Is a Squidoo Lens of Value or Is a Blogspot better?

[mjtaylor]

I have a client who needs more incoming links. His niche is fishing, and there is lots of material. We have an onsite blog, and I am encouraging him to write more and to develop an off site blog or a "lens" on Squidoo.

I never see Squidoo lenses pop up in search results; I don't hear anyone on here talking about their traffic or SEO value. I am not sure whether a lens would have any particular 'oomph' over a blogspot.

What do you think, please?

[Webnauts]

Squidoo does not seem to have the value it did a while ago. I would go with Blogspot, if I could not get another domain and setup my own blog.

[Doc]

I'm not seeing lenses in the SERPs either. Maybe it was just a flash-in-the-pan, but it seems to be off the radar. I'd agree with John, about a blog being more productive.

Articles might be another option for them to explore, MJ.

I'll add a question to this... do either of you see any particular advantage/disadvantage to having the blog on-site, versus stand-alone?

[mjtaylor]

I'm not seeing lenses in the SERPs either. Maybe it was just a flash-in-the-pan, but it seems to be off the radar. I'd agree with John, about a blog being more productive.

Articles might be another option for them to explore, MJ.

I'll add a question to this... do either of you see any particular advantage/disadvantage to having the blog on-site, versus stand-alone?
I asked this question recently:

http://www.webproworld.com/search-engine-optimization-forum/93012-blog-site-vs-off-site-search-engine-optimization-advantages.html

And I have decided for most purposes, I like a standalone blog. One might argue that the same backlink that comes to good post on or off site will be of equal benefit to the main site, and that is true most of the time. But there are times when I know I can get two links if I have two sites ... so I am going for the extra occasional link.

We are exploring articles, too. Thanks!

And I did some reading on Squidoo after I posted the thread and I am concluding that Google has denigrated its value.

I found one funny example, though ... Squidoo for SEO (Is it worth it?) traphic marketing – the blog (http://linkbait.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/squidoo-for-seo/) .. an experiment to see if a lens would help a website in Google. It's not clear what the SEO found, but when I Google soundproof school the lens came up #2 but but the 'target' was at 20. I don't know where the site was before that, though.

[Doc]

When I first encountered Squidoo, it seemed like something Google wouldn't like, and would find a way to devalue. :rolleyes:

[SteveGerencser]

Squidoo has recently converted all external links to skimlinks which are cloaked 302 redirects.. So if you are building a lends for the links they are now worthless..

[fantasypi]

I created 9 Squidoo lenses for my site Dancersinthedark, one optimized for each of my key words. They do not show up in Google searches, but three of the lenses show up in Yahoo searches, and right below my sites, beating several hundred other sites indexed on that URL KW. When indexed, they went to the top. Yahoo search "dancersinthedark'. That was a couple of days ago. I just checked and they are bouncing around. Reminds me of Google. That said, the effort in creating thos 9 lenses has not paid off, not yet at least. Google does seem to ignore them. Yahoo site explorer reports two of them as inbound links. These squidoo lenses were only created a week or two ago, so maybe they will gain traction. We will see.
The purpose was for the lenses to show up in KW searches, hopefully at the top because of Squidoo's PR. They do not show up in searches for the KW they were optimized for in Google or Yahoo.

[terabai]

never tried squidoo.....i always use blogspot. much better i think. But still, squido can help for other search engine

[innominds]

If you don't have sufficient resources to start your own website, then squidoo is definitely a good option.

[mjtaylor]

If you don't have sufficient resources to start your own website, then squidoo is definitely a good option.

How is this relevant? The OP clearly states we have a website. Are you posting to post?

[SouthamptonAngel]

I would suggest that Blogspot has more of an impact (in terms of SERPs and traffic levels) from my own experience.

[fantasypi]

I posted a comment a month ago that squidoo lenses were not beeing seen by Google. Now, 3 of my 9 lenses for this site have made it to page 2 and 3. Maybe we need to rethink this, or Google is constantly rethinking things (probable).

[chandrika]

I actually seem to keep coming across Squidoo in search results lately, in my own research i have noticed some hair related squidoo lenses coming up on first page in search results so i guess Google must value the lenses.

Other thing I noticed about squidoo lenses in serps is that the ones i am currently seeing seem to be real time results, as in they have the "17 hours ago" snippet by the url...

Whether it values links on the lenses i also would like to know, as someone said, they are redirects, I dont like those redirect links, they remind me of how sites used to get hijacked that way, and i do wonder whether by doing such redirect links they get credit for your sites content.

[SteveGerencser]

Squidoo seems to have tweaked their links again.. The 302s are gone..

[mit]

I have tried Squidoo lots of time but didn't get very great response. And blogspot is evergreen in getting indexed fast and can also good in achieving rankings.

[dorothykinder]

Hi,

I have seen Squidoo as the best ever lens which can bring more traffic to your website, previously it was blogspot but now these squidoo lenses are effective and one can easily drive traffic to their website.