This is an overview of some simple tests that I did into ways to improve your lens rankings. I had heard a lot of suggestions and wanted to see if any really worked.
Project Overview - Testing Ways To Improve Squidoo Lens Ranking
So, my semi-scientific solution was simple. I have created several Squidoo lenses and will check daily to see how they rank. In theory, they should raise differently depending on what promotion tactics I use. Now before you lecture me on the many, many other variables that I don't have much control over, I must admit that I realize that there is a lot left to chance and at the end of this little test, I may end up with no useful data, but I figured that I might as well at least give it a try. Each day, I will collect information about the lens rank for each page and present that information later. It seems that Squidoo only updates this information once per day, so that saves me from trying to decide how often to update it.
So, I have created the following pages (unless specified, these are all variations of the same basic page) (you can vote below on what order you think that the pages will finish in):
- Control1. I added a bit of content and left it.
- I tried to link to high ranking content. For example, the CafePress shop is a high volume shop, the books are top selling books.
- I will add this page to every group that I can. (i.e. the million links page, the everyone please add here page, etc). "Does the quality of the group matter?" you ask,. I don't know. This just goes for the more groups is better mentality.
- Lots and lots of links, but to a single module. In this case, CafePress.
- Lots and lots of links to fairly random modules. Is variety really the spice of life?
- I will visit it regularly. Does this help at all?
- I will visit it regularly and randomly select a link to follow
- I will try to add to this page regularly. Likely just more text on how the experiment is going.
- I will add guest comments to this page regularly, but no new content.
- I didn't even set it up properly. Heck, I'm not even going to bother publishing it. After the first night, I noticed that all the pages went up in ranking quite a bit even though I only set up the introduction. This is just another test control page.
- I will donate none of the profits from this page to charity. The rest of the pages all donate a percentage (but not all).
- I will donate all the profits to charity.
- I will try to add this page's address in comments on other pages on a regular basis (where appropriate).
- I will send emails to test accounts telling them about this wonderful page on a regular basis.
- I will add more tags appropriate to the content and really try to attract attention that way.
- I will set the page to 5 star rating.
- Control2. This is just a basic page
- There is a single module (CafePress), and that is it.
I have tried to create them and publish them all as close as possible. They also all contain the same content as much as possible (OK, so it is boring to read them all, but that is not the purpose).
Have a suspected winner or any guesses as to the outcome (other than me getting bored and stopping this silliness)? Feel free to add comments and/or suggestions!
The basic page contains:
- Text - basic explination
- Google blog - 5 SEO entries selected by Google
- Amazon - 5 SEO books selected by Amazon
- Del.icio.us bookmarks 5 - SEO
- CaféPress - 5 random products (yes I admit, from
my site justfunwear) - Flickr - 10 funny pictures
- YouTube - funny video
- Guest book
A quick note on clicking your "Adds by Google" for fun and profit.
By the way, a quick note on the idea of pounding on your adsense links to improve your cash flow
So, every time that you click an adsense ad, you only get a small percentage of the money from that click (so do I, and so do all the other lensmasters). The idea of Squidoo is more that if they put forth enough great content, some of the links will get clicked and everyone will benefit.
So, while I am not sure how it affects your lens rank (and am not testing it so that I don't upset people), clicking your own links should have a negligible affect on your lens pay.
For these tests, AdSense is off limits and no AdSense adds will be clicked by me. Of course since these pages are published, I am not entirely sure what other people will do and I am just hoping that they do not screw up the results to badly.
Just my little public service bit...Great Stuff on Amazon
An Overview of the results
While I have to admit that I got some results that I can never explain (for example one lens that I ignored did as well as the ones that I promoted, but only one...), the short answer is that what you really want is lots of traffic so that Squidoo thinks that people like you. Given the choice between a great looking site with no traffic and a junk site with traffic, Squidoo will pick the one with traffic. Now of course having a great lens will encourage people to keep coming back to your lens and tell others, but initially, I would have to say that tools like stumble will really help to get you noticed. Once you get noticed, hopefully your site is good enough to build momentum.
Day 1
Day 2
I set up test pages 1-10. I am starting to realize just how much time it is going to take just to set up all the pages!
24 hours after I created the first 10, they let me make more. I created the remaining pages and got everything basically set up.
I am going to leave them for a few days now and see what happens. I am curious about the fact that they are gaining status before they were even published.
Great Stuff on Amazon
Days 3 and 4
Day 5
Currently, all lenses are bunched closely. I had to create the lenses in 2 batches (you are only allowed to make 10 lenses per day), and each batch of 10 is still pretty much sequential with only 2 pages between the highest and lowest.
I did most of the regular tasks that some pages require, but was delayed in adding page 3 to groups since it seems to take a while after the page is published until you can start adding it.
Day 6 - and they're off!
Page number 18 is the page with only an intro and one module. I know that I published it yesterday because I remember getting the "are you seriously just publishing this little? Try adding some more stuff" message that Squidoo gives you if you are publishing a page with not a lot of content. Oh well, I published it again and we shall see.
The page spread is already pretty impressive with the published pages ranking anywhere from 107825 to 69985 (unpublished ranks at 327096).
By the way, a quick comment on the Squidoo spam filters. It seems a while back someone got the idea that if one Squidoo page is good, then a thousand is great! So, they went to town, and there are reports of people generating hundreds of copies of the exact same page. Needless to say, the Squidoo powers that be were less than impressed and have vowed to put a stop to the practice using a variety of methods including having real people verifying pages. It seems to be working. Well, you can see how my little test could get caught in a filter like that since for many of the pages I am trying to get them as close as possible so that content is actually not a factor... I know content is king, I want to know who the other players are.
