This lens looks at defensive SEO for Squidoo lenses, helps lensmasters consider how much of an issue defensive SEO is for them, and indicates some possible preventative measures lensmasters can take.
Defensive SEO Vulnerability Assessment
Whenever you publish any Squidoo lens you should do a vulnerability assessment. This needn't be a pen and paper task - just thinking about the issues is sufficient.
The Vulnerability Matrix I have shown is not intended to be definitive (more on that later) but to start thinking in a structured way. You need to assess two things: value and vulnerability.
Value is easy in concept, if hard to define. Every lensmaster has a concept of which lenses are her valuable ones. A lens may be valuable to you because of the income it generates, the traffic if feeds to another site, or a high personal investment in the lens. You need to cross-play this against value of the lens to other people. If a lens generates lots of income, that traffic is of high value to other people, even if you wouldn't see it as one of your most important lenses. In general if you have a lens that has high intrinsic value to you but for which you feel little personal affinity then consider selling the lens. Defending it may take more effort than you will feel to be worthwhile - pass it off to somebody else who is more willing to defend it and capture your income upfront through a sale.
Vulnerability is harder to assess so I'll return to that soon, in a later section, for now it is sufficient to recognise that some lenses are more likely to be attacked than others.
Assessing the Threat Level
When you have decided where on the Vulnerability Assessment matrix your lens lies, read off the color. This gives you an approximate threat level. (For those who are interested this is classic risk assessment stuff using a modified RAG (Red Amber Green) traffic light as I prefer to place greater emphasis on mid-range outcomes than in a classic three-color RAG.)
Remember this is approximate which is why the shading in the diagram flows between the levels.
High
Risk
If you decide your lens is at the top right of the vulnerability matrix it is both highly valued and vulnerable. Not only is attack likely but you have a big stake in investing it. Proactive action is needed both in the design of the lens, but also in regularly monitoring key analytics such as traffic figures (through the Stats option on the Squidoo dashboard) and backlinks (eg through and Yahoo tools).
Medium
Risk
In practice the copying of lenses and other attacks has (historically at least) been an uncommon problem. You are more likely to encounter somebody going after the same traffic as you by using the same or similar ideas and/or publicly available material than a straightforward cloning of your lens. Investing time in defensive SEO may not be worthwhile. At this level you still need to check your analytics on a regular basis so that any potential threat can be identified early. The sooner you start reacting to a threat the easier it may be to counter - and the less damage which will have been done. Rather than deploying defensive SEO techniques in full, you may instead just want to be prepared to deploy them quickly; however, basic precautions like burning attribution into images is worthwhile.
Low
Risk
Lenses like these will probably form the bulk of most lensmasters' portfolios. As people start concentrating more on making money, their lenses are likely to edge gradually up into the Medium Risk category, with some in the High Risk Category. At this level defensive SEO is something to be aware of, but not necessarily practice in a big way. It's worth having a look at analytics on a periodic basis but generally your time is probably more profitably spent creating more great content. It's worth perhaps considering your future plans for a lens. If you see it developing in future to become a more valuable lens, then it may be worth adopting some defensive techniques - they do no harm other than taking up your valuable - and probably limited - time.
Minimal
Risk
Defensive SEO is something most fresh lensmasters don't need to worry about - most of your lenses probably lie in this category. The exception is lensmasters who are already experienced web publishers for whom Squidoo is just one new platform to exploit.
Nature of Threat
Cloning
The most serious threat is also the least likely and the easiest to prevent or mitigate. It's relatively easy to clone all the content on a blog; it's somewhat harder (if not impossible) to clone a lens. Cloning and copying are highly damaging as search engines may recognise duplicate text and be unclear which is the orginal version. The second issue that cloners are likely to be the sort of individuals steeped in SEO, quite possibly 'black hat' SEO techniques. Their greated knowledge in this area may enable them to promote thier clone of your lens above your orginal, effectively stealling the majority of its traffic.
Copying
Copying is one step done from wholesale (and probably automated) cloning and is more lilely to involve manual cut and paste of images or large sections of text.
Plagiarism
Rather than copying text and pasting it directly, it may instead be edited as it could be edited to make it seem like new text. This is less damaging than copying or cloning as search engines will at least recognise it as fresh text, but properly advertsied it still have the capability if stealing traffic and revenue from your lens. If your material is cloned, copied or plagiarised you may have rights to approacch the new host and ask for the material to be taken down beacuse it infringes your intellectual property. In practice there are some difficulties with this. It can be hard to identify the host; the host may be in a country other than your own and potentially you need to understand intellectual property law with an international dimension, and you may be asked to prove that you were the author. To prover authorship, try to retain orginally copies of images for instance which are of higher resolution than those on the lens. It can also be useful to have blogged your lens when it was published as you then have a clear record of when your published the lens.
