lenses which if I'm right account for about 0.5% of total daily Squidoo traffic. Not quite enough to affect the trial results, but if more lensmasters did it it would be noticeable.

I have received an e-mail from Squidoo yesterday outlining the policy and Terms of Service updates that will be implemented on July 15th this year. That's a first - I don't remember ever receiving a news e-mail from Squidoo before. If you somehow missed it you can always find the updates here.

I have taken a look at the changes and as usual some make a lot of sense while others make little despite the good intentions. I've written down some of my thoughts on the policy updates below. Just a note, I'm skipping the part about spam since it wasn't allowed before either and is just a reminder from the HQ that spamming will get your account locked.

All X-rated and porn lenses will be removed on 15th July

I am glad that Squidoo is finally acting instead of technically allowing X-rated lenses but blocking all outside traffic to them with that absurd splash page that requires registration just to view the lens. There's a lot to be won here. Squidoo domain won't link to porn sites anymore which should increase it's reputation and - possibly - give us all more search engine love. I am sure it will also make certain people who are against the very idea of porn happy :-)

This will leave just two lens ratings on Squidoo, namely G and R. R rated lenses are still useless and pointless to make due to the splash page I mentioned so G is the only choice if you want to receive search engine and other "outside" traffic. I hope with porn lenses gone, Squidoo will consider changing the splash page to a simply age verification like many lensmasters - me included - requested.

Now, there are two quotes from the Policy Update that caught my eye.

If you'd be glad for your 10 year old to see it, make it G. We're not out to be puritanical. Your lens won't get locked for saying shit. (But it could be recategorized as R-rated).

We need more clear guidelines because earlier on SquidU it was said by a Squidoo official that a lens could get it's rating changed if it wasn't "kindergarten friendly" which would mean you wouldn't want a 6 year old to see it; now a 10 year old is mentioned. More importantly, we still need a rating between G and R which would allow us to discuss topics like crime, war, certain movies and video games and so on - such as a "PG" rating.

Another quote is a funny one:

While X-rated lenses tend to get decent traffic, they make practically no money for the community or the people who run them.

So first they block all outside traffic to X rated lenses, and then say they make no money. Really, what a huge surprise!

Only Squidoo members can see R and X rated lenses, and most of us are marketers - not buyers. We might praise people on a lens well made rather than be interested in the product. We are NOT the targeted audience unless the lens itself is about Squidoo. Not to mention no one bothers to make good R or X lenses anymore since they won't receive any traffic anyway (or rather, visitors will come: only to be prompted to register, and then leave).

New outbound link limit: 9 links to the same domain per lens

At first, I thought this was a great change. There's a long and ever-growing list of whitelisted domains such as Wikipedia or Amazon that will not count towards the limit. Even if a domain is not in the whitelist, you can still use as much as 9 links which I think should be more than enough. But the I realized this limit was per a single domain (e.g. you can link to as many domains as you like that are not in the whitelist, as long as you do not exceed the "9 links per domain" limit).

What will stop people from masking their ClickBank (or other non-whitelist domain) links using services like TinyURL? You could have 9 links to TinyURL.com, 9 links to bit.ly, 9 links to snipurl, 9 links to tr.im, 9 links to redirection setup on your own domain and so on all redirecting to ClickBank URLs - resulting in hundreds of promotional links, should you wish so - and still not exceeding the 9 links per domain limit.

It's hard to believe the people who made the change didn't think of something as simple, but either I am missing something here or this policy change is pointless and will do nothing except give more work to the HQ and make hardcore promoters mask their links in order not to avoid the limit.

Taking down spam, junk and lenses with plagiarized content

I fully support Squidoo's stance on spam and plagiarized lenses (but then again, all sites are legally bound to fight spam and take down plagiarized content if they are requested by the copyright owner). I am more interested in the updated list of SquidDon't junk topics which will include things like free movie downloads, acai berry reviews, WoW gold farming and such. All I can say here is keep up the good work Squidoo!