Day 9 - the pack is seperating into groups
Test Rating
9 - 60835 (regular guest comments, which of course means visits too)
14 - 60876 (emails telling friends about it, also requiring regular visits)
7 - 60882 (regular visits and following a non-AdSense link)
6 - 60833 (regular visits)
3 - 60890 (added to lots of groups)
Poor performers
Pages 10 (unpublished), and 18 are ranking below 324000. The interesting thing is that page 18 was published, but since it only has one module, it does not seem to be included in Squidoo results (no green check).
The rest of the pages are all in the range 99917 to 99930.
Squidoo Blogs from Google
An interesting thing happend... Some pages were temporarily de-listed.
Anyways, the end result is that pages that no body loves can get have their listing status changed. I had always figured that once you published a lens that it would be in the listings and stay there. Apparently this is not the case.
Lens 18, which I published, but only had one crummy section has still never gotten the green dot for search results and ranks only slightly better than the page that I never published.
New squidoo bookmarks from Del.icio.us
Day 23 results
Well so far, it has been interesting. The short answer at this point is that what you really need is people interested in going to your site. Squidoo is really impressed if other people think that your site is worth visiting.Basically, there are several categories of pages:
- Regular traffic (caused by worth while content) is king. The more people visit your pages, the more Squidoo is impressed. No big surprise.
- pages that you are actively promoting by sending emails or keeping the content up to date seem to get points for you trying.
- most pages did poorly without some promotion and it was interesting just how close together they stayed.
- As for the question of do you get better rankings is you donate more to charity, while it is not supported by these tests, it is probably just good karma, and keep in mind that Squidoo has always been keen on this. They could change the algorithms if they feel the need. Also, keep in mind that this result may have been affected by the fact that no one ever viewed them in the first place.
Here is the current rankings:
Page rank
19 14236 - This page. I did everything that I could think of.
7 49598 - followed links
3 50071 - added to every group that I could
6 75975 - viewed regularly
9 90156 - lots of user comments
14 90156 - sent emails to people
1 90189 - I can not explain this one...
8 93346 - updated the content regularly
16 145746
17 146745
15 146747
13 146749
12 146750
11 146753
5 146756
4 146757
2 146763
18 345472
10 349057
Please keep in mind that this is a pretty simple set of tests...
New Text List Voting (Plexo)
The page explaining the tests
This is the page that you are currently reading.1 point
Comments or suggestions regarding the tests?
Feel free to comment!
Add your own lens rating related links and vote for your favorites
Got links of interest about Squidoo lens ranking? Feel free to add them.
Baby & Kids' Freebies ~ Free Baby Stuff
As of July 16, 2008 my lens is ranked #89. It too more...0 points
Feel free to leave feedback!
TheMedievalNun wrote...
This is a question that I've been having, as I have one article on website design that is at the bottom of my lens list in terms of rank. It's had 6 visitors, but ranks below a page that has had none.
I think topic matters. I made two lenses on handmade Christmas presents and decorations, and they shot to the top of my lens list--right below my two best performing lenses. So I think Squidoo ranks you on how POTENTIALLY popular your content is going to be. Of course, with Christmas coming up, lenses on Christmas things are likely to be very popular. However, I may notice that their ranking falls after Christmas.
The next thing I suspect are modules and links make a difference. My web design page has only three modules--one list (albeit it with a lot of text content), one set of links, and a guestbook. There are also only two outbound links. I think this might be hurting me; I plan on adding some more stuff and see what happens to the rank.
Posted November 25, 2008
aj2008 wrote...
Interesting topic, which is making me think. I currently have 2 lenses here and here. They are on completely different topics and have had the same number of visitors but one is ranked far higher than the other. Personally, I dont think that the content of the lowest ranked lens is as good as the higher and I am due to refresh it soon. Also the higher ranked lens received a visit from someone via Google. Both lenses have links and both belong to a lot of relevant groups. Whether any of this is relevant or not is anyone's guess!
Posted July 22, 2008
Teddi14 wrote...
It took me exactly 43 days to do it. With a lot of hard work & promoting my Baby & Kids Freebies lens made it to the top 100. It is, as of July 16, 2008, currently ranked #89. I can hardly believe it! I can only hope that the ranking stays above 100 for awhile so I can enjoy it for a bit longer. Maybe I will create a lens to chronical what I did to make it...Hmmm...
Here it the lens Baby & Kids Freebies
Posted July 16, 2008
sbaokay wrote...
Like you, I am getting the feeling that it is the number of visitors to your lens that has a big impact on lens ranking. My ranking was pretty much increasing on a daily basis to my
making money online lens. It is only about 3 weeks old and isn't getting that much traffic - maybe 3-5 people a day but then for two days in a row it only had 1 person visit. When that happeed the ranking decreased. I am just waiting now to see if an increase in traffic will make a difference.
Posted July 05, 2008
RedMarketeer wrote...
Lens ranking is based on secret algorithm and it will be kept that way in order to avoid massive manipulation just like the google algorithm. Take a look around and see what are people talking about their algorithm. Always changing. And that will happen to Squidoo algo too.
Therefore any method that is related to algorithm if it is known by the mass will turn out useless in a short time. What do we do then. Do more test and research and then feed those result to the public? I'm not against the test but I feel that if we share this result in the public we are actually put us in a difficult situation all over gain and that is not good for everybody actually. Anyhow all the best with your test and keep up the good work.
Posted July 01, 2008