Competition
If you have a successul lens, the chances are high that somebody else (either on Squidoo or elsewhere) will want a piece of the action and compete with you. This may include creating lens which is very similar to yours. If it is almost idential this could be plagiarism, but it could just be legitimate competition. Competitionis legimitimate, if undersirable. You have no "rights" which have been infringed but you may still need to act to protect your traffic and income.
Smearing
FInally it's possible to attack your lens by smearing it. This could involve posting negative or unhelpful comments on the lens - for instance irrelevant material. Worse would be comments which include or link to adult x-rated material as search engines may decide your lens is adult in nature. Backlinks from dodgy locations could be created in an attempt to persuade search engines to view your lens as spam. Finally, if your lens relies on public feeds (eg news searches) theoretically at least these could be flooded with unhelpful material - although it is unlikely in practice.
Assessing Lens SEO Vulnerability
The most vulnerable lenses are those which rely mostly on public feeds, such as TwittterStorm lenses. There is little if any unique content so the lens can easily - and legitimately - be duplicated by relying on the same public sources. The new version is likely to also look fresher to search engines. The next biggest threat is lenses which are mostly text. Text is incredibly easy to copy. Lenses with images or videos (see the section about this) are better protected.
The best protected lenses of all are ones in which user input is central to the lens. For instance lenses which rely in polls and duels are valuable because of the contributions from readers, not just the author. Consequently they are much harder to copy. A lens with an army of loyal fans who visit regularly is in a very strong position indeed.
The subject matter is another key factor. Heavily spammed subjects are more likely to be attacked than a lens on a mundane subject. Squidoo are doing lensmasters are favour with the SquidDon't list but other subjects like the latest mobile phones, video games and SEO itself are also likely to be targeted by the type of individual who may copy your lens.
“In defensive SEO for Squidoo lenses, prevention may be better than cure.”
Defensive SEO - Reduce Vulnerability
The biggest defence of all is regular, committed readers who return to your lens often. It's one reason why I do not favour lenses with a very high advert content (particularly since any adverts a lensmaster adds are in addition to the many which come as part of a normal Squidoo lens). It's one reason why lenses full of HTML tips do well: lensmasters visit them several times to cut and paste out another snippet of HTML. They may be unlikely to buy much - so keep the adverts low - but regular traffic which doesn't rely on search engine referrals is a godsend.
It is important to recognise the importance of updated content. It is insuffcient to have useful, unique content. This may be copied or a competitor may independently develop a competing lens, page or site. It is insufficient to get in front: you need to stay in front. That means both keeping the lens fresh and updated with new content. Just re-publishing the lens may be enough to keep Squidoo's lensrank algorithm happy but it is not enough to satisfy search engine's wish for fresh content, nor that of regular readers. Similarly, if a lens is vulnerable linkbuilding needs to be an ongoing campaign.
Defensive SEO - Link-building Strategy
If you have a lens which you have rated as high risk, then you may wish to vary your backlink strategy. A lens supported by a few high value backlinks is vulnerable if those links were lost, or if a competitors' lens duplicated those links. Remember that your competitors can also see the links which are supporting your lens so they can just quickly work down that list and duplicate them for their own site.In contrast a lens support by a wide diversity of links is in a much safer position. Therefore if you have a high risk lens it is worth trying to build a wide base if links rather the concentrating on a handful of key links. It takes longer and is more work but in the long term it may be your best strategy.
Images & Defensive SEO for Lenses
Images are important in defending a lens as they are a good way of ensuring that if a lens is cloned attribution remains intact within the clone. It is easy to write scripts which strip copyright information and links out of text but almost impossible to do so to strip attribution burned into an image. This doesn't prevent cloning but means that either your attribution will survive intact or mean that the cloning process requires significant manual editing - which is unlikely for other than the most valuable lenses.
The best place to burn attribution is in to key images. Not only would the content be meaningless without those images, valuable images themselves may be stolen. For this lens I have added attribution into the Vulnerability Assessment matrix. Photographs are harder but many professional photographers will burn copyright into the lower right corner, as well as adding it in the EXIF data for the image.
The difficulty with corners is that they can be edited out. Photo stock galleries tend to protect their investment by placing a copyright message across the center of the image where it is hard to edit out. At some point you have to make an assessment and balance protection against the appeal of the image/lens to readers - and the effort involved in adding copyright messages to photographs if this is not routine for you.
If you don't want to protect your key images, it is possible to protect ancillary images such as dividers. These may still be carried over to any clone of so your lens. It is the weakest image option by far but worth considerable if you have mid-vulnerability lens and the other techniques seem inappropriate.
