Squidoo Locked Me Out!

A Word to the Wise

Recently, I’ve written about the many changes the Squidoo organization has been instituting and the problems these changes are causing writers or “lensmasters”.

Today I want to share the thoughts of a top Squidoo Lensmaster, known in the community as a “Giant Squid,” who’s been active in the community for years. I've followed her blog and admire her work.

As you read through her posting, I’d like you to think about the amount of time and energy that has been put into her association with Squidoo--the time to write 838 lenses; the amount of time expended in keeping that enormous volume of work updated; and the time she volunteered in helping newer Squidoo members.  We’re talking years here.

If locking an account has happened to a high profile Squidoo member who has direct access to Squidoo staff, it can happen to you.  

Maybe it’s time to reassess your time commitment to Squidoo.

Now, I’m not advocating dropping out of Squidoo—at least not completely.  But it is absolutely necessary that you consider all your writing options at this time and safeguard your work. 

Edit all articles you’ve left on Squidoo.  Make sure they tick all the Squidoo buttons.  Personalize your material where you can.  Move work to your own site as necessary.

Stay on your toes.

Good luck and keep writing,

Sanne

My Squidoo Account Has Been Locked, 838 Lenses

Posted: 19 Jul 2013 09:29 AM PDT

To show you that no one is immune to the clean up that Squidoo has been going through in the last few months, my own account was locked last Friday. I do not have more than one account, so as you can imagine I was horrified, furious and incredulous.

Over the past week, I spent almost all of my time, going through my account, saving the lenses to my computer. Then I went through them to come up with a list of 100 that I could ask to save per the instructions on the email that I got. I am a Giant Squid, even now, so I did get better treatment than those who are not.

In the process, I deleted over 500 lenses, and now have only 255 left. I tried to save the ones I was making money with, my favorites, and the best. I don’t always agree with Squidoo as to what is the best, which is why I saved all of them to my computer.

While working through this with the powers that be, I learned a few things which I will tell you now.

    Squidoo is no longer a site that you will be able to make easy money on. They are frowning on commercial lenses, and want each lens to tell a personal story.

    Whether you believe it or not, the staff at Squidoo are not evil and they are trying to deal with their new directives the best way they can. I personally feel that they could do a better job communicating with the community, but in turn, we as the community need to tone down our rhetoric. Shouting and railing at people who are already stressed out does not help anyone.

    I need to take a break from Squidoo. I have resigned my post as a RocketSquid Greeter because I do not feel that I can help newbies anymore. I want to teach people how to make money online, and that is not what Squidoo wants.

    If you want to save your lenses from being locked, then you need to make sure that there are no other sites copying your work, and if there are, file a DCMA. You also need to remove any copied content from product descriptions and rewrite them in your own words. You need to give your lenses a voice.

    Squidoo really does want personal content. Personal content can sell, if you have the right topic, but it is harder to do this. Here is one of my lenses that is personal and also sells.  Best Computer Printer for College Students

I am going to take a hiatus from this blog, but am going to continue blogging about making money online on Writing Online. I hope that you will follow me there. You can get the posts in your email, and I will be talking about alternatives to writing on Squidoo. For those of you who love Squidoo, but are looking for a similar place to spread out to, I recommend Zujava because it is the closest to the way Squidoo works. Wizzley is also a great site, but it works more like Hubpages.

I will be pursuing a career in freelance writing, and working more on my own sites, where I have total control over the content. I do not agree with Squidoo as to what Google wants nor do I agree with them about what readers want. The proof of that is that I have had regular sales on my Squidoo account continually through the loss of traffic. However, we will have to agree to disagree because that is just the way it is. Squidoo is looking at its site as a whole, and I am looking at my income and earnings from Squidoo that feed my family and help me run my business.

I am thankful that I still have an account on Squidoo while I transition to a new type of income source. To find out more about that, follow me on Writing Online. 

- written by Paula Atwell – lakeerieartists

www.squidlog.net

and now:

http://writing-online.org/ 

Paula Atwell is an artist, writer, and owner of Lake Erie Artists Gallery at Shaker Square in Cleveland, Ohio. You can find her on Squidoo as lakeerieartists.




@SanneCollins