How Squidoo Helps Dumb down the Net

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  1. Will Apse profile image88
    Will Apseposted 11 years ago

    I have a small number of pages on Squidoo and they are pitiful. They are so information-light they could float off the screen.

    On Hubpages I tend to write long pages stuffed with facts. I like to be comprehensive. Facts are not welcome on Squidoo. They are duplicate content because they will almost certainly appear somewhere else online.

    I have learnt the trick of stripping out the information to get published and just leaving the breezy, unsupported assertions. If you look at the successful writers on Squidoo, this is what they do.

    This is all down to Squidoo's fear of Google, of course. Squidoo obviously believes that a few hundred words of 'original content' on a page is safe. Even if the 'original content' is entirely vacuous and only original in the sense that the word sequence is unique.

    Of course, Squidoo will point to their rising visitor numbers as vindication for its dupe filter. Yet is it really Google's intention to encourage pages with little or no information?

    My pages here have not been hit by Panda, yet. Hard facts don't seem like poison to me.

    Anyway, the point of this post is my concern that Hubpages might decide to mimic Squidoo in all things, given their troubles of the moment. A similar dupe filter here and the web would get that much dumber.

    1. Lauryallan profile image69
      Lauryallanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I really can't see HP following the likes of Squidoo in this sense. The only way people are able to do this on Squidoo is by filling the page up with affiliate capsules for itunes, amazon, cafepress and the list goes on. Most of these are not even allowed on HP.

  2. profile image0
    EmpressFelicityposted 11 years ago

    Can you explain the exact way in which Squidoo's duplicate content filter works, and how it differs from HP's? Somehow I find it hard to believe that Squidoo won't allow you to paraphrase small pieces of information from elsewhere, or put short bits of quoted text into your lenses.

  3. WriteAngled profile image74
    WriteAngledposted 11 years ago

    I published my first lens on Squidoo about a week ago. It is probably longer than anything I have written here (and my hubs tend to be long) and has a number of direct citations from other works.

    Not only did it not trip any duplicate filters, it was awarded a purple star about three days after being published. To quote Squidoo, this is "a remarkable and rare trophy reserved for truly great lenses".

    I was also accepted as a RocketSquid (similar to apprentices here, but followed at one's own pace without any deadline pressure) on the strength of that one lens.

    My experience does not bear out the "dumber" accusation. Yes, lenses with no useful, original content do exist, however the same can also be said of many hubs.

    I originally did not use Squidoo, because I did not like their "work in progress" system removing lenses from view. However, going by what I have read, that system is less damaging than the idled hubs policy that now reigns here. Hence, I decided to try my luck at Squidoo and so far have been having great fun over there.

    1. Will Apse profile image88
      Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      If your page concerns Serqet then congrats, its a nice page. You seem to have got your facts from books rather than online. The Wikipedia page is weak.

      I was thinking more of common facts that are, as far as I am concerned, a common currency. I might want to use the basic facts about the Titanic, say, in a page on Maritime Disasters, British Steamships, The Age of the Liner or whatever. Not possible on Squidoo. Someone on Wikipedia got it out of a book first. Now these facts are duplicate content.

      Your stuff on Serqet will henceforth be dupe content. lol.

      It is equally noticeable in Squidoo's commercial pages. A page comparing the best digital camera, say, will not in fact tell you anything worth knowing. You won't be told about any technical specs because these already exist online.

      The best a writer can do if comparing 10 cameras is to send the reader to ten separate webpages on the manufacturers' sites where they can work it out for themselves.

      All the writer on Squidoo can say is something like: 'This camera is super shiny and takes nice pics'.

      1. WriteAngled profile image74
        WriteAngledposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Thank you.

        My lens is a mixture of factual information found among my personal library of over 100 books on Egyptology, plus my own thoughts, knowledge and drawings.

        I think though that with comparisons, there should be ways to get round the duplicate issue.

        I would guess that if, for example, the lens author says: "Camera B is 6 oz lighter than Camera A, weighing in at xx oz., however, it does not include... [blah, blah blah], which is available with both Camera A and Camera C." and so one, this should not trip the filter, because it is not doing a straight listing from the product description pages.

        I would be very, very surprised if such an approach caused problems.

        1. Will Apse profile image88
          Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          If you write a page which is fact-dense, each one supporting some point or other, then get hit by the dupe filter, it really is not worth the trouble of working out which fact is responsible.

          I wrote about a dozen pages over the last few months on Squidoo. Only one (the weakest page by far) got through the filter. A second I got through by gutting it of information. I have left that up out of pure malice. Pity the poor reader...

          The rest are over on Hubpages. Between them they are getting 250 views a day and making some money.

    2. profile image0
      EmpressFelicityposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Congratulations on your purple star lol.

      I put a few lenses up on Squidoo a couple of years ago and more or less forgot about them. Every six months or so, someone buys an eBay item off them and I get about $12 as a result. I've now added a few more lenses, in the hope that the eBay purchases will become more frequent. Having said that, I'm still wary of publishing too many more - Squidoo might well introduce unwelcome changes to its site/TOS, just as HP has done. I think you run that risk no matter where you publish, unless it's on your own sites.

      1. WriteAngled profile image74
        WriteAngledposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Thank you. The fact it is purple makes it all the sweeter as far as I'm concerned lol

 
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