by 40 people |
Debate Whether Chasing Lensrank Is Worth It.
The benefits of a high lensrank seem to be that if in the top payout tier you get a nice little share of the advertising revenue. Also it's alleged that a high lensrank will also bring you more traffic.
Both of these are obviously desirable and worthy of celebrating. Though we'll discuss how worth it they are!
How Important To You Is Lensrank?
Before reading this page, please answer the poll, you will be asked at the bottom of the page to do another poll so it can be seen if people do change their views of lensrank as they read this article.
Why Lensrank Is Important
1
Higher Royalty Payout
squidoo pay higher ranked lenses more28 points
2
Self-Satisfaction
Higher ranked lenses give the lensmaster a morale boost.17 points
3
Brings More Traffic
Top-100 lenses in their categories receive more traffic, and even more if your lens is in the top-100 overall.10 points
4
More Backlinks
A high ranked lens will receive more internal backlinks within squidoo, especially within it's category8 points
5
More Kudos
High ranked lenses gain respect from other squidoo lensmasters.7 points
Why Lensrank Does Not Matter
Quality Traffic Is More Important
Would you rather have 100 visitors a month, 10 of which purchased through your lense, or 2000 visitors that spent 5 seconds on your page?21 points
Time vs Reward Isn't Worth It
The time spent chasing lensrank could be better used creating new lenses and new content8 points
Only So Many Can Get The Top Payout
Only the top 2000 lenses get the high payout, and competition for a place here is fierce.6 points
You Can't Polish A Turd
No matter how much time you spend improving a lens, if the subject isn't popular or has too much competition it will struggle to do well.6 points
Lower Ranked Lenses Many Times Bring in More Affiliate Sales
Much more than the $10 one would get if in the Top Tier.4 points
My Views on Lensrank
I even posted a blog about chasing lensrank which goes into my views a little more
Lensrank to me is only interesting, it's something I notice, but has little effect on my actions.
When I see lenses overtime float up and down the rankings what I pay more attention to is the visitor numbers. While high visitor numbers do effect lensrank, what I am more interested in is how many of these click on my links (also a factor included in lensrank calculations), and how many of these make a purchase.
Many of my top 10,000 lenses have good visitor numbers and make good sales, though it is only the sales via the squidoo affiliate modules that have much effect on lensrank. While I like sharing revenue with squidoo, I promote many products that aren't available through squidoo, so my revenue from these does not factor into lensrank.
Affiliate sales earn me far more money than squidoo pay me from revenue sharing, some lenses earning 20-30 times what they would achieve if they were in the top tier for payouts. Other lenses that don't get quite as many sales or visitors may not get me a sale every month, but when they do, they often pay more than the lens has earned from squidoo in the last 3-6 months, with very little effort on my part.
So, I'd rather create a new lens than spend lots of time trying to turn a frog into a prince!
Discussions on Lensrank
- Lensrank in relation to becoming a Giant Squid
- "I'm aiming for Giant Squid...but I don't know what exactly is considered a "decent" lensrank."
- Top 100 Lensrank For Dummies
- An amusing, though not very informative, post about how to get a high lensrank from a relative beginner to squidoo.
- Glen's Lensrank Tip
- How to get a 500,000 jump in lensrank - again a little on the humorous side!
- Lensrank Vs. Affiliate Sales
- A discussion on squidu where lensmasters list what affiliate sales they currently have on their dashboard and which 'tier' those are in.
- discuussions about lensrank!
- Now the average lensrank is calculated over the month to give a 'payrank', people have been discussing how possible it is to get a lens into a higher tier than 3 the first month of publication.
- Discussion about expanding tier 2
- Discussed here are a few ideas of how to change the pay tier structure to include more in the middle tier.
- How a new lensmaster explains how he got good lensrank
- ....and promptly got some 'constructive' criticism.
Lensrank Duel!
Whilst I invite squidoo members to leave comments, please note that html is disabled from the comments. Moderation is active on submissions
Is lensrank Important To You?
Fetching blurbs now... please stand byYes! It means the world!
Revive_Energy_Mints says:
Now I don't know that lenserank "means the world!" but I think it's relatively important, depending on your objectives that is.
