External Links Increase Traffic and Lensrank
Don't Tase me, Bro!
This lens will be "under construction" for some time. The reason I started it in the first place, as you might guess, it that I have had some external backlink "issues" of my own. You can monitor my progress as I continue to research this topic.
For now, there is enough information here to be useful, even very useful, depending upon how much you've been effected by recent changes at Google and Squidoo.
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Table of Contents
News
- 2 JUN 2009 When I started this lens a few weeks ago, I dove right in and submitted a dozen or so lenses to some of these directories. Almost immediately, I began to see an increase in traffic on the listed pages. Apparently, some lensmasters do use them, and not just search-engine spiders. What I did not anticipate was the spill-over effect: lenses I didn't list also recieved more traffic -- primarily lensmaster traffic. This is generally a good thing, but it resuleted in some neglected lenses recieving some poor star ratings. I recommend that if you are going to use these directories, you first do a little maintenance and housekeeping.
- 29 AUG 2009 I'm almost done with my housekeeping chores, including some "improvements" suggested by the SquidUtils Health Check. Unlike the health-check on the Squidoo site, you can apply this one to any lens, in case you're wondering about some Lens of the Day or other page that is supposedly "better" than yours. It's kind of interesting.
The Ever-Shrinking Google
"Professional" Management Rapes Page/Brinn Reputation
Google and Yahoo are about neck and neck in the search engine traffic race these days, primarily because Google keeps making it harder for pages to be indexed. Personally, I want a search engine to index everything, then rank it for relevance. Yahoo's new heuristic (learning) approach is a big advance, which is why they are gaining on Google.
Just to show how the leading search engines stack up, here are some recent (3 APR 2009) data:
Wikipedia
Google Search: site:en.wikipedia.org about 4,060,000 hits
Yahoo Search: domain:en.wikipedia.org about 57,309,991 hits
Squidoo
Google Search: site:squidoo.com about 1,500,000 hits
Yahoo Search: domain:squidoo.com about 3,170,108 hits
Click on the links for current data to see how it changes over time.
Google's Latest Bright Idea
Backlinks from Multiple Domains Required
Like the severely retarded "algorithm" campaign launched by Ask.com, Google seems to have recently decided that any page worth indexing will have backlinks from a number of different domains.
If you are one of those Squidoophiles that's been promoting your lenses all over the web by fair means or foul, you've probably seen an increase in your traffic, and therefore your lensrank. On the other hand, if you've primarily been using Squidoo to promote your "real" website(s), you've probably seen your traffic drop to zero, or nearly zero. Gack!
The problem is that you need to have backlinks from multiple IP addresses or Google will drop you like a hot potato. If you've been getting most of your traffic from Google, the result can be disastrous.
Featured Lenses: Squidoo Lens Directories
Join, Submit, Rank!
Thanks to Diggit-clone software, a lot of rankable directories are appearing, including some exclusively for Squidoo lenses. They're great places to promote your lenses. Many thanks to the lensmasters featured here for bringing them to my attention.
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Directory of Squidoo Lens Directories
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This page is a work in progress..because there are always new directories popping up. There are an increasing number of sites for the lensmaster to use as tools for getting more traffic, self-promotion and interaction with other Squidoo members. It...
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Submit URL: Squidoo Lens Promotion
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On this page, you'll find some links to places you can submit your Squidoo lenses to so that you can get more web traffic to your lens. Google is usually the main source of traffic to my lenses, but to rank well in Google takes other websites linkin...
Featured Lenses: Backlinks
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DoFollow: Increase Your Backlinks with DoFollow Sites
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The DoFollow revolution embraces the sharing of link juice going out to other sites. Learn more about DoFollow, where you can get listed on DoFollow sites, and what it means to you as a webmaster and link builder!
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How to Get High PR Backlinks.
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Before we talk about how to get high PR backlinks, we should first understand two things: 1. What is PageRank, and how do I get high pr backlinks in Google? 2. What are Backlinks and how can they boost your website traffic?
Search Engine Marketing
by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt
Mike Moran has written some excellent lenses on search engine marketing, which are buried deep in Squidoo. If you think lensrank is a measure of anything but promotional agressiveness, check them out.
Excellent book.
Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web Site (2nd Edition)
Amazon Price: $34.64 (as of 11/16/2009) 
Using These Squidoo Directories
Submit Widely, Then Hurry Up and Wait
Don't think that these directories are a magic bullet that will propel you to the top of the lensrankings. They're not. However, it is absolutely necessary to promote your lenses in some way if you ever hope to get any decent amount of traffic. These directories deserve to be one of the tools in your arsenal and are well worth the considerable time and effort it will take to submit your lenses.
Be patient. Entering your lenses will probably result in a short burst of activity as other lensmasters look your content over, but the real benefit won't occur until the major search engines find your links and update their listings. That could easily be a couple of months.
- Squid Utils Squidoo Directory
I suggest you start with this directory. Simply login to SquidUtils with your Squidoo Lensmaster Name (no registration required), then go to their Lens Health-Check Page. There you will find a scroll-down box of your lenses alphabetically by filename. Pick one and check it. If you have a reasonable primary tag, you will be automagically entered into the directory. You can also work on any other deficiencies the health check suggests, or you can defer that for later. The Health check identifies a number of SEO factors that will help your lenses score better with most search engines, which is why I suggest starting here.
Check out the SquidUtils Blog and maybe Join Tim's Fanclub.
