Lensrank explained (really)

1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic by 110 people | Log in to rate

Ranked #183 in Squidoo Tips, #26,129 overall

How does squidoo lensrank work?

Well, squidoo lensrank has, by common consensus (at least) the following factors:

  1. Lens freshness.

  2. sales made through money making modules like amazon and ebay.

  3. visitor numbers.

  4. star ratings.

  5. favorites.

  6. whether you've been blessed by an angel.

  7. whether you're a giant squid (yellow star).

  8. whether your lens has a purple star.

  9. click outs from your lens

Generally on lensrank 

Lensrank is what the name says: a ranking of lenses. If your lens is no.1 - it's the best lens in the whole million lenses out there! If it's somewhere in the 10.000 it's still doing alright.

Below 50.000 it is probably getting less than 1 visitor a day, and you have not worked on it in since two weeks ago (or more)

Below 100.000 - your lens is not getting traffic and hasn't been voted on in ages.

Below 200.000 - your lens is probably spam or not is not live yet.

BUT since the amount of lenses is constantly growing, lensrank changes too. In a year time 50.000 may be as respectable a lensrank as 10.000 is now. (writing Juli 2008) [I was right: lensrank of 10.000 is not just respectable: it's good. Lensrank below 30.000 is great now.]

Lensrank can go up and down.
That's just the nature of the game. See here a graph of the visitors numbers and lensrank of one of my highest ranking lenses (though not one, as you can see, with enormous amounts of visitors).



As you can see the timelines of your stats and your lensrank aren't synchronized.

This is because the timeline of your visitor numbers does NOT include any days your lens didn't get visitors.
Your lens did have lensrank the whole time, so that's shown in it's entirety.

Lensrank dropping or rising? 



At A you see lensrank slowly dropping, due to lack of visitors and probably also lack of attention on my part. This lens just lingered there for a while and lensrank suffered.

At B you see lensrank suddenly going up. Probably someone voted on my lens, or favored it or something, because it had hardly any traffic yet.

The main point here is: whatever votes you have, whatever angel blessings a lens got - if nothing happens (no RECENT traffic, no RECENT sales, no RECENT votes, no RECENT changes - lensrank will go down).

Anymore questions about lensrank? 

Nobody is an expert on lensrank - except the people at squidoo HQ - which I'm not. This lens merely reflects the factors we all know factor in there...

But if you have any questions, please ask them.

submit
  • Reply
    spirituality spirituality Nov 5, 2009 @ 1:07 pm | in reply to Spook
    Tja (Dutch for well), I think perhaps traffic was never very good on them? My steady top tier lenses all have a few hundred or more visitors a week.
  • Reply
    Spook Spook Nov 5, 2009 @ 12:46 pm
    I never have been able to quite understand any of this. All I know is that many of my lenses have done well, sometimes really well, but never for more than a day or two and have never held any tier rating for a month. "Ek kannie verstaan nie." Blessed by an Angel.
  • Reply
    JoyfulPamela JoyfulPamela Oct 21, 2009 @ 7:13 pm
    I've been reading several of your lenses over the past week and have really learned quite a bit from them. I just wanted to say thank you for explaining things detail by detail. Your lenses have answered so many questions I have had. Thanks!
    Pamela :D
  • Reply
    spirituality spirituality Sep 23, 2009 @ 1:04 pm | in reply to proudmomof2
    When you look at the top of this lens you'll see something like this: Ranked #138 in Squidoo Tips, #14,755 overall . The overall lensrank is the second number. It determines what you get payed at the end of the month. The first number is far less important: it only determines whether your lens ranks in the top 100 of that topic. In this case for instance, this lens does not.