Posted April 24, 2009
daisuke75248 says:
I find lensrank very important because the lower it is the more visibility it gets.
Posted March 07, 2009
NorDac says:
Hard to say before I get a lens in the top 100 and see what it does for me. For now, I have one lens that looks like it might make it so Yes I am working pretty hard to get it there. (#8 in SEO and 301 overall so far.).
Posted August 17, 2008
The_Book_Garden says:
xriotdotbiz, lensrank has little if anything to do with nofollow or dofollow. Though I don't understand what you mean by 'get daily lensrank' being an objective, surely as a lensmaster daily traffic is much more important?
Posted August 16, 2008
xriotdotbiz says:
I am new but my reading says lensrank breaks the nofollow placement on links to dofollow for SEO. If that being is true, and I am a webmaster, seems that would be one my chief objectives is to get daily lensrank.
Posted August 16, 2008
poddys says:
Yes because I don't get much in affiliate sales, so getting into the top tier aids my income.
Posted August 03, 2008
flowergardener says:
I'd like to clarify an earlier statement. When I said "To stick your nose disdainfully in the air and criticize those that are implementing ALL availble avenues of earning money thru Squidoo is disgraceful." I should have formed the first few words better, for example...."For someone to stick their nose disdainfully in the air".
I still think it's a disgraceful act that has reflected in unwarranted name-calling. I believe calling another a lensrank chaser, obsessive, a newbie, or being in a frenzy shows the name caller to be lacking in quite a few areas.
Why do we name call? The very first answer in my mind is to make ourselves feel and look superior to what-ever we're speaking of in a derogatorive way.
I'd like to also expand my statement "I feel that if it's not important to some lensmasters, then by golly, let them have a lens rank that earns .07 a month...........see if they change their minds then."
I don't believe you should have it both ways. By making 'superior' statments, while enjoying the very thing you are disdainful of other lensmasters trying to obtain leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.
Try being 'superior' without the great lens rankings, the same lens rankings that are helping your lens be visible.
Squidoo is built upon a platform of interaction with lensmasters. I do not believe you can have a high ranking lens in Squidoo JUST FROM SEARCH ENGINE TRAFFIC and PURCHASES. The lens HAS TO have lensmaster comments and stars to rise in lens rank, which in turn will give you more backlinks and more visibility, so watching and caring about your lens rank is a necessary and naturally flowing ingredient of what it takes to succeed within Squidoo, and they way it's set up.
Posted August 01, 2008
ElizabethJeanAllen says:
I'm a writer and a teacher, not a salesman. I thought about opening an affiliate store but opted not to at this time. That may change in the future but for now I'm content with what I can make through lens ranking. So yes, lens rank is important to me. If that makes me silly, fine. To each his own.
Posted July 31, 2008
flowergardener says:
I wish you would have worded the 2 choices differently. The YES! It means the world! does not quite fit my view. And I don't like being referred to as being obsessive.
I feel that if it's not important to some lensmasters, then by golly, let them have a lens rank that earns .07 a month...........see if they change their minds then.
To stick your nose disdainfully in the air and criticize those that are implementing ALL availble avenues of earning money thru Squidoo is disgraceful.
Let's put it this way.....If lens rank were not important.....we wouldn't have it implemented into the Squidoo system.
I earn double to 3x as much through affiliate sales from my lenses, as compared to LR royalty payments......but you don't hear me bragging about it, or downgrading the amount that I do receive from royalty payments. It ALL adds up.
Posted July 31, 2008
WhippetTalk says:
I feel that lensrank is important because it means I'm doing something right and something that people want to see. When I see my rank drop, I get depressed. It's more for personal achievement than monetary. It's a great morale boost and makes me want to make more lenses when I get a good ranking. The royalies from high ranking lenses are a great incentive too. Especially since I use it to keep my Whippet Website up an running so that I don't have to beg for donations from my members. I would love to elimate the need for donations.
Posted July 31, 2008
Cinetech says:
Being in the Top 2000 lenses makes a difference in getting more quality traffic, namely one gets more readers. Beating other lensmasters and competition are not at all my objectives. Keep the comments coming.
