HubPages + Squidoo = ????

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   Michael J Rappposted 12 years ago

   I'd read a few people here mention that they write on other sites like Squidoo or Wizzley as well as HP.  I'm curious about your philosophies as far as interlinking Hubs and Lenses, or other articles, and how to best build a network between several writing sites.  I have a few different thoughts and questions:
   
   1.  Google seems to like or at least tolerate my HP subdomain so far.  I only have a couple of Lenses up on Squidoo (though I intend to write more), and they don't get much traffic.  Might it make sense to refer some traffic from HP to those Lenses?  Then again . . .
   
   2. Squidoo is a huge site, whereas my subdomain will always be tiny by comparison.  Maybe it's smarter to link from Lenses to Hubs and use the Squidoo juice to give my HP subdomain a boost.
   
   3.  Maybe I could just link back and forth as I see fit, but then would that be seen as circular links by Google and get my HP subdomain knocked down a notch?
   
   4. It makes sense to me to network articles between writing sites, but maybe I'm off.  Is there a good reason to let the work on each site stand alone?
   
   I'm still learning, and a lot of people here are pretty smart, so thanks for any responses in advance.  And I apologize if any of these questions are overly rudimentary.

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      Wesman Todd Shawposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      There isn't a good reason to let your work sit over there without a self serving link to something related!!!!
      
      Its just cheating yourself.
      
      I'm not a Squido guy, but I know how easy HP is, and they'd have absolutely ZERO problem with you adding a link capsule and linking to your Squido work on a related hub.
      
      You could actually do TWO links to squido on each hub per TOS - but I tend to think one to another domain is enough when its self serving links.
      
      Join Info Barrel, join Xobba Tribune, and blogger - you can do the same things on all those sites, while also doing adsense and amazon.com

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         Greekgeekposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Be careful. My original set of Hubs -- a bunch on Greek art and mythology -- got locked and my account flagged as a spammer after Hubpages added the "two links" rule. I was linking to my  travel journal as an image credit to prove my photos of ancient Greek art and archaeology were my own. I didn't link more than twice to the journal on each hub, but having a number of hubs all linking to the same page got treated as spamming.
         
         Since then I have been rather skittish about posting links on hubs -- at least to my own work. But by all means link from your Squidoo lenses to your hubs, IF the hubs are relevant to the same topic. Google likes to see links to and from related/relevant articles, not links from a page about hermit crabs to a page on boxing gloves.
         
         Whenever you start on a new site, it takes a while to figure out what that site is good for and what earns well on that site. Newbies to Hubpages might assume there's no money to be made here if they happen to start by making hubs that don't get much traffic. You  have to be willing to explore and pick up tips from the locals or your earnings may not come to much. On Squidoo, the key is to make interactive pages that invite clicks, participation and reader engagement  (sales help too, but are not necessary for adsense; clickouts are rewarded on the principle that readers have found something on your page worthwhile enough to click.)
         
         If you're an Amazon associate or a member of any affiliate program, paste the affiliate program's links (text or image links only on Amazon) into Squidoo's text modules and you'll be able to capture ALL the sales commission instead of having to split sales earnings with the host site.
         
         If you've got a Google profile, make sure you link your Squidoo profile to your Google profile and then add a link in the sidebar of your Google profile linking back to your lensmaster profile.  Done correctly, that can establish the authorship of all your pages and get Google to rank them on their own merits just like a subdomain.
         
         Wherever you post, you've gotta study and learn what's dominating the top of category pages and try not to compete with the most popular topics, which are liable to outrank yours on those category pages making yours harder to find. Google site:hubpages.com or site:squidoo.com to check the competition for a particular search query when deciding whether to write on it (or at least what words to use in your title and url). You can learn how often a phrase is searched with Google's free keywords tool, but the step a lot of people miss is to take keywords with a promising amount of traffic, go to Google search and do that search to check out the amount and quality of the competition (how many good pages out there already rank for that search phrase).The way to get search traffic is to find things that get searched, for which there are NOT already a zillion pages out there (particularly on the domain where you're publishing) that might outrank yours.

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            Michael J Rappposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I'm a little cautious about linking as well, just based on what I've read in this forum.  I'm even a bit concerned because I find a lot of my Hub pics at one particular photo site, and of course provide a link back as required.  So I have a few links going back to one particular site, and I'm hoping that won't end up hurting my subdomain somehow.
            
            From what you said it sounds smarter to link from Squidoo to HP, of course with relevant topics, and not from HP to Squidoo or anywhere else.  I guess I envisioned a bunch of articles on several sites that are related and linked together in a logical way.

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               Greekgeekposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               I did, too! That's my favorite (and only) way to build backlinks... link to one's own related content.
               
               I may be wrong; I'm still not 100% why I tripped the spammer flag. It was all my old hubs that got locked down, and the error message said something to the effect of too many links to the same domain... which apparently was counting my links on different hubs as "too many" -- but i'm still not quite clear on where the line is drawn, so I just ... avoid it.
               
               Someone else could probably understand better where and when you need to watch out about linking to the same domain across multiple hubs. I *think* Wikimedia Commons and Stock Xchng are okay -- otherwise I'd have gotten my account locked AGAIN by now, because I often get creative commons or licensed photos and give credit/linkback as required to those sites.

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                  Wesman Todd Shawposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  You know - a while back they were training some new moderators.  I think you are being overly cautious with the first reply you left on this thread...I think you were only nixed or flagged by moderators in training.

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                  wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  At one time linking to the same domain across most of your hubs produced the result you found.  I understand that policy has now changed (it was in the TOS and seems gone the last time I looked). 
                  