    Both are determined by the same factors: best lens lowest no. However, per category there can be a lot or very little competition. When there is very little competition, a lens can get into the top 100 of that category while still having an (overall) lensrank of 50.000 or something. In squidoo tips the competition is pretty stiff, so it takes a lens with a lensrank of at the highest 10.000 or so to get into that top 100 list.
  • Reply
    proudmomof2 proudmomof2 Sep 23, 2009 @ 11:41 am
    This doesn't tell me what I need to know. Am I looking at the overall lens rank or the actual rank of the lens. What's more important? Newbie here.
  • Reply
    yanton yanton Sep 22, 2009 @ 7:36 am
    Nice one, very useful information to bear in mind with lense building
  • Reply
    ben_huebner ben_huebner Sep 21, 2009 @ 4:14 pm
    Great lens! Best informations I found on that topic! Thanks for the good work!
  • Reply
    efarmiga efarmiga Sep 7, 2009 @ 10:28 pm
    Thanks for sharing. This was very helpful and informative.
  • Reply
    daviddavid200 daviddavid200 Aug 11, 2009 @ 11:05 am
    Good Work Very informative!
  • Reply
    AppalachianCountry AppalachianCountry Jul 24, 2009 @ 7:34 am
    Wow, thank-you for this help. We knew about the ranking but didn't realize the criteria.
    5 stars *****on your lens and in your crown.
  • Reply
    spirituality spirituality Jul 15, 2009 @ 4:57 am | in reply to kashmier
    On second read - perhaps nothing happened at all. You say your overall rank didn't change? That means nothing happened. Your lens just has the same lensrank it had before, but other lenses in your category got more popular and therefor came up in the top 100 of that category. That's not spectacular at all, that's just bad luck.
  • Reply
    spirituality spirituality Jul 14, 2009 @ 1:07 pm | in reply to kashmier
    In that case it may be that a squidangel dropped by in one of her dark angel moods and dinged your lens for not being in the right category for instance. It's our job to make sure the top hundreds by category stay clean: that is, relevant and non-spammy. In some categories it's quite easy to get into the top 100 - and if a lens is in there that doesn't fit the category, or just doesn't have enough content to deserve a top 100 listing, angels can say: Hey, I don't like this and lensrank will plum-it.

    Another option - less damning to your lens - is that you were editing it while the lensrank update was going on. That's been known to cause deep lensrank dips. However, if that was it, your lensrank will come right back up with the next update.
  • Reply
    kashmier kashmier Jul 14, 2009 @ 11:51 am
    I was wondering how the first rank is decided? I was at 103 and in less than 12 hours went to 27,084(approx.) I have been editing and have had over 100 visitors in a couple days. My overall rank has stayed the same though. Thanks for trying to explain the unexplainable :)
    It seems like there are quite a few parameters when this is decided.
  • Reply
    homebasedangell homebasedangell Jul 13, 2009 @ 9:41 am
    Thank you for this lens, it made some gray areas a little less gray! Just kidding, it's very informative! Sheri
  • Reply
    TennisLens TennisLens Jun 29, 2009 @ 1:38 am
    Hi Katinka,
    Thank you for a very informative lens.
    Best wishes,
    Graham
  • Reply
    spirituality spirituality Jun 17, 2009 @ 1:13 am | in reply to burakatas
    There are two possible explanations:

    1) Your lens is spammy and got dinged by a squidangel or several. We recently got our ability to bless and ding back.

