Squidoo for Backlinks or Promotion?

[Rebirth Studios]

I have read that Squidoo is worth considering in regards to improving SERP through relevant backlinks and promotion. The company I work for has a niche, which from what I've seen does not have much representation there.

However, I've read in a few places that Google is cracking down on Squidoo.

What is the current state of using Squidoo and what are your thoughts?

Thanks

[stymiee]

It's more of a promotion technique then an SEO technique. Most people think just because you can add links to your site there that it is part of SEO. As always those links are only worth as much as the page is worth and, as usual, those pages are usually very weak. Squidoo is not a shortcut for good rankings.

[Rebirth Studios]

Right, so we have good content and we'd like to educate others on our products and our industry.

So the X factor is knowing whether Squidoo is still effective in getting traffic/promotion or has the Google slap sent it reeling, to where using it is not worth the effort?

[rcj662]

Traffic is worth it if it is listed good for keywords you use.

[Teflon]

I would say it is still definitely worth using the google slap was always going to happen sooner or later because of the spammers churning out poor quality lenses.

[Waraas]

Originally Posted by stymiee

It's more of a promotion technique then an SEO technique. Most people think just because you can add links to your site there that it is part of SEO. As always those links are only worth as much as the page is worth and, as usual, those pages are usually very weak. Squidoo is not a shortcut for good rankings.

What what what? Ever heard of keyword real estate?

Squidoo is great, so is using wordpress, digg, blogger, and all those other social networking sites. What your using is Squidoo authority, a Squidoo subpage is a very trusted page. People use keyword real estate all the time. I use it for all of my websites.

read this - http://www.bluehatseo.com/keyword-real-estate/

[stymiee]

Originally Posted by Waraas

What what what? Ever heard of keyword real estate?

Squidoo is great, so is using wordpress, digg, blogger, and all those other social networking sites. What your using is Squidoo authority, a Squidoo subpage is a very trusted page. People use keyword real estate all the time. I use it for all of my websites.

read this - http://www.bluehatseo.com/keyword-real-estate/

That only works if you can get your lens to have any real value (a.k.a. link popularity). If not, it's just another worthless page with a bunch of worthless links.

[krendion]

I made a Squidoo subpage few days ago. Get only 4 clicks till now

[rwoman]

My stats are reflecting traffic coming from my squidoo lenses plus I believe there are seo benefits. Not my only marketing strategy but part of the package that I plan to keep!

[Waraas]

Originally Posted by stymiee

That only works if you can get your lens to have any real value (a.k.a. link popularity). If not, it's just another worthless page with a bunch of worthless links.

No its not. I use this strategy for all my websites, it works well. The page would have value because its a subdomain of the "valued" site. My suggestion is to try it out. Find a longtailed keyword and make a website for it, and only using keyword real estate pages link to your website. I guarantee you will get the site indexed.

[stymiee]

Originally Posted by rwoman

My stats are reflecting traffic coming from my squidoo lenses plus I believe there are seo benefits. Not my only marketing strategy but part of the package that I plan to keep!

Why do you believe there are SEO benefits? Generating traffic doesn't mean good for SEO. It just means it may be a good promotion technique.

Originally Posted by Waraas

No its not. I use this strategy for all my websites, it works well. The page would have value because its a subdomain of the "valued" site. My suggestion is to try it out. Find a longtailed keyword and make a website for it, and only using keyword real estate pages link to your website. I guarantee you will get the site indexed.

1) Subdomains aren't special. Domains aren't special. Every page is judged on its own merit. Just because that page is associated with Squidoo doesn't mean it will have the same value as the Squidoo homepage. It won't and probably never will.

2) Duh about the longtail keywords. Anyone can rank well for almost any longtail keyword with just a few backlinks from just about anywhere. That's why they are longtail keywords. Try ranking for something competitive with a Squidoo lens. See what happens.

3) Duh about getting indexed. A link from just about anywhere will get you indexed. So will submitting your site which is a lot less work then creating a Squidoo lens.

[Waraas]

Originally Posted by stymiee

Why do you believe there are SEO benefits? Generating traffic doesn't mean good for SEO. It just means it may be a good promotion technique.

1) Subdomains aren't special. Domains aren't special. Every page is judged on its own merit. Just because that page is associated with Squidoo doesn't mean it will have the same value as the Squidoo homepage. It won't and probably never will.

