Getting Started With Squidoo (The official overview, FAQ and TOS)

Creating original lenses is a requirement on Squidoo. The Scroll of Originality is an addendum to our Terms of Service.

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.

Even better, let's put a face on the word 'content.' On its own, 'content' is a broad, generic, vague term. What we've found works best for our Squidoo writers is opinion content. First hand reviews. Recommendations. Storytelling. Experience sharing. As we said 5 years ago when we started the company, Squidoo is an opportunity for you to share your point of view, your take on a specific topic. That's why lenses are called lenses -- they snap your point of view in to focus.

This is a handshake, a thank you, and a reminder to keep writing original lenses. Lenses that no one else could have written better or more uniquely than we know you can. It also comes with extra tips, to save you from spending time and energy on a low-quality, non-original lens that winds up getting removed.

Read the rest of the Scroll of Originality.

We run regular and periodic reviews of lenses to enforce our policies, including acting against spam, locking lenses on topics we can't support, locking low-quality lenses, and most recently we have increased our systematic intolerance of duplicated content and plagiarism. We reserve the right to take down content that violates our Terms of Service and editorial standards, without warning.