Posted July 31, 2008
RichLeigh says:
Yes, it is important to me. I love traffic, receiving quality traffic makes it all the better; LensRank is a great way of measuring squidoo success against others however and understanding in some way as to how your achievements rank amongst others that use the website. I'm very competitive and like to come out on top in everything that I do, looking at LensRank I'm able to gauge how successful my lenses are and begin to understand how effective I am in creating the lenses that I do. I love gaining more hits, watching my lenses rise up the website, and it makes me extremely upset when hits begin to dwindle. I see LensRank as a great way of judging how my lenses are doing on the website and therefore yes it is very important to me.
Posted July 31, 2008
No! I'd rather concern myself with more important things
CCGAL says:
I'm really more on the fence than this duel allows. Being in the top 2K is a THRILL when it happens, BUT making a sale is an even BIGGER thrill, and that usually means more money in my pocket than top tier in lensrank. So I have mixed emotions on the subject.
Posted March 28, 2009
milkcananime says:
My take is that good lensrank provides self-satisfaction. But
I'm not overly obsessed with it.
Posted March 28, 2009
SEO_Toad says:
Well being in the top 1,000 is fun. But to me the 2 important things are, either to make affiliate sales or direct PR to my blogs.
The money from ranking lenses on squidoo is more of a bonus, it will never come close to the affiliate income.
Posted March 19, 2009
BeautyDiva says:
Quality content will always win out over lensrank unless some drastic changes to the payment tiers are put in place. Creating high quality pages with good inbound links will generate far greater rewards in terms of search engine rankings and affiliate earnings than lensrank could possibly give you.
Posted August 07, 2008
says:
Traffic and sales from a lens yield a better lensrank,but not the other way round I think. So lensrank is more or less a kind of nice extra that you get from a successful lens.
Posted August 01, 2008
says:
I would consider lensrank important as long and as much it is connected with traffic. If lensrank is independent from traffic it´s not very interesting.
Posted August 01, 2008
The_Book_Garden says:
Deb/Flowergardener,
You seem to be taking this topic far too personally, no offense is intended at all to those whose main purpose is chasing lensrank. The purpose was to provide a venue to discuss and air the pro's and con's of this approach to income generation.
I really do feel the importance people attach to lensrank is making a rod for their own back. If squidoo change the algorythm for caluclating rank, and it's already been proven how much of a stink this causes, then those who have used a particular method to successfully 'game' the system in the past will have wasted their time.
You also seem to confuse the value of lensrank, which I agree is a useful tool to assess the value of a lens, with chasing lensrank which I see as waste of time as a lens will achieve it's 'natural' rank on it's own behalf.
This really is turning a "Monkey Brain" debate and am wishing that I had used that template!
Meanwhile, I'd really like squidoo to come clean about how/when lensrank is calculated and to change the system to be worked on a lenses average over a month, rather than what is thought to happen now and a specific date is used (allegedly).
Posted August 01, 2008
WC1989 says:
As long as I'm at least in the 3d tier I'm happy. With all the competition we can't all be #1. I'd rather just accept my few cents and make loads of (quality) lenses instead of going on lensrank-augmentation-sprees.
Posted July 31, 2008
JonitasKalimpo says:
Not much. It's good for payments, but we can compensate that with affiliate sales. there're other things and forms of making money with squidoo, without the lensranking/payranking.
Posted July 31, 2008
Janet21 says:
I am not going to say that lensrank means nothing to me, but it is definately not the most important thing to me nor do I "chase it" on a daily or monthly basis. I update my lenses when I have something to add or change or feel they are getting stale. I don't update my lenses near the end of the month to get a better tier for payout. Having a good lensrank, especially getting into the Top 100 overall, is more just a boost to my ego than anything else. Like Rich, I am competitive by nature! Come on, who doesn't like competition? :)
After witnessing the frenzy that took place in the forums these last few days, I am so glad that I don't analyze and chart my lensrank obsessively. If you noticed, it is the ones that do that were to most upset with the algo change-bug-update or whatever happened.
In my humble opinion, rather than chasing lensrank, obtaining quality traffic and making affiliate sales is the better way to succeed on Squidoo. I remember Megan stating once (I can't find where I read this) that the ad income is "extra". The real money made on Squidoo is through affiliate sales. So, that is how I have always viewed it. Any extra money I make from the ad distribution is great, but I never, ever depend on it. If I did, I would probably drive myself crazy!