2) Duh about the longtail keywords. Anyone can rank well for almost any longtail keyword with just a few backlinks from just about anywhere. That's why they are longtail keywords. Try ranking for something competitive with a Squidoo lens. See what happens.

3) Duh about getting indexed. A link from just about anywhere will get you indexed. So will submitting your site which is a lot less work then creating a Squidoo lens.

Obviously you dont know anything about trust rank. If you did you would know that websites subpages (yes that means sub domains) give out a ranking. That is why the site would get your site indexed and ranked for your keyword. duh.

I suggest you do some research before giving away mislead information on here. I know for a fact that you haven't tested this out, if you have than you would be saying stuff like "Subdomains aren't special"... which is really obsured.

[DaveWoods]

Originally Posted by Waraas

Obviously you dont know anything about trust rank. If you did you would know that websites subpages (yes that means sub domains) give out a ranking. That is why the site would get your site indexed and ranked for your keyword. duh.

Yes but Stymiee was pointing out that subpages aren't any different to subdomains. A page is a page regardless of where it is.

Originally Posted by Waraas

I suggest you do some research before giving away mislead information on here. I know for a fact that you haven't tested this out, if you have than you would be saying stuff like "Subdomains aren't special"... which is really obsured.

Why are subdomains special? http://category.domain.com would have exactly the same benefits as having http://www.domain.com/category as far as I'm aware.

Anyone can setup subdomains in the same way that anyone can setup a subdirectory so it would make no sense for Google to assume more relevance or give more weight to outgoing links for either and would make much more logical for Google to treat them both the same.

[stymiee]

Originally Posted by Waraas

Obviously you dont know anything about trust rank. If you did you would know that websites subpages (yes that means sub domains) give out a ranking. That is why the site would get your site indexed and ranked for your keyword. duh.

I suggest you do some research before giving away mislead information on here. I know for a fact that you haven't tested this out, if you have than you would be saying stuff like "Subdomains aren't special"... which is really obsured.

Trustrank is a bunch of crap. Google mentioned it in a patent filing and all of a sudden everyone thinks trustrank is the hottest thing since PR. Ech page is judged on its own merit, period. Being on the squidoo domain may make it more likely to be indexed quicker but that's about it. No other arbitrary special bonuses are applied. They don't need to.

And I'd love to see your experiment and hear how you conducted it. Post it here so we can review it. If you don't, then I'll cite my own experiments which will be worth as much as yours.

[jdog07]

Originally Posted by stymiee

Trustrank is a bunch of crap. Google mentioned it in a patent filing and all of a sudden everyone thinks trustrank is the hottest thing since PR.

So, if trustrank doesn't exist, how do all of those orphan .edu pages rank for viagra and ringtones?

[Waraas]

Originally Posted by csswiz

Yes but Stymiee was pointing out that subpages aren't any different to subdomains. A page is a page regardless of where it is.

Actually they are, google see's subdomains (page.site.com) as whole new domains. Thats why you can get a subdomain banned in the indexed and not the whole domain, that is why all the blackhatters use subdomains.

[stymiee]

Originally Posted by jdog07

So, if trustrank doesn't exist, how do all of those orphan .edu pages rank for viagra and ringtones?

Um, because they have tons of links pointing to them? Just a hunch.

Originally Posted by Waraas

Actually they are, google see's subdomains (page.site.com) as whole new domains. Thats why you can get a subdomain banned in the indexed and not the whole domain, that is why all the blackhatters use subdomains.

Not anymore. How Google handles subdomains is changing. It's starting with how many sites they list in their SERPs.

[elitesystem]

stymiee great point mate! cant say much when SEO guru himself spoke abt it ... well

[angilina]

Squidoo backlinks are only helpful if the lens from where you are getting backlinks have a good PR and if it is relevant to your site.

So for this, you first have to do some link building for the len to improve its PR, but instead of that, just build backlinks for your own site.

backlinks from lens in squidoo are no special.

[seo.tejas]

Squidoo is for both... for getting backlinks + promotion
am having two squidoo at present you guys can post a Comment if you want ;D
you webmasters are alwyz welcome

squidoo.com/Christine_Mendoza
squidoo.com/Acomplia-Accomplia

[fr@nc!z]

Even though squidoo is a "do-follow" one, its more useful as a traffic driver than a link builder.