    2) You were editing your lens WHILE the lensrank update was going on. In that case you will find your lensrank coming back up to roughly where it was before. It's a bug that Gil is working on fixing. In the meantime - if your lens is fit for our eyes to see, go complain in squidu and give the link - a few lensmasters will likely rate your lens and that will help it get back up to where it deserves to be.
  • Reply
    burakatas burakatas Jun 16, 2009 @ 11:18 am
    My lens was about #10.000 overall yesterday... but today it is #137.000
    unexplainable?!
  • Reply
    spirituality spirituality Jun 11, 2009 @ 10:40 am | in reply to Tipi
    Updating is usually not enough to put a lens into top tier, let alone keep it there, so I suspect the reason it was up so high was a few people rating it or something. Just be happy it's still in top tier :)
  • Reply
    Tipi Tipi Jun 11, 2009 @ 9:50 am
    The lens ranks can sure get mixed up on some of my lenses. I had one that was at #50 three days ago...I updated the lens and it fell to #1140 and hasn't moved from there since. Something is goofy there again! - Can you fix it? Lol!
    Thanks for adding this link to Squid Email! I like it!
    Susie
  • Reply
    ElizabethJeanAllen ElizabethJeanAllen May 15, 2009 @ 5:08 pm
    I often wondered why a lens that is getting four times the visits consistantly ranks below a lens that only has a few hits. There are so many variables its hard to keep track of them all.
    Thanks for sharing
    Lizzy
  • Reply
    JaguarJulie JaguarJulie May 10, 2009 @ 11:50 am
    I think the top question that people are always asking is what the heck is that algorithm??? When I hit the pearly gates, I'll ask that! ;)
  • Reply
    sandyspider sandyspider May 9, 2009 @ 4:10 pm
    This is a good explanation on ranking. I featured this on my resource lens http://www.squidoo.com/lensrank-traffic
  • Reply
    FunGifts4All FunGifts4All May 6, 2009 @ 6:28 pm
    Thanks for the info. Was aware of some of it but not all. Nice lens.
  • Reply
    spirituality spirituality May 1, 2009 @ 12:40 am | in reply to sandyspider
    They just updated lensrank, finally. Your published lenses should be out of WIP now.
  • Reply
    sandyspider sandyspider Apr 30, 2009 @ 3:57 pm
    Anyone know why there has been a sudden stop on ranking? Could they have been all on vacation at the same time? I have 3 lenses which are still in WIP. One I published 5 days ago. It's good to know that it isn't just me.
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Freshness: What you can do to up your lensrank 

Of the factors I noted at the beginning, the following can be influenced by the lensmaster themselves:

  • Freshness

  • Become a giant squid

That's right: only one thing really... Becoming a giant squid is obviously a lot of work... Still worth the effort. It involves making consistently good lenses - and at least 50 of them.

But what if you're not about to become giant squid...
What does lens freshness mean?

Lens freshness means your lens has been edited recently. That's right: new lenses and lenses that have been recently edited get a boost in lensrank.

Lensrank Zero?

New lenses get a lensrank of 0 before they get ranked. This is good: lenses that take off immediately no longer have a very low lensrank to weigh down their average for the first month.

Giant squids... 

Giant squids get the equivalent of 2 angels blessings on every lens they make - right off the bat! So here's
featured lens THE GIANT SQUIDS (and how you can become one)

No, it's not a rock group (but it might as well be). It's the core group of movers and shakers at Squidoo. It's a gathering of influentials, the most dedicated lensmakers on Squidoo. Here's how this whole thing started. One day at Sq...

Purple stars 

Giant squids get a chance at a further honor: a purple star. These are hand selected from lenses that are submitted to the purple star program. Like LOTD purple stars are a rare honor. In this case six are selected each week.

Only lenses made by giant squids are eligible.

Votes: Star ratings, Favorites & Squid Angels 

There are three main ways lensmasters influence each others lensrank:

  1. votes

  2. favorite it!

  3. squid angel blessing


When lensmasters rate each others lenses, they give those lenses a boost in lensrank.

More votes is more effect.

What has even more effect is if we favorite each other's lenses.

There is a group of extra special lensmasters that can boost your lensrank a lot more: the squid angels.

Squid angels can single handedly boost lensrank or make it plummet.

Again: more votes is a bigger effect. So if several angels bless your lens, that's even better.

Squid angels & star ratings 

These days I'm a squidangel :) Check out my lenses on the subject...
featured lens Low votes in squidoo should be banned!

I think people should lighten up about the star ratings. Even a low star rating will boost your lensrank (a bit). So any rating is better than NO rating. Disagree? Tell me! [That said: it does anger me when a good lens that hasn't been voted on yet...

