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Lensrank

1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic (by 38 people)   Your rating: 1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic

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Created by N376 (contact me)

Glen likes to write. If it's something that he hasn't already enjoyed or experienced in life if you so much as...  (more...)

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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 doing is copying and pasting conversations, statements, opinions (all with source links) and you can come to your conclusions.

What we do know 

  • Lensrank updates once per day. Just once. Not sure what time it is according to the timezone where the server is located but in Australia (AEST) it happens around midnight.
  • The Lensrank algorithm formula will never be disclosed by Squidoo as it is propriety.
  • More coming soon...

Gil - Squidoo Engineer 

April 2008

The only Lensrank change we've made recently is to slowly decrease the weight of Angel blessings over a period of weeks. This is to make sure that it doesn't become impossible to get into our Top 100 lists without massive amounts of Angel blessings.

Source

Gil - Squidoo Engineer 

Monday 5 February 2007

"...we're actually in the process of removing trackbacks from our lensrank algorithm. 99.999% of the trackbacks we receive are spam, and we just don't have the resources to manage it..."

Source

Gil - Squidoo Engineer 

Friday 2 February 2007

The idea that lensrank is broken is highly subjective. If my lens is not in the top spot, of course it seems unfair. Keep in mind that while I may not agree with the subject matter of some of the lenses with very high lensrank, they are doing all the right things (right meaning successful and legal according to our TOS) in order to promote themselves. We can tweak lensrank to prevent gaming of one specific factor, but if a lens is visited, rated, favorited, emailed, and is generating revenue all at once, it will naturally achieve a higher lensrank no matter what. Short of punishing individual lenses simply because we don't like them (which we won't do), and removing lenses which violate our TOS (which we already do), our hands are tied. That is why we'll soon be introducing the People's Picks --to introduce entirely human picked lists.

The reason why lensrank has so many factors is because it is very difficult to determine whether one lens is "better" than another. Sure, there are some lenses in the top 100 that I'd rather not see there, but would you agree that a lens in the 1-100 range is generally much better than a lens in the 1000k-5000k range? That is our primary goal. If we spent every waking moment making lensrank perfect (which I don't even believe is possible, because of what I explained above), we wouldn't have time to work on anything else.

Source

Maurreen - Lensmaster 

Tuesday 23 January 2007

An Algorithm Suggestion...

I originally was just going to list the lenses by the number of stars. But then someone, I think it was Rick Phillips, pointed out that the number of ratings can be more meaningful.

I toyed around with a few idea, and the current combination is simple, in my view, gives a fair amount of weight to both the number of stars and the number of ratings.

I had considered just adding those two numbers or just multiplying, but those seemed to me to give too much weight to the number of ratings.

A couple of ideas on possible ways to improve on what I did (I don't know how feasible these ideas are, but they would be easier for you than for me):

Possibly more weight might be given to --
*Raters who have a longer history on Squidoo
*Raters who are more active on Squidoo, in one or more ways
*Ratings that deviate more from the usual ratings that that specific person gives
*Raters who have lenses on the same or a similar topic (This could go both ways. They would be more knowledgeable, but they would also have some incentive to knock down the competition)

Possibly less weight might be given to --
*Ratings that deviate far from what is typical for a given lens (For instance, if a given lens has had some healthy number of ratings of at least four stars, and then one or two people give it one or two stars.)

While we're at it, I'm wondering about the possibility of allowing non-Squidooers to rate lenses. If some lenses get unfair ratings from their competitors, that might be balanced out by allowing non-Squidooers to rate lenses.

Maybe you could even have two sets. Just a thought.

Source
Maureen's Top Lenses by Star Rating Lens

Megan Casey - Squidoo Editor in Chief 

Monday 22 January 2007

Just a headsup that we're doing another (small!) tweak to the LensRank algorithm tonight, so if lenses shift around a little in the morning that's why. As ever, we're constantly trying to come up with combos that reward a) good handbuilt content that is b) promoted well and c) recommended by readers.

Source

Megan Casey - Squidoo Editor in Chief 

Monday 15 January 2007

LensRank is very volatile, in a good way. The system calculates LensRank data from a rolling 2-week window, meaning that "one hit wonder" lenses that are popular for a few days won't necessarily maintain that status when the dataset refreshes.

The SquidTeam is constantly tweaking the LensRank algorithm in small ways, in response to how our traffic and your lenses behave. We reserve the right to update the algorithm from time to time to make sure the system isn't being gamed, and we'll give you a heads-up here before we do anything big.

Source.

Search Engine Ranking 

Lensrank is great for getting extra clicks from visitors ALREADY at Squidoo, but bigger than that is getting your site indexed and ranked at search engines. These books explain the hows and whys.

Google's PageRank and Beyond: The Science of Search Engine Rankings

Amazon Price: $28.00 (as of 05/16/2008)

A Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Placement and Ranking

Amazon Price: $9.95 (as of 05/16/2008)

Share your theories 

What do you think influences Lensrank? Speculate here!

RyanRE

Nice information here Glen. Some of the comments really make a lot of sense from what I have seen over the last 4 months on Squidoo.

Posted April 09, 2008

Winter52

As a relative newbie, this answers some of the questions that have been rolling around in my head. Thank heavens I spotted the forum button! :)

Posted March 29, 2008

DimitriPreacher

I still have no clue, but looks like you get higher ranking in when you just getting started...

Posted February 15, 2008

adez7

Once again as usual, Glen, you have come up with a very incite filled lens that brings the key factors that are known about lens rank to the fore. Thanks. :) 5 Stars and stumbled.

Posted February 10, 2008

InternetJunkie

I think that in order to get a good lensrank, lensmasters should participate as much as possible in all the Squidoo areas: rate other lenses, comments in guestbooks, get into groups, be fans of lots of other lensmasters, and of course have great content in their lenses (don't just lensroll someone, let them know so they can return the favour if they like your lens!).

Posted February 07, 2008

 
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Glen likes to write. If it's something that he hasn't already enjoyed or experienced in life if you so much as throw a topic at him and if he finds it even mildly interesting he'll research it until his fingers cramp up and his eyes are fatigued. He'll chew it up and spit it out like quality cud. For some that might be disgusting, but for others with a taste for the offbeat and whimsical it's like stumbling on a vein of gold.

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