Is Squidoo Dying? Google Rejects Squidoo Pages Due To Spam

braver55b · #1 (**permalink**) 07-18-2007, 11:01 PM

For those of you who swear by squidoo, you need to read this article I came across.

Google Acting Against Squidoo Due To Spam

I guess all good things must come to an end, people abused a good thing, squidoo didn't tighten the reins to control the black hat abuse and now it might be bye bye squidoo as an effective traffic generator.

**incrediblehelp** · #2 (**permalink**) 07-19-2007, 12:04 AM

Anything social site like this that ranks well will be spammed by some.

Conficio · #3 (**permalink**) 07-19-2007, 05:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Anything social site like this that ranks well will be spammed by some.

Thanks for the doom!

Chris · #4 (**permalink**) 07-19-2007, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Conficio

Thanks for the doom!

surely you've read about digg spam?

chowell · #5 (**permalink**) 07-19-2007, 04:52 PM

As with any new service or site, the SEO community is quick to exploit it and use it to their benefit.

Wikipedia is probably the lone remaining site that spammers have used to exploit it's authority (value of links fading extremely quickly, if not completely already). They reacted proactively to make sure Google didn't reject them. The addition of the "nofollow" tags on their outgoing links is probably why Google still treats them as a valid source of information. Had they continued to allow spamming, much like Digg, Squidoo and others did for too long, they probably would've been devalued by Google as well.

**crankydave** · #6 (**permalink**) 07-19-2007, 05:09 PM

They've noone but themselves to blame.

I don't care what the platform is, it's going to get abused and if left unchecked, you invite disaster.

We can take this forum as an example. If this forum allowed spam it would multiply like rabbits. We can't shoot the rabbits, that would be wrong, all we can do is chase them off, try and prevent them from coming back, thus sending a message to all the other rabbits.

This complex concept seems to have eluded Squidoo. Too many rabbits... garden won't grow.

Dave

Gareth Eckley · #7 (**permalink**) 07-21-2007, 02:55 PM

Yes Squidoo did get affected by a group of spammers. But they did act VERY quickly to fix the problem. It seemed that the spammers were using iframes to re-direct users to other websites and often up to 60 identical Lenses ( websites ).

Within 24 hours iframes were banned from all 100,000 lenses causing chaos for some. New lenses are subject to a check to see if there is any duplicate content and if they have enough content to merit going live.

There is a strict anti spam policy: SquidSpam: Zero Tolerance on Squidoo and anyone found violating this is banned for ever.

Squidoo has helped me on so many ways. It is a way for very focused, niche sites like my Portraits in Stone-Home Page with genuine high quality content to get some exposure. Google policy of rewarding links over content fails niche sites very, very badly. Relevant results often only appear on the 10th page, with mass market crap appearing first !

I have found the Squidoo community to be full of mostly amateur experts with a passion for their interest ( often quite obscure ), very supportive of others with genuine lenses (web pages) and a real asset to the web.

Janet21 · #8 (**permalink**) 07-21-2007, 03:08 PM

We'll, from checking my Squidoo stats, it seems to me that my traffic/rankings are starting to come back nicely. End of Squidoo? Not a chance. Squidoo took care of the problem and are moving forward. It may take some time to regain what the spammers took away, but I am willing to wait it out. Squidoo has been really good to me.

braver55b · #9 (**permalink**) 08-01-2007, 10:00 AM

I'm going to take the plunge and put up a squidoo page as I seem to have my faith in it restored now that they have a strict new anti spam policy which can only ensure their survival.

I would hate for it go by the wayside, as I've heard so much about it being spider food (attracts the google spiders to index the lenses etc)

coolguy27 · #10 (**permalink**) 08-01-2007, 02:56 PM

I agree Squidoo is a social bookmarking site that rank well in Google so the spammers do their work to spam Squidoo... How sad.. Spammers thought that they cannot be detected by Google doing their own evil trick... They were wrong Google detected them that's why Squidoo pages rejected by Google.. What will be the next site that will be rejected by Google? I wonder....

Quote:

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Anything social site like this that ranks well will be spammed by some.