While I find the update positive overall, I am curious as to how they will react to people masking their links in order not to hit the limit and hopeful that R rated lenses will finally be able to receive traffic as well. Squidoo has been rather active with the updates recently so I hope more good ones will come.

As all Squidoo members know, the site got a makeover recently. The SquidU forums are full of discussions regarding the new themes. I thought I'd write down some of my own thoughts regarding the changes.

Whitespace in long lenses

The old "max" style had a divider between the content area and the sidebar, as well as colored page background. As a result, even longer lenses looked alright. Most of the new themes however have no divider between content and sidebar, or even white background throughout all the lens except the header and footer. The themes seem to fall under three categories:

1) "All white" themes like Purple People Eater, Paintball and The Professor. I like the nice clean look, but all that white can be overwhelming especially if the lens is long.

2) Themes with white content area & sidebar like the Default, Gone Camping and Easy Street. These themes have a white sidebar and content with no divider between them and a colored page background. The main problem I see with these lenses is that after the sidebar ends, the content looks weird because of all the empty white space on the right. If anything, it looks even worse than "all white" lenses!

3) Themes where the sidebar is separated from the content. There are only two such themes at the moment, namely Moments of Zen and the Highlighter. In Moments of Zen, there's literally no sidebar after it ends which I think is the best solution (you can see an example here). In the Highlighter, the sidebar is a different color (gray) than the white content area which I think looks nice as well (example here).

My favorite themes at the moment are the Moments of Zen and Easy Street. I would use Highlighter as well, if it weren't for the weird yellow background behind the titles. I'd love to see more themes based on Moments of Zen and Highlighter (same layout, but different colors) since that would solve the white space problem nicely and provide more choice (the bleak gray of Moments of Zen might not be for everyone - although personally I like the calm colors).

Joshua Brown, the web designer of Squidoo said he'd consider making a new theme based on the Default one that will address the whitespace problem - if some lensmasters feel that it's an issue, that is. You can send him bribes here. At any rate, now that Squidoo has a functioning Themes system in place, I'm sure we'll get many more of them in the future.

Shorter bios

The bio fields which weren't that long in the first place were shortened even more. I believe this was done so the text would fit within the height of your avatar. It was a big issue for me since I like using images in bios and had to edit no less than 50 lenses after the change. Placing the bios in such a visible spot might be a good move, but why shorten them even more? I've already sent feedback to the HQ asking them to consider allowing more characters in our bio fields, and you can sign the request here.

Video module centering trick

I had been using a simple CSS trick in the module description to make my YouTube videos in the Video module centered instead of aligned to the left. However this piece of code stopped working after the new themes were implemented:

<p style="float: left; width: 90px;"></p>

Thankfully, the fix is just as easy:

<p style="float: left; width:90px;height:1px;"></p>

And my videos are centered once more! :)

Bigger fonts

Changing the fonts to bigger ones is overall a very positive and welcome change. However, the spaces between the modules and the items in Plexo modules were increased as well. Since one of my lenses has just over 300 Plexo module submissions, this change made it much longer than before and harder to scroll. Not to mention I prefer the old plexo item design and the numbers over new ones. Maybe this will be addressed in the future (of course, it might just be that I'm the only one who doesn't like the new plexo design in which case it won't :).


I like the changes overall, and the new Themes which bring more control to the lensmasters. I just hope it will be the last big change to the lens look for a long while (heh) and the only updates in this area will be minor fixes and new theme additions.

Squidoo have just made the payout rounds for June 2009. I received $61 this month and you can find the PayPal payment screenshot attached below like usual:

The Squidoo payment tiers for June 2009 were as follows:

High LR: $10.15
Medium LR: $1.51
Low LR: $0.07

This is a noticeable fall from the previous month, but fluctuations are to be expected.

I have finally started working on my second account which will have nothing except third party affiliate (ClickBank and CJ mostly) sales-oriented lenses. Doing keyword research sometimes gets me discouraged. It seems as every new idea that I get already has been tried and there already are a number of pages using that particular phrase. I have 4 published lenses there and none of them are particularly successful. Well, it's a start.