From the Squidoo blog, "Squidoo reserves the right to change our LensRank algorithm at any time." This means that you can be on top of the charts one day and drop like a rock the next. The good thing is that search engines and other outside traffic sources don't care if your lens is ranked #1 or #19,456.
Posted July 31, 2008
The_Book_Garden says:
Lewy, the point is that many people seem to be needlessly concerned about their lensrank, when they should be more concerned about their traffic and the quality of the traffic.
Clever? Well, this is hardly an argument, more a place to discuss and debate the subject.
As for not knowing how to get a higher lensrank, if you look at the bottom of the page there are links to many lenses that are only concerned with how to boost your lensrank, which to me is a pointless exercise and just proves that lensrank is effectively meaningless with so many people trying to 'game' the system.
Posted July 31, 2008
Have You Changed Your Mind?
As payout tiers are now calculated as an average of the lensrank over the month, rather than of the ranking of a lens I have changed the 3rd option here from "I'm still going to spend time at the end of each month trying to tweek lenses to get a higher payout" to "I'm going to concentrate on getting a higher lensrank to the exclusion of all other aims" - I hope this is an acceptable option, especially to the dozen or so people who have already voted for this option.
Blogging About Lensrank
Lensrank is such a discussed topic you won;t be surprised to find many of squidoo's top bloggers write about the subject frequently!
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byLensrank Payout Calculations Now Changed
Gil Stated that we will be having payout tiers calculated on the monthly average lensrank soon!
Bring It On!
This is now active!
Lenses about lensrank
You may also wish to have a look at what others are writing about lensrank on squidoo, though most of these do seem to urge you to consider lensrank to be the most important factor!-
Editing suggestions for your lenses - to give your lens a lensrank boost
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Lenses get payed out based on average lensrank of each lens over the whole month. Since lensrank is based, at least partly, on how often lenses get edited - this lens is here to give you some ideas about what to do when you go over your least edited...
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Lensrank
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Just how does the Squidoo Lensrank work? Is it important? If you make it into the Top 100 Lenses should you celebrate by popping open the champagne or chugging down a beer? All these questions won't be answered in this lens on Lensrank. All we'll be...
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Squidoo Lensranking - How Important It Is And How To Make It Better
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I believe that the lensranking and the LensRank system (algorithm) are very important to all of us - the Squidoo lensmasters - and to the Squidoo Headquarters (HQ) too... For two main reasons - first, the LensRank can make us happy when our lenses a...
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How to make it into top 2000 lensrank
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Most squidoo users know that reaching the top 2000 in lensrank can be difficult! Other squidoo users see it happen often and to a lot of their lenses. I have watched about 5-6 of my lenses go in and out of the top 2000 on any given day! So what is th...
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Lensrank explained (really)
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Well, squidoo lensrank has, by common consensus (at least) the following factors: Lens freshness. sales made through money making modules like amazon and ebay. visitor numbers. star ratings. favorites. whether you've been blessed by an angel. whethe...
Do You Chase Lensrank?
Are you chasing Lensrank on Squidoo?
I say...
What others are saying...
Just Updated Lenses
See if you can spot the lensmasters on twitter who update their lenses very frequently in an attempt to game lensrank
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byAny Further Comments About Lensrank?
Michael_Toth wrote...
Interesting article! I'm new here so I still am not quite sure how everything works. I have a fair lensrank on my first lens so far, but I'm not obsessing over it. Thanks for posting this!
Posted March 11, 2009
spirituality wrote...
I'm one of those who probably obsesses more about lensrank than I should. It's mainly the money - but the amount gained from top tier payout is probably not worth the fuss.
Posted March 08, 2009
Webcodes wrote...
As one who studies SEO, I really believe it's important. It lets you know about the quality of your work... and gives you that google juice we all want. great lens 5*
Posted October 08, 2008
by The_Book_Garden
Hi!
I've been publishing content on Squidoo for over a year now and have published some very varied content.
My main themes do tend to be Environment... (more)
