Good Squidizenship

If you are a registered member of Squidoo, you can cast "votes" for a lens in the form of a rating ranging from one to five stars. A lot of people fret a lot about star ratings, especially the phenomena known as "one-starring." This is when someone comes along and hits all your lenses with a 1-star rating just because they can. However it's not as bad as it might seem.

Squidoo built the star voting system to give a boost to a lens, so actually voting a lens only one star is not interpreted by the system as a "down" vote. A 1-star vote acts as a very small "up" vote. Each successive star is a slightly larger show of support.

So, when you get "one-starred" it's psychologically a bit of a downer, but in the Squidoo system, you've actually been given a small boost. And remember, ANY stars are better than no stars!

I make sure to vote for every lens that joins any of my groups and I regularly read over categories I like and vote for lenses there. Here's how I think of the stars as working:

0 stars = I wish to give this lens absolutely no support
1 star = not a bad idea, but you've really not developed this. Most likely these lenses have a good idea but are light on original content, don't have all the module titles customized, or the lensmaster has a blank bio/picture.
2 stars = great idea but please take this further! These lenses often have some decent, original content but are too heavy on shopping.
3 stars = that is a serviceable lens with a fair mix of stuff, but it could use some more original info from you
4 stars = that is a good lens with a nice balance of original content, images and retail
5 stars - rock on, you built a fantastic lens! we should all build lenses like that!

If I wish I could give a lens even more support than five stars, I also mark it as one of my favorites. This not only lets me see when the lens gets updated, it gives it a bit more of a boost. You can't star vote for groups, but you can mark them as favorites.

And although Lensmasters can't vote for their own lenses, they are allowed to favorite their own lenses and groups!

Search engines like to see things that are related leading to each other. When things like that happen you start to hear the words "relevance" and "proximity" a lot. The ideas can be summarized as how easily can you move to something that provides more information or greater detail?

Squidoo has a "lensroll" feature, which lets you link to other lenses. This is built into the lens itself, and is not a separate module. The lensroll is displayed in the right-hand column under the heading "More great lenses." Your choice of the "min" or "max" setting in your lens workshop will effect how this feature works.

- Min setting + zero lenses = no sign of lensroll
- Min setting + selected lenses = text list titled "Lensroll" in right-hand column
- Max setting + zero lenses = system picks a selection titled "You might also like"
- Max setting + selected lenses = your chosen lenses appear under "You might also like"

Lenses are shown in the order of list entry, so if you want your lensroll to be in a particular order, you must enter it that way manually. There is presently no way to reorder or edit the arrangement of lensroll entries.

Some of the new lens templates have different lensrolls than what is above, which applies to standard Squidoo lenses and SquidBoo!

SquidWho has a lensroll but it is structured to only show one lens at a time and must be scrolled through manually by the lens visitor. This means that first choice on the lensroll should be a really good and relevant one to catch the readers attention and interest! Other Squidoo formats that have a lensroll like this are Ever.com, SquidVids and SquidBids.

You cannot lensroll on SquidFlix or SquidLit lenses.

Since relevance and proximity are a huge benefit on the web, and since Squidoo is a community site, joining groups is a good thing! But how can you tell if joinig a group is really going to help your lens? Do you wonder about how to join "good" groups?

There are twenty-two main topics at Squidoo. All lenses and groups are classified under one of these. (If your preferences are set to block adult content, you will see only twenty-one topics.) Groups allow for a more specific arrangement of lenses within those topics. . Click the link that reads "more" to get the entire topic list to unfold.

Exactly how a group runs is entirely up to the lensmaster who founded the group. This means you will find a lot of variation in groups. When I look for groups to join, I'm evaluate them as much as they are going to evaluate the lens I submit to join.

- Age of group vs development - When was this group started and is page been developed at all? If a group is several months old and nothing's been done to it, I move along and don't bother.

- What is the page development like? - Is the groupmaster just using this page to promote off-Squidoo links? Are there a ton of affiliate ads? My own groups are about promoting lenses at Squidoo and I join groups that offer the same.

- Does the group have a topic or focus? - I like when sites on the internet help me find information in an organized way, quickly and efficiently. I skip those groups that welcome "any and all" lenses, groups about mutual back-patting, and groups that are just trying to be a topic (too broad). I check the listing of lenses already in the group to see if the groupmaster really is running an organized group or not.

- Is the topic really appropriate for your lens? - Does the group have admission requirements? - Following a wave of indiscriminate lensmasters spamming groups with off-topic lenses, many groupmasters now have some specific condition for joining their groups. Be sure to read the entire group page and check for admissions guidelines! If you are reported multiple times for "spamming groups" with off-topic lenses, your account/lenses will be barred from being able to join groups.

Have you ever tried to leave a comment on a guestbook and then realized that you couldn't? Or your new lens just came out of WIP and you still can't seem to join any groups? Sadly when those things happen the most likely scenario is that you have been banned.

Guestbook bans - There was a huge trend in the summer of 2007 of lensmasters just commenting on every single guestbook they could find as a way of creating backlinks to their lenses. However, what this actually created was a lot of ill-will within the lensmaster community. The guestbooks were changed as a result of this. Lensmasters now have some options. Guestbooks can be set to strip HTML out of comments, thus eliminating clickable URLs. Also, in addition to the "accept" or "delete" buttons, a new one appeared: the "ban" button.

If a lensmaster chooses, they can click ban, and you will then be prevented from commenting on any of that lensmaster's lenses. Each individual lensmaster can decide if and when to do this, so carefully consider your comments before leaving them. I will confess I've banned a few people from my guestbooks, and the behavior is always the same. Leaving unrelated backlinks results in deleted comments, but hitting lots of my lenses with them is a sure-fire way to get me to click the ban button.

Banned From Groups - Joining a group is a great way to increase traffic and visiblity for your lens. However after a wave of bad lensmasters submitting their lenses to any and every single group they could find resulted in a change in Squidoo policy. Now if a lensmaster accrues multiple complaints from groupmasters that they are submitting off-topic and inappropriate lenses to groups, Squidoo admin will shut off your ability to join any groups.

The moral of these lessons are swim nice, or you may find yourself all alone in the pool!

This module used to talk about how to find traffic and stats for your groups, but now the wonderful folks at Squidoo admin have added that feature to the regular stats page! So, be sure to stop by there and check out your group stats. Here's another trick you might like for your group....]

How to Squidcast for your Groups!

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/squidcast/groups..NAMEOFGROUP

Just paste the above URL into a browser window, change the NAMEOFGROUP part to be the name of one of your group and click! There is the form where you can send a Squidcast for your group.

A few ideas for what you can do with a Group Squidcast:
- update group members to new group conditions or rules
- share lens building or traffic tips
- post topical group news
- run lens contests within the group

Who sees a Squidcast? When you send a Group Squidcast, anyone who has favorited the Group, or who is a member of your fan club will see the message on their favorites page the next time they check it.