PayRank

It's important to note that you don't need an Adsense account to use Squidoo to get paid.

They take all the Adsense earnings, deduct costs (for the operation of the site and staff) and use PayRank to determine how much each lens earns for a Lensmaster.

TRADEMARKS

The following are trademarks of Squidoo LLC:
Squidoo
LensRank
PayRank
Diddlediddlediddlewappbimmm
The Squidoo CO-OP
Plexo
Plexodex
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Our goal is to build a self-sustaining, profitable company that shares a large portion of our income with charities and with our backbone, the lensmasters who build our lenses (that's you).

BETA: (Note, we are now out of beta!). But, during the beta we were still figuring out how our systems worked. We were busy measuring them and tweaking them and getting smart about our (and your!) expectations. As a result we didn't pay royalties. Update: Congratulations, lensmasters! We raised thousands of dollars during the beta test, for 3 great charities: Room to Read, The Acumen Fund, and The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Thank you!

AFTER BETA: For a while (as with most startups) we expect our overhead will be greater than our income stream. We still need to pay our fixed costs (like servers and tools and staff salaries) or else we can't keep running and building the service. So, all revenue that comes in goes first to our overhead. Then we honor our 5% charity commitment.

Then, we divide it among lensmasters as follows:

AdSense revenue (these are the Google ads you see on every lens): This money goes into a pool, so as to avoid clickfraud. Half of the pool distributes out to lensmasters, on a PayRank scale that is based on a lensmaster's average LensRank and traffic.

Affiliate revenue (ie, referral income--like Amazon and eBay and CafePress and SuperStore sales). This is directly attributable to the lens that generated the revenue, and is not pooled with the whole co-op. The lensmaster gets a straight 50%.

So, once we are at scale and overhead is being covered, if your lens sells 1 book and Amazon pays us $1.05 in affiliate income, we send a nickel to charity and fifty cents to you.

Every quarter, we'll publish all our numbers so you can see exactly how much money was distributed to lensmasters and to charity.

We will also show your estimated earnings on your MyLenses page. This number will be updated daily.

We will also make an educated (we hope) guess as to what the maximum deduction for overhead is, and even if we're wrong--even if our overhead is higher than we thought or our income is lower than he hoped--we'll stick with our guess and take a hit. So you never have to worry about getting less than promised from your affiliate links.

If you've got suggestions for how to improve this plan, or how to explain it more clearly, please drop us a line here.

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(There are) two kinds of earnings: The Squidoo CO-OP divides incoming revenue into two piles. The first pile we call "pooled revenue". This is revenue that is not directly attributable by Squidoo to a particular Lens. For example, when we sell sponsorship ads on a Search Results page. Or when an affiliate is paying us income based on our overall performance, as opposed to performance of one trackable Lens.

The second pile of earnings we call "attributable revenue." This, you've probably guessed, is revenue that we choose to track directly to a particular Lens.

We use pooled revenue to pay our overhead and then allocate pay it to Lenses based on their LensRank and traffic. We use attributable revenue to pay any remaining overhead and then distribute the CO-OP share (50%) directly to the Lenses that earned it.

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We go lens by lens, analyzing its average lensrank over the course of the month, and then compare it to the average lensrank of all other lenses. Then we distribute a portion of the earnings to that lens based on its performance. We do that for each of a lensmaster's lenses, and add it up to get the total amount earned by the lensmaster during the pay period.

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While I don't think it's likely that we'll ever be able to get focused results from the Google ads on the Top 100 pages, we are working on some major enhancements to the Topics pages (much needed, by the way), which will give us the ability to add other targeted affiliate advertising. For example, for the movies topic, we may add a link to sign up at Netflix.

We are also discussing the possibility of a "more ads/less ads" option for lenses, which would impact PayRank, the scale we use to determine how to distribute Google AdSense earnings. However, I do not want to open yet another thread related to the ad placement, so please do not comment in this thread about this

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I didn't want to get into more specifics about PayRank because it is not really my area.

PayRank is a scale we use to determine how to distribute AdSense earnings. We have a formula which factors in the average LensRank and traffic for all of a lensmaster's lenses, then compares that to other lensmasters. Then, the earnings are distributed based on that scale.

Just like LensRank, I am not authorized to publish the exact formula, but I feel that the above description is about as transparent as it can get without causing other problems (i.e. gaming the system).

Sorry for the confusion. This is only the second payment we've made, and because of this thread we've seen that there is room for improvement in our payment documentation.

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To build on what Gil said:

We're not going to share the exact equations for either LensRank or PayRank because, like Google's PageRank or McDonald's Big Mac Sauce or KFC's Seven Herbs and Spices, it's proprietary information. LensRank and PayRank are our PageRank.

(If either of the fast food examples have already been revealed by a third party but not the company, they're less valid, but not _invalid_ examples. I know that "special sauce" is a variation on Thousand Island dressing. I also know that McDonald's doesn't fully disclose the ingredients of what it terms its Big Mac Sauce.)

We _will_ tell you in general what LensRank and PayRank draw on -- and give you ideas on how to improve both. We do that all the time right here in SquidU, and lensmaster activity indicates that those ideas and insights help lensmasters improve the performance of their lenses.

As a content co-op -- and a business -- we do our best to be as inclusive and transparent as we can possibly can... when there's clear value and benefit to lensmasters, readers and Squidoo as a business.

Sometimes we err on the side of "may" and "likely to" in order to keep our options open -- and to communicate that we reconsider our standing policies based on lensmaster feedback. We aim to interact with you as people and co-conspirators as well as business.

But sometimes, there are inner workings that we can't open up. That means that we won't always share all of the details behind major processes or calculations, and that we make decisions about improvements to the platform based on what's best for most but not all lensmasters, readers -- and the company.

So, in terms of LensRank and PayRank, consider them a trade secret. I appreciate your curiosity -- and understanding!

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...keep in mind that the only months we've paid out so far were April and May. Your lenses did earn money in those months, but in either month it was not enough to meet the minimum threshold. We still have those royalties in our system and they will be included in the next payout (for June). Your lenses earned significantly more money in June and July, which we haven't payed out yet, and which is probably what you're confused about.

As for PayRank, the scale we use to determine royalties from Google ads, it was already covered in as much detail as possible in this post. There is no secret formula. We figure out the average LensRank of a lens throughout the pay period, as well as how much traffic it receives, and distribute a portion of the earnings based on how that lens compares to other lenses in the system. Then, we add up the lens totals for each lensmaster and include them in the payment.

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Because of the way our PayRank system works, you are not individually rewarded (significantly) for clicking on your own links. We do this to help curb click fraud. Per our terms of service, please refrain from clicking on ads on your own lenses unless you are legitimately interested in the offer.

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Adsense is distributed on a tiered scale (called PayRank) that gives more to more active and prolific lensmasters, less to one-off lensmasters.

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PayRank: Squidoo figures out the average LensRank of a lens throughout the pay period, as well as how much traffic it receives, and distributes a portion of the earnings based on how that lens compares to other lenses in the system. Then, they add up the lens totals for each lensmaster and include them in the payment. Other metrics are involved but theses are unknown (and will remain unknown) for good reason, these other metrics can result in different payouts to different Lensmasters. I have seen this time after time as I can compare my other user id's.

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