                  I would assume wikimedia is OK for unlimited links - wikipedia is, I know, as an authoritative site.  I always give credit, but seldom a link, so maybe that helps.  Just don't really see the point of a link to a photo on wikimedia.
                  
                  *edit*  Whoops - I now see that Marisa already explained the rule change.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I think you can stop being skittish now - they've changed the rule.  There is a thread somewhere where it was discussed, but the essence is:
            
            The old rule said - you can't have more than two links to the same domain in any Hub, AND you must not link to the same domain from several Hubs.
            
            The new rule says - you can't have more than two links to the same domain in any Hub.  The restriction on linking to the same domain over several Hubs has been removed. And Maddie Ruud has confirmed it was deliberate, not an oversight or mistake - so you wouldn't get penalized if you did the same thing now.

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               Michael J Rappposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               How about outside of HP?  Will Google have any issue with links connecting all over the place between one person's work on two or three sites?  I was reading here a few weeks back where you guys were talking about Google penaliziing for circular links.

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                  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  We were talking about reciprocal links. That's a situation where site A links to site B and site B links to site A.  Google won't penalize you for doing that, but it will probably ignore the links, so they don't count towards your site's rank.
                  
                  Interlinking between sites is perfectly fine if it's natural - i.e. you should only link articles or sites which are on the same topic.  But it is better if you can avoid the reciprocal thing - so for instance, you might link site A to site B, then site B to site C, then .....you get the picture.
                  
                  This is a good tutorial on how it's done (though the suggested sites are a bit out of date - I wouldn't recommend Factoidz or Shetoldme any more:
                  
                  http://sunforged.hubpages.com/hub/The-U … -backlinks

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                     lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     Marisa with the new Google algorithm updates do you think going out of your way to backlink is worth the time? Backlinking from squidoo or anywhere else where you write is fine. But, by writing on ezinearticles -acc to me may just be a waste of time

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                     Michael J Rappposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     Reciprocal links.  I don't know where I got circular links.  LOL. 
                     
                     I get what you're saying about the link wheel, and I found Sunforged's article quite helpful, but I'm still scratching my head a little.  If I have a link to my Squidoo profile on my HP profile page, and a link to my HP profile on my Squidoo profile page, is that a reciprocal link?  Or are you just talking about individual articles?
                     
                     Or . . . if I have a link to my Blogger blog on my HP profile, and then a page on my blog with several links to HP Hubs (same subject as blog) is that reciprocal? 
                     
                     Those both seem like smart marketing strategies for a writer trying to create a network of readers within a certain niche.
                     
                     Sorry to be picking your brain here, but I do really find it helpful.  Thanks!

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                        lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        Say you got a hub on Reciprocal links and a lens on reciprocal links, If you link from that hub to that lens and the lens to your hub - that's called a reciprocal link!

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                           Michael J Rappposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           Yeah, I get that part.  But I'm asking whether it's a site-wide concern, or just article to article. 
                           
                           In other words is a reciprocal link between Hub and Lens the same as links back and forth between profiles on HP and Squidoo.  And also if by linking an HP profile to a blog does that mean I should not add links on my blog to my HP articles.
                           
                           Know what I mean?  Honestly, I'm afraid to link anything to anything at this point.  I'm getting ranked okay with Google so far and I'm afraid one wrong move will sink the whole ship! 

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                              Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              
                              
                              Site-wide is my understanding.
                              
                              
                              
                              Stop worrying!  Google won't penalize you for reciprocal links.  You just won't get as much benefit from them as you would from one-way links.
                              
                              The point is that backlinks (i.e. links from other sites) increase your Google ranking.  That's why you want to create them.  If your goal is to create backlinks, you need to avoid reciprocal links because they cancel each other out.  That's all.

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                                 lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                 Yup it won't make you lose your rank. But I suggest sticking to topics and not linking unrelated pages

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                                 Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                 I should drop in to clarify, that's MY understanding. Some people say it's URL to URL (it's better to think in terms of "URL to URL" instead of "article to article", because that covers profiles, pages, everything).
                                 
                                 That would mean you could link from one post in your blog to a Hub.  Then you could link from a different Hub to a different post (two different URL's).  But it would be a complete waste of time to put links to all your Hubs on the front page of your blog,and then link those Hubs to the front page.
                                 
                                 But the bottom line is, to get the best results, you need link diversity.  So if you're creating links to your blog, it's far, far better to write one article on each of Infobarrel, HubPages, Wizzley, EzineArticles, Xobba, Excerptz, PubWages and ThisisFreelance than to write all eight articles on HubPages.

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                              lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              Choose one - your hubs, squidoo or your Blog as your top priority. Use the other two to point to the one you choose. As Marisa rightly said, you need Google views so concentrate on that

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                        Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        Yes, this is very clear-cut.  Your Squidoo profile has a URL.  Your HubPages profile has a URL.  URL 'a' is pointing to URL 'b', and URL 'b' is pointing to URL 'a'.
                        
                        
                        
                        Yes, it's less obvious, but it's because your Blogger blog is a stand-alone blog, and your HubPages sub-domain is a stand-alone blog (or nearly so). 
                        
                        
                        
                        Maybe, but you'll make more money from new readers via the search engines than from a loyal body of existing readers (unless you're selling something with repeat business potential).  So you need to rank well on Google, and for that, it's better to link in one direction only.

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                           Michael J Rappposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           Okay.  I appreciate the clarification.  I restated my question to lobobrandon above, but you've about settled it.
                           
                           Thanks so much for you help!

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      lifelovemysteryposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Michael, a friend of mine recommended HP to me. She is also on Squiddoo, writes for textbroker and manages a blog. I look forward to comments on how people manage and link the different sites. Great question.

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