Lensrank explained (really)

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Ranked #205 in Squidoo Tips, #23,633 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.

Lensmaster

TennisLens wrote...

Hi Katinka,
Thank you for a very informative lens.
Best wishes,
Graham

ReplyPosted June 29, 2009

Lensmaster

spirituality wrote...

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.

ReplyPosted June 17, 2009

Lensmaster

burakatas wrote...

My lens was about #10.000 overall yesterday... but today it is #137.000
unexplainable?!

ReplyPosted June 16, 2009

Lensmaster

spirituality wrote...

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 :)

ReplyPosted June 11, 2009

Lensmaster

Tipi wrote...

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

ReplyPosted June 11, 2009

Lensmaster

ElizabethJeanAllen wrote...

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

ReplyPosted May 15, 2009

Lensmaster

JaguarJulie wrote...

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! ;)

ReplyPosted May 10, 2009

Lensmaster

sandyspider wrote...

This is a good explanation on ranking. I featured this on my resource lens http://www.squidoo.com/lensrank-traffic

ReplyPosted May 09, 2009

Lensmaster

FunGifts4All wrote...

Thanks for the info. Was aware of some of it but not all. Nice lens.

ReplyPosted May 06, 2009

Lensmaster

spirituality wrote...

in reply to sandyspider They just updated lensrank, finally. Your published lenses should be out of WIP now.

ReplyPosted May 01, 2009

Lensmaster

sandyspider wrote...

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.

ReplyPosted April 30, 2009

Lensmaster

danecramer wrote...

My lens ranks haven't changed in 4 days, is that happening to anyone else or does that just happen from time to time? Thanks, great lens.

ReplyPosted April 28, 2009

Lensmaster

ChineseKitesforKids wrote...

Dually noted! Thank you so much for this informative lens. I find your work inspiring on here. This is a great lens for newbies! 5 stars!

ReplyPosted April 24, 2009

Lensmaster

spirituality wrote...

in reply to Treasures-By-Brenda I suspect it's a one time thing - but since today's lensrank depends to a large extent on yesterday's lensrank, a one time thing may help a lens stay relatively high in the rankings for weeks. At least, I'd program it like that.

ReplyPosted April 22, 2009

Lensmaster

Treasures-By-Brenda wrote...

Any idea how long an Angel blessing lasts?

ReplyPosted April 22, 2009

Lensmaster

spirituality wrote...

in reply to Donnette Yes, on your dashboard. There's a list of your lenses there. Hover your mouse over the title of one of your lenses - and several options will appear. Click on 'stats'.

ReplyPosted April 20, 2009

Lensmaster

Donnette wrote...

Thank you for sharing this information.. I honestly had no idea how it all worked, just enjoyed Squidoo so much.. I don't even know where to see those lens graphs.. er perhaps my dashboard LOL.... 5*

ReplyPosted April 20, 2009

Lensmaster

spirituality wrote...

in reply to EuroSquid There's no special giant squid top 100 jump - so what you saw was probably the effect of more squids visiting your lenses and then voting on your lenses.

As for is this temporary: sure. All factors in lensrank are temporary. A giant squid can have a lens in the lower 200000 as easily as another squid can. No traffic will do that for you. Just wait and do nothing :)

ReplyPosted April 20, 2009

Lensmaster

EuroSquid wrote...

I can confirm the fact that Giant Squid Status plays a role in lensrank. I did not really notice when I made Giant Squid (I was not paying much attention to Lensrank at that time). But I did notice quite a leap in some lensrank when I hit Giant Squid 100. I do not know if this jump is permanent or will wear off. What do you think?

ReplyPosted April 19, 2009

Lensmaster

mbrownauthor wrote...

I've noticed the Giant Squid effect makes my new lenses rank higher than they probably normally would rank, but has not seemed to affect my older lenses much. I've also found that my two top lenses have been ranked apparently on original content more than visitors, because my number 2 lens had many more visitors than my number 1 lens (that has since changed), plus I have not updated these a whole lot, like I have some other lenses. Hmmmmm. It's a mystery. Lol. Great lens. Thanks!

ReplyPosted April 16, 2009

Lensmaster

poutine wrote...

I've noticed that the more I change things on my lenses the better
rank I get. It's a lot of work and I'm hoping that one day it will pay
better than now.

ReplyPosted April 15, 2009

Lensmaster

spirituality wrote...

in reply to tandemonimom The tier system already reflects the income squidoo makes off lenses. The top tier lenses make the most for squidoo - so they generate the most income for lensmasters too. When squidoo becomes so successful that even second tier lenses make around 10 dollars a month for lensmasters - I'm sure third tier lenses will make more than the 8 cents they've consistently made recently.

ReplyPosted April 15, 2009

Lensmaster

tandemonimom wrote...

Great explanation. Now, as you say, what is a "good" rank today will be a "great" rank next year because of the increase in numbers of lenses ... so do you think the tier system will expand to reflect that?

And thanks for the boost to my lensrank with a blessing! ;-)

ReplyPosted April 14, 2009

Lensmaster

jmsp206 wrote...

Thanks for the info on lensranking Hope to understand more about giand squids and angles ratings later.
Great lens

ReplyPosted April 14, 2009

Lensmaster

ronpass wrote...

Freshness seems to have a major influence on lensrank. I've been monitoring the stats on my 70 lenses and noticed that freshness boosts lensrank (..and daily updating maintains the level). I've also noticed that the RSS feed from my blog helps lensrank provided I publish the lens after the relevant blog post has been made. I watched a number of my lenses over time and found that they did not shift despite daily updating of my blog (and RSS feed to lenses). This changed when I began publishing the lenses after each new blog post/feed. BTW - thanks Katinka for the Angel Blessing on three of my lenses which tend to break the mold and that I am particularly fond of. I've added a module to my primary lens, Squidoo Marketing Strategies, to highlight your very informative lens on lensrank. I'll also let my subscribers know about your lens because I often get questions about what influences lensrank.

ReplyPosted April 12, 2009

 
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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 Squidoo Headquarte...

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 illegible.

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...

featured lens Squidoo Angel - Spirituality

The squidoo angels decided to take more specific responsibilities. For instance, I keep an eye on lenses in the following categories: Religion & Spirituality Books Duels! Squidoo Tips Green Living In this lens I give you my criteria & share some of...

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 

featured lens SEO for squidoo - getting found in google: search engine optimization

SEO - search engine optimization - has many different facets. This lens goes over the main ones - especially how they effect making successful lenses on squidoo.

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? 

Lensmaster

spirituality wrote...

in reply to capriliz Well, you know, squidoo is tight lipped about the exact formula for lensrank. But the evidence is that it's traffic, not links to a lens, that determines lensrank to a large extent. Of course quality links bring in traffic (directly and indirectly).

ReplyPosted June 24, 2009

Lensmaster

capriliz wrote...

Can you tell if backlinks help lens rating? Or is the traffic alone that boosts lens ranking?

Thanks!

ReplyPosted June 23, 2009

Lensmaster

sammyaddams wrote...

Thanks for the info on lensrank, i never realised that there were so many fators that affected it.

ReplyPosted June 19, 2009

Lensmaster

ulla_hennig wrote...

Thanks for this information - it makes things so much clearer for me!

ReplyPosted June 16, 2009

Lensmaster

Snozzle wrote...

That helps to explain some of the mystery - especially those 9 in your introduction.
Mike.

ReplyPosted June 01, 2009

 
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