Which is better HUBPAGES or SQUIDOO?

I have accounts at both Squidoo and HubPages. In fact, I've had and have been using my Squidoo account(s) longer than I have my HubPages one. I think that both sites have their strengths and weaknesses, and they have similarities on the surface, but if you dig a little deeper you'll find they are, in fact, different beasts.

I'm going to go through some of the differences between the two sites, so you can see for yourself what may work better for you.

Google Page Rank: 7

Squidoo is a Web 2.0 site set up by Seth Godin in 2005. The pages set up are known as Lenses. You are allowed to set up a lens on almost any subject and Squidoo allows Affiliate links on the site. This alone, has attracted a lot of Internet Marketers to the site, and allowed for rapid growth.

In early 2007, after gaining massive popularity, Google slapped Squidoo's page rank dramatically because of the massive amount of spam lenses. Squidoo's reaction was swift, and they deleted a lot of spam lenses, and then instigated a policy of a minimum amount of modules within a lens, and a waiting period before the lenses were indexed. They have since regained their old ranking.

Basic Lens set up:

Lenses are put together using a series of modules. You can decide what type of modules you wish to use, but the basic text module is the most popular.

The modules do not contain any web editing tools and any HTML you use you'll have to do yourself. If you're not good with HTML this could be a limiting factor. The Introductory module used to contain an HTML editor, but this was removed in January 2008 due to its buggy nature.

You can arrange these modules as you please, except for the introductory one.

Pictures are a bit more of a problem. If you wish to put larger pictures into your modules you'll need a photobucket or equivalent account, or use their flickr module. They do allow small pictures in the corner of each module, which you can upload, if that's all you need.

The lenses are very easy to construct, because they are done in a modular fashion. Squidoo, on the whole, is not rocket science to use.

Compensation: I'm not going to go into detail about the compensation plan, except to say that if you are making lenses with the expectation of large amounts of cash coming in your direction from Squidoo then you may need to rethink your plan. There are a small group of people making a large amount of cash, but they are in the minority. If you wish to be paid all payments are via Paypal, or you can choose to donate to charity. All payments are directly from Squidoo, not through a third party. Personally, the $7.00 I made in the last quarter went directly to Critter Connection.

Control Panel: This is one of the great features of Squidoo. Their control panel allows you to check where traffic is coming from, who your referrers are and what keywords were used to get to your site. This is a feature that HubPages doesn't have, or at least not to the extent that Squidoo does.

Publishing Time: As I indicated earlier, due to the Google Slap Squidoo decided to instigate a lag time between a page being published and indexed. It can be up to 24 hours before your page gets the green tick on your control dashboard. Until then you can see your page, but a search engine can't.

Verdict: Easy enough to use. It has a good page rank so if you SEO properly you should index well. The lack of an HTML editor works against them, but you are compensated with a great control dashboard.

Rating: 7.5/10

Google Page Rank: 6

HubPages on the surface seems very similar to Squidoo, but there are differences between the two sites. For starters, HubPages has a HTML editor as part of the package, so for anyone HTML challenged it is much easier to use. The way Hubs are constructed is different as well, and more flexible.

Hubs are constructed through a series of capsules, all with specialised purposes. There are picture capsules, text capsules, comments capsules etc. Where they differ most greatly with Squidoo is that the capsules have more flexibility in their arrangement, and you can decide if your video capsule, for example, will be full page width or half. On Squidoo you don't have that option. This gives the Hubber (as they are called) a chance to individualise their page more. Be aware that sometimes these capsules can be buggy.

Pictures: As noted above there are modules specifically for pictures which makes it much easier for the average hubber to arrange pictures to get the page looking as they want it to look.

Compensation: HubPages compensation is all arranged through third parties, so it does take longer to set up an account. You'll need a Commission Junction Account( for eBay), an Amazon Associates account and an Adsense account. You could range from instant approval to a couple of days depending on the party. The advantage this has over Squidoo is that with these accounts you can see almost instantly how much money you're making. That doesn't mean you'll necessarily be rolling in it, but at least you'll be able to track it easier.

Control Panel: The control panel on HubPages is very basic, and only really covers referrers. They encourage you to set up a Google Analytics account instead to track your pages. Analytics is not as straight forward as Squidoo's dashboard, but overall you will know where your traffic is coming from.

Publishing Time: Your page will be seen instantly on HubPages, but that does not mean it will necessarily be indexed straight away. The way HubPages discourages spammers is by their Hubscore and your overall hubscore. If your overall score (not the score on individual Hubs, but the one on your profile) drops below 75, then all the links in your hub will be marked as no-follow. If you are using HubPages as a means for SEO then you'll be negatively affected.

Verdict: I like the flexibility of the way Hubs are constructed over all, and the fact that you can instantly see how much you are earning. This more than compensates for the one point difference in Google Page Rank.

Rating: 8/10

As you can see they both have their good and bad points. I think that both Squidoo and HubPages are easy enough to use, but where they really differ is flexibility of page construction and the way their compensation plan works.

I like Squidoo's control panel. It makes it very easy to see where you are getting clickouts and where your traffic is coming from. That is, perhaps, their best feature. Instant feedback is always a good thing.

Where Hubpages edges them out is because you have more control over how a Hub looks than you do over how a Squidoo Lens looks. Also the way compensation is payed is better, not so much for the amount of the payout, but because you can check your balances at any time. For this reason I've given HubPages a slightly higher score even though their Google Page Rank is presently one point lower than Squidoo's.

That said, I do think that it depends on how you want to use the sites. If you are an Affiliate Marketer who wishes to put a lot of links on the site without fear of it affecting whether or not a page is indexed, I'd be inclined to head over to Squidoo despite its limitations. If you want a page pleasing to the consumer, then HubPages is your best bet.