Squidoo groups – I’m a sucker for titles…
The squidoo HQ blog is NOT by squidoo HQ. Which was a relief for me when I found out, because I didn’t agree with all it said. But I’m still subscribed to the RSS feed – as I am to all squidoo blogs I can find.
But this weekend I totally suckered in. I saw Squidoo HQ on my RSS reader and thought that it was an official squidoo blog… and when it said that each lens should join at least 10 groups, I was like… I don’t agree. Many groups are pagerank sinks. No chance your lens gets featured if you’re the 100-something (or 1000-something) lens in there. [Which is of course the reason I made my great groups lensography]
But my mind was also going … if squidoo HQ is saying this, they must be about to finally give groups a better deal in the whole algorithm… Add to that some negative experiences with a group I’ve been supporting… and you got me making 7 (yes SEVEN) new groups myself. One just for my own spiritual lenses – 2 about the Netherlands (one in Dutch) and several niche religion and spirituality groups.
Which means I now have 9 groups under my belt. And of course I had to make a lensography to put them all in as well… So check out my nine squidoo groups.
All that from a moment of inattention. No way would I have done all that if I’d known it was just some anonymous giant squid talking. Not that I’m complaining: there are good reasons to start a niche group. And the experience did give me more empathy for all those religion and spirituality groups that have to figure out what to do with my 80 (yes 80) lenses about the topic. I guess I should just never submit more than five lenses to the same group. No matter how many others may fit the topic as well.
6 Comments »
Megal said :
February 3, 2009 at 11:21 am
Sorry for the confusion. I had written something directly into the about page about that. I guess I should have that somewhere on the front page so others don’t get confused.
I guess I should have thought harder about the name… : )
Regards, Megal
spirituality said :
February 3, 2009 at 12:20 pm
I did read your disclaimer – but when it comes up on my rss it still confuses. Hey – you did inspire 7 groups
AJ said :
February 3, 2009 at 12:53 pm
I agree with what you say Katinka about not joining groups that have so many lenses they cant possibly feature them all. The one exception I make in all of this is the G rated Lens Factory. The Groupmaster Tracy Dove makes a point of visiting all lenses that are submitted and she features many – I have just found one of mine on there – and I believe she regularly rotates the lenses.
As for my own group Children and Parenting I am still going through a mass of new submissions. All from the same Lensmaster (!), who may have found a “niche” and although the “niche” may be relevant I am not sure of the wisdom of accepting multiple lenses on a very similar topic from the same person.
Decisions, decisions!
spirituality said :
February 3, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Perhaps you should just take the mirror approach from mine and pick 5 that are as different from each other as possible? Gratedlensfactory is great in that it features all the lensmasters – so we each get a backlink anyhow (and a great one it is with 3000 lenses all pointing to that group). But I would not advice submitting too many lenses there either. One or two will do. I’ve got one in myself.
spirituality said :
February 3, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Or you could just accept them all and not feature any – as a groupmaster I’m starting to sympathize with that approach as well, however much I hate it as a member…
The compromise I’m sticking to is: accept all lenses that are good enough (have quality, aren’t exactly the same and fit the topic), feature all as long as the group isn’t too bit – and make a link plexo if the group gets too big. This might be your moment to add that link plexo. Let that lensmaster bother with submitting all those similar lenses in the plexo… Chances are they won’t.
mulberry said :
February 3, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I’ve definitely belonged to some of those…the ones that accept but don’t feature. The link plexo option makes sense.
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