- LensRoll Squidoo Directory
LensRoll is one of several good Squidoo directories based on the Digg clone software. The reason I've placed it second on the list is that it imposes a quota of entering two lenses per day. The idea is to give everyone a chance to be featured in the New Lenses page. It also means that if you have a lot of lenses, its going to take a long time to enter them, so you should start now.
SquidUtils Advanced Dashboard also has "Submit to Lensroll" buttons, so once you have registered, it's very easy to add these links.Check out the LensRoll Blog, and perhaps Join Glen's Fanclub.
- Squidom : The Kingdom of Squidoo
I'm listing this directory third, not because it isn't good, but because joining the first two first is more efficient and logical for the reasons stated above. In fact this directory has some value added features the others don't. First you can join The Squidom Community at Yahoo's MyBlogLog. Then there's Squidoosphere , a separate Squidoo-oriented forum. As of this post, it's still in beta testing, but it should be fully operational soon.
Check out the blog at Squidoosphere, and possibly Join Harmony's Fanclub.
- Access2's Lensmaster Page
This isn't a Squidoo directory, just a placeholder to let you know there's more to come in this list. My main focus is on promoting my own lenses. This lens telling others how to promote theirs has a somewhat lower priority! Check out the "Featured Lenses" above for more information.
Digg Karma and You
Submission is just the beginning
Several of these lens directories are based on freeware Digg clone software. Although you can submit your content and have it appear immediately, actually having it "published" depends on your "karma."
Like lensrank, the factors that influence karma are a deep, dark secret, "to prevent gaming the system" Is that the real reason, or is it to make sure that gaming the system is restricted to those who are "in the know?" Whatever the intention the latter is more realistic.
It seems that karma is based on the amount you use the Digg or Digg-clone community building features. "Useful" comments, voting, submissions and any other actions you take on the site seem to influence your karma rating.
There is a lot of online discussion to the effect that Digg's formula encourages a groupthink mentality and me-too-ism, but most of those pages are fairly old, and may refer to an earlier algorithm. Anyway lensmasters would never fall into that cetegory, would they?
For a progress check, you can see my Lensroll comments.
Squidoo Lens Directories
Many, if not most Squidoo lens directories either request or require a reciprocal link in order to have your lens listed. This directory "Plexo" makes it easy for you to create a page (very similar to this one) with the necessary backlinks.
If you care to vote for your favorite directories by voting them up or down, that information might be useful to other lensmasters, too.
Why shouldn't there be hundreds of lenses with nearly identical content? I Looove Squidoo!
Squidoo Directory - SquidUtils
Directory of the best lenses on Squidoo, organised by topic and primary tag. Automagically spider your "featured" lenses by logging on. Use the SquidU...1 point
The Isle of Squid
1 point
Squidom : The Kingdom of Squidoo
A Squidoo directory based on Diggit-clone software. Vote your favorite linnks up or down1 point
LensMasterWorld.com a Squidoo Directory :: Home
Squidoo lensmaster directory to post your squidoo lens or find popular squidoo lenses0 points
Squidpedia - Squidoo Link Directory
The home of SquidPedia, a Hand Reviewed Squidoo Lens Directory0 points
The Squidoo Ink Pot
We're a community of Squidoo Lensmasters sharing our work with the web. You'll find lenses (single web pages) about nearly every topic imaginable. Fee...0 points
Squoogle Article Link Directory
make a web directory with ease0 points
SquiDirectory
A Best of Squidoo Directory. Featuring helpful information on a variety of interesting topics.Reciprocal Link requested.0 points
The Squidixx community, a place for sharing news, photos and videos about Squidixx - Mixx
Mixx is your link to the Squidixx community. Share Squidixx news, photos, and videos.0 points
Squidoo Lens Directory - Article Troll Links and Content
Welcome To ArticleTroll.com, THE directory to submit topical article, blog, lens and RSS feed links0 points
Suggest Related Sites
I usually don't use "Guestbook" modules, sice they tend to become filled with such insightful comments as "Awesome Lens!" It almost makes you think people are more interested in the internal backlink than encouraging your creativity. There are five-star ratings and "favorite this lens" buttons for that, you know.
I'm making an exception in this case because there are off-the-shelf programs to create directories, and new ones will be popping up frequently. Please use this module to suggest useful URLs (related lenses are O.K.) and meaningful comments, not just to increase your lensrank.
Logged-on Lensmasters Only. Sorry.
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- RichmondBlogs RichmondBlogs Nov 4, 2009 @ 10:20 am
- Some really clever and useful info here. Thanks for all the tips.
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- WriteResearch WriteResearch Jul 4, 2009 @ 1:41 pm
- Thanks for providing this resource. Very helpful, because backlinks are most definitely important.
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- JHFSEO JHFSEO Jun 12, 2009 @ 1:04 pm
- I suggest http://www.articletroll.com as a squidoo lens directory to check out. It's recently been retooled as a squidoo-only lens site, so it now specifically caters to Squidoodlers.
Oh, and this IS a great lens and resource for submitting lenses and getting the word out - Cheers!
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- access2 access2 Apr 3, 2009 @ 5:16 am
- Here's a test: Build External Links with Social Bookmarks is an old (May 2006), poorly maintained lens that I'll be working on real soon now.
Vote For This Lens!
Squidom Squidoo Directory Offers Free Backlinks
I'm using this lens to test the Squidom Squidoo Directory Click on the optional reciprocal link banner below to register your opinion
The Whole Ed Cata-Blog
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I've never quite been sure what distinguishes a blog from a regular webpage. Timeliness seems to have something to do with it, but that doesn't seem to be a hard and fast rule.
Anyway, here are some of the things I've been working on lately...
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