What to do if your lens gets unpublished (locked)
Sometimes, lenses get unpublished (locked from view)
We at Squidoo believe that original, handcrafted, written-and-loved-and-tended-by-you content is not only the most enjoyable to write, but also the most useful for readers to discover, and the most likely to get spread to other people.
By continuing to maintain and publish lenses on Squidoo, you have pledged to craft original, unique lenses that respect our content guidelines. We at Squidoo have pledged in return that we will continue to support quality work and will help remove low-quality, aggressively non-original lenses.
When lenses violate our Terms of Service and our content policies, they get unpublished (or locked) from view.
By continuing to maintain and publish lenses on Squidoo, you have pledged to craft original, unique lenses that respect our content guidelines. We at Squidoo have pledged in return that we will continue to support quality work and will help remove low-quality, aggressively non-original lenses.
When lenses violate our Terms of Service and our content policies, they get unpublished (or locked) from view.
Read these 3 things first
Vocabulary to know
Unpublished: If a lens violates our TOS, it will get unpublished. This means it's no longer live or viewable to anyone. It also gets removed from search engine indexes over time. You can also think of these lenses as 'locked' from view. The lens is still available in Workshop form to the lensmaster so that he or she can access the content and export it to take it elsewhere.
Deleted: Lenses that are unpublished for 30 or more days get deleted.
Featured Lenses: Featured lenses are published, live, and have achieved a LensRank carries the privilege of being featured in Squidoo search results and being indexable by search engines like Google.
Work in Progress: WIP lenses are usually live and published and active, and they are accessible via a direct link, but they are not featured in Squidoo or other search results. Once your lens earns a better LensRank, it will leave WIP status and become featured. Bring 'Work in Progress' is not a penalty, it's just a ranking that helps us decide which lenses have earned the permission to get promoted.
Under Construction: If a lens has not been published at all, it will be considered Under Construction. Keep working, and publish when you're ready!
Deleted: Lenses that are unpublished for 30 or more days get deleted.
Featured Lenses: Featured lenses are published, live, and have achieved a LensRank carries the privilege of being featured in Squidoo search results and being indexable by search engines like Google.
Work in Progress: WIP lenses are usually live and published and active, and they are accessible via a direct link, but they are not featured in Squidoo or other search results. Once your lens earns a better LensRank, it will leave WIP status and become featured. Bring 'Work in Progress' is not a penalty, it's just a ranking that helps us decide which lenses have earned the permission to get promoted.
Under Construction: If a lens has not been published at all, it will be considered Under Construction. Keep working, and publish when you're ready!
What to expect
We run regular and periodic reviews of lenses to enforce our policies, including acting against spam, unpublishing lenses on topics we can't support, unpublishing low-quality lenses, and most recently we have increased our systematic intolerance of duplicated content and plagiarism.
Even if you have a lens that has been published live for a while and even earning royalties, previous publication does not intend that we accept or approve or endorse the topic. It's entirely possible that a lens will get unpublished even after it's been active for a long time. This is because our systems for finding these types of lenses are always evolving and improving, and because we reserve the right to unpublish or remove any lens that violates our rules over time.
Keep in mind that the Squidoo Terms of Service states that we have the right to remove a lens for any reason that we find harmful to the Squidoo community, without any warning. But we always try to give a notification and a warning.
It's worth letting you know in advance that we rarely see false positives, or lenses that get unpublished by mistake. More often than not we've made editorial judgment calls based on the quality of the content on your lens or on suspicious behaviour. You might not agree with us, but as a free site, it's important for our community to focus on creating worthwhile, authentic, original content that follows our content policies.
Even if you have a lens that has been published live for a while and even earning royalties, previous publication does not intend that we accept or approve or endorse the topic. It's entirely possible that a lens will get unpublished even after it's been active for a long time. This is because our systems for finding these types of lenses are always evolving and improving, and because we reserve the right to unpublish or remove any lens that violates our rules over time.
Keep in mind that the Squidoo Terms of Service states that we have the right to remove a lens for any reason that we find harmful to the Squidoo community, without any warning. But we always try to give a notification and a warning.
It's worth letting you know in advance that we rarely see false positives, or lenses that get unpublished by mistake. More often than not we've made editorial judgment calls based on the quality of the content on your lens or on suspicious behaviour. You might not agree with us, but as a free site, it's important for our community to focus on creating worthwhile, authentic, original content that follows our content policies.
What if I only have 1 violation?
Hopefully, one is all it takes! It's pretty easy to make lenses that behave within our content guidelines.
Please note that repeated violations will result in the suspension of your entire Squidoo account. We encourage you to refamiliarize yourself with all our content policies before creating a new lens.
Please note that repeated violations will result in the suspension of your entire Squidoo account. We encourage you to refamiliarize yourself with all our content policies before creating a new lens.
The most common reasons that lenses get unpublished
- 1The lens is on one of our SquidDon't topics that we can't allow on the site.