Defensive SEO for Lenses with Video
The richer the media, the harder it can be to edit out you attribution. Videos are a clear step further and can provide more resilient attribution than still images. Avoid just putting attribution is a short segment at the start or and of a movie though if you don't want it edited out as cropping sections out of a movie is relatively trivial.The legal protections surrounding video material are also very strong - thanks to the efforts of the big Hollywood studios to protect their investment. Much more than text, if you allege - and can prove - that copyright in your video material has been infringed, ISPs and content hosts are likely to take your complaint very seriously. At the same time, you surrender many of these protections if you post your video on common platforms like YouTube. You will retain a defence against unauthorised editing of your video but none against having your video reused on other lenses or sites other than Squidoo. Posting on YouTube is an invitation to others to syndicate your videos.
The value of video as content in their own right is beyond the scope of this lens.
Defensive versus Regular SEO
In practice the negative effect is probably much less strong than imagined. As in this lens even of key content is presented in images, it is usually duplicated to a degree in explanations and titles alongside those images.
Is SEO Dead?
Monitoring your Squidoo Stats
Monitoring Your Backlinks
Defensive SEO for Blogs
A lens in this topic is forthcoming and will be advertised here and by SquidCast.
About Kate Phizackerley
If you have any extra information or questions about this lens you can contact Kate Phizackerley, the lensmistress, using the contact form I have provided.
You can also follow Kate Phizackerley's business blogs on Twitter or subscribe to an RSS newsfeed of her recent Squidoo updates.
Kate has written many Squidoo lenses. Please visit her full lensography, sample Kate's top lenses, or read her Squidoo Diary to keep up to date with her recent publications.
And if you would like to know more about Kate then please visit her personal lens on Squidoo or Kate's main personal hub and web site. You may also enjoy her blogs News From the Valley of the Kings, Kate Phizackerley on Business" or PT Phiz.
Guestbook
I hope you like my lens but, whatever your opinions, I would like to hear your thoughts so please leave a message below. There's no need to be a member of Squidoo but no HTML is allowed.
I'd also really appreciate it if you would please go back to the top of my page and rate this lens. Just click home on the right. Thank you,
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jackhanson
Mar 27, 2012 @ 12:27 pm | delete
- awesome information about seo lens first time i read about this , thanks as owner of norwich web design company helpful information.
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Dec 25, 2010 @ 7:41 am | delete
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theclickfactory
Sep 16, 2010 @ 11:18 pm | delete
- Defensive SEO is a great tactic for Reputation Management /www.clickfactoryseo.com.au/'>The Click Factory SEO Company Great info! Great lens!
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Sep 1, 2010 @ 7:16 am | delete
- very creative and informative lens.I like this lens.As a part of Best logo Design Company connect with your lens.More Power!
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Gloriousconfusion
Jul 1, 2010 @ 5:32 pm | delete
- Interesting concepts - I had never heard of defensive SEO before. Thanks for the enlightenment
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WordCustard
Apr 17, 2010 @ 1:50 pm | delete
- I returned to leave an *~*~ Angel Blessing ~*~* for this valuable advice. I recently had content plagiarised and, separately, an image stolen. It's time I got wise about these issues, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Thanks for explaining defensive SEO techniques so clearly.
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WordCustard
Mar 4, 2010 @ 2:25 pm | delete
- This is very informative and useful. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
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mobile__phones
Sep 8, 2009 @ 5:28 am | delete
- Wow, what a good idea to do Defensive SEO. Its not something I had ever thought about before. Def 5 out of 5 from me, theres loads of great info.
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poutine
Aug 15, 2009 @ 9:55 am | delete
- Definitely gives me something to think about.
I, like Mac33,never heard of the term "Defensive SEO" before.
Thanks for doing the hard thinking for us.
Poutine
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aj2008
Aug 11, 2009 @ 2:18 pm | delete
- Kate this has to be one of the best SEO lenses I have seen!! SquidAngel Blessings for you!!
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LindaJM Aug 8, 2009 @ 5:20 am | delete
- Spectacular... great information! I'm lensrolling this to my Squidoo SEO lens.
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Mac33
Aug 7, 2009 @ 9:32 pm | delete
- I never heard the term "defensive SEO" before. Good info for lensmasters to consider as their lenses grow in popularity.
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Copyright
I would also like to acknowkedge the developers whose icons I feature on my lenses: Dry Icons for the Portfolio icon; Gopal Raju for the Twitter Bird; Icons-Land for Sweet Angel; Maja Benic for the Contact & Home icons.
by Kate-Phizackerley
Off Squidoo I am a middle-aged woman with a wide range of interests from Ancient Egypt, backgammon, cookery ... to ... Zimbabwe which I visited 20 years... more »
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