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Visitor numbers 

Lenses get a higher lensrank when they get more visitors. It becomes a significant effect if your lens gets more than say 100 visitors a week.

It doesn't matter where your visitors come from: whether they come from forums, search engines, blogs or even private Emails: more visitors means higher lensrank.

On getting traffic, from the search engines 

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Sales: amazon, ebay etc. 

If you use your lenses to sell stuff - and use the built in squidoo sales modules for the purpose - sales means a boost in lensrank.

That is: if you get a sale through your amazon module, you get a percentage of that sale, and a boost in lensrank.

If you get a sale through an amazon affiliate link (that you got from Amazon, not through squidoo), you still get a percentage of the sale, but not a boost in lensrank.

Click Outs 

There is word from HQ on this one: it's definite that the click outs from lenses is factored in on your lensrank.

In other words: if people click on your links, your lens rank goes up.

Visitor activity on your lens 

Anything a visitor does on your lens is counted towards lensrank. Whether it's writing in your guestbook, voting in a poll, voting in a plexo, adding a link to a plexo or joining a duel.

All the factors combined 

To get a lens into the top 100 you need a few of these factors combining.
It's for instance not very likely that a lens will get into the top 100 without ANY votes. It would have to get A LOT of visitors and sales to compensate for that.

Some speculations about lensrank factors 

[disclaimer] These factors are rumored to affect your lensrank, but very hard for us lensmasters to figure out. [/disclaimer]

  • Time of visitor stay on lens (longer -> higher lensrank).
    This might be a measurement of the quality of your lens content

  • Backlinks: lenses with links from outside squidoo would get a higher squidoo rating off the bat.
    I find it hard to believe that's true, since traffic is also to some extent dependent on backlinks - and a lens with a lot of low quality (spammy) backlinks does not really deserve a higher lensrank based on backlinks alone.

  • visitor activity on your lens (voting, writing in your guest book, joining a duel)
    This one has been debunked by Gil himself.

What did you think of this lens? 

submit
  • Reply
    LaurieBeth LaurieBeth Oct 20, 2009 @ 9:32 pm
    Somehow I overlooked this lens, and now that I've read it I found it extremely useful--thank you!
  • Reply
    lakern26 lakern26 Oct 17, 2009 @ 1:58 pm
    This was very interesting! I knew about most of these factors, but was somewhat clueless about just how much some of them affect lensrank. Thanks so much for the explanation!
  • Reply
    spirituality spirituality Oct 8, 2009 @ 6:17 am | in reply to Norma_Budden
    That's because lensrank hasn't been updated. While it's usually a daily thing, sometimes it takes longer for lensrank to update. Keep an eye on squidu.
  • Reply
    Norma_Budden Norma_Budden Oct 7, 2009 @ 11:55 am
    I learned a little from your lens. However, I have a question and I'm not sure where to pose it. Usually, when I create a lens, on my dashboard it is reflected at the bottom of all lenses, which is natural, as it hasn't been promoted by Squidoo yet. However, usually within 12 to 24 hours - depending upon the time I publish my lens - it has a check mark beside it and I know I can send Squid casts and so on.

    However, I created a lens about 36 hours ago and it is still showing up in red with no check marks in sight. The lens itself is located at http://www.squidoo.com/the-art-of-forgiveness

    In the lens, as you may imagine, I touch on various subjects such as abuse. I'm wondering if a word I used may have tripped a filter even though the lens is not written against Squidoo's guidelines. My lens is not locked, nor is it under construction; it's just not being promoted by Squidoo and I'm wondering what the delay may be and thought I'd see if you had any insight on this.

    Thanks,
    Norma
  • Reply
    HorseAndPony HorseAndPony Aug 25, 2009 @ 10:56 pm
    Thanks for the info. This lens was very helpful.
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P.S. Still stuck? 

Drop by our SquidU.com forum. Ask for help, don't be stingy, be sure to smile, and we're betting someone will come to the rescue.

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