- 2The lens exists solely as an affiliate program lens, or engages in some sort of article spinning, rather than being original opinion content.
- 3The lens has plagiarized content.
- 4The lens has aggressively duplicated content, and very little original, unique content written by you.
- 5The lens breaks any other elements of our content policies and TOS, ranging from keyword stuffing, content spamming, redirects, low quality, cloned lenses, hate lenses, lenses that violate our partner's TOS and more.
- 6We determine that the lens or the lensmaster has been doing more harm than good as a part of this community, and therefore the account gets suspended regardless of the content on the lens.
- 7The lens is not in English and we cannot support complaints or spam suspicions about it.
What to do if your lens gets unpublished
If your lens gets unpublished, you will receive an email from the official Squidteam letting you know. Please read the information there as well as the information outlined on this lens and the lenses we highlight on this page.
You will be able to login to your account and view your lens Workshop and export your content to save it elsewhere.
You will be able to login to your account and view your lens Workshop and export your content to save it elsewhere.
If you are positive your lens was unpublished in error
If you've read all the material on this page, including our SquidDon't topics that aren't allowed on Squidoo, and you've convinced that your lens should be unlocked...
... then here's how you submit a request to get it republished. Follow these steps or we might not be able to process your request very quickly. Thanks.
Step 1. Forward the violation email you received, or the lens you see locked on your dashboard, to our content review team at locked@squidoo.com. Be sure to explain why you believe the lens is not violating any of the guidelines we've posted on the links we sent you.
Step 2. Please note that sending this information via a blog post or to a Squidstaffer via Twitter or Facebook or direct email won't be read and won't get your lens reviewed. We can't process special requests at our individual email addresses.
Step 3. It will take anywhere from 1 to 20 days to review your request, and we don't review requests on weekends. If we agree your lens should get republished, we'll do it and send you a note to let you know. If you don't hear back from us, assume that it is going to remain unpublished and deleted. Sorry.
Step 4. Please know that when your lens is unpublished, this just means it's locked from public view. It's not deleted. BUT if the lens stays locked for over 30 days (now 60 days), then it will get deleted entirely.
We very rarely overturn our locking decisions, because our systems and our human reviewers have gotten much much better over the last few years since starting the SquidDon't program and enforcing other Squidoo policies, like our policy for hosting original, not duplicated content, and more.
... then here's how you submit a request to get it republished. Follow these steps or we might not be able to process your request very quickly. Thanks.
Step 1. Forward the violation email you received, or the lens you see locked on your dashboard, to our content review team at locked@squidoo.com. Be sure to explain why you believe the lens is not violating any of the guidelines we've posted on the links we sent you.
Step 2. Please note that sending this information via a blog post or to a Squidstaffer via Twitter or Facebook or direct email won't be read and won't get your lens reviewed. We can't process special requests at our individual email addresses.
Step 3. It will take anywhere from 1 to 20 days to review your request, and we don't review requests on weekends. If we agree your lens should get republished, we'll do it and send you a note to let you know. If you don't hear back from us, assume that it is going to remain unpublished and deleted. Sorry.
Step 4. Please know that when your lens is unpublished, this just means it's locked from public view. It's not deleted. BUT if the lens stays locked for over 30 days (now 60 days), then it will get deleted entirely.
We very rarely overturn our locking decisions, because our systems and our human reviewers have gotten much much better over the last few years since starting the SquidDon't program and enforcing other Squidoo policies, like our policy for hosting original, not duplicated content, and more.
The Human Factor
We reserve the right to lock any lens
Usually, you know a good page when you see it. Kind of like a first crush. Your heartbeat speeds up and you smile a little and think: wow, this is good. Maybe you even get a little jealous that you didn't make it!
On the flip side, you also know a junky or spammy page when you see it. Even if you can't put it into words, you feel like the page is acting badly, or selling selfishly, or is half-empty or packed with tags and keywords or other search engine trickery (that doesn't work).
There's something to be said for editorial gut instinct.
So these guidelines are here to help do just that-- guide you--in your search for making great lenses...and NOT making lenses that will get locked.
'Cause that's a hassle for us, but far more of a hassle for you when your lens gets locked or deleted.
And just so you know, since we're all real people and not computers and algorithms, we reserve the right to fall back on "you know spam when you see it" when all other guidelines fail.
On the flip side, you also know a junky or spammy page when you see it. Even if you can't put it into words, you feel like the page is acting badly, or selling selfishly, or is half-empty or packed with tags and keywords or other search engine trickery (that doesn't work).
There's something to be said for editorial gut instinct.
So these guidelines are here to help do just that-- guide you--in your search for making great lenses...and NOT making lenses that will get locked.
'Cause that's a hassle for us, but far more of a hassle for you when your lens gets locked or deleted.
And just so you know, since we're all real people and not computers and algorithms, we reserve the right to fall back on "you know spam when you see it" when all other guidelines fail.
