Excellent!
It seems that as time goes by, more and more people are trying to cash in with the huge population we have here. Lensmasters and Lensmaster wanna be's.

I've been shocked and amazed at the amount of targeting towards Squidoo. I'm glad you mentioned Bob Jenkins. I've seen his product, but have never bought anything from anybody.

To each their own, I suppose. Some need a 'how-to', some want to find out by themselves, some want to take the time to read all the free information available right here.

I am going to put my neck out here, and tell you about two specific products that you should avoid, both of which I have personally reviewed.

The $5 Traffic Trick claims to bring instant traffic to any lens (or hub) by the amazing power of tags. Their reasons are thus: tag pages appear in high in search results so your lens will benefit from the traffic, and tag pages also have high PageRank which is passed to your lens. Both of these claims are bogus, as search engines don't index the tag pages. While tags still have their uses, traffic from search engines or PageRank via tag pages are not. It was in fact after reading this very report that I discovered this truth.

There is also a piece of software called TagSpyder which is based on the same principle - it claims to make the process of finding tags easier, though all it does is implement the same technique as the $5 Traffic Trick. You have to manually copy the tags one by one to your lens. The product gets a big thumbs down for pretty much the same reasons as the first one: it can't find tags on Google or Yahoo because they're no longer indexed, and adding tags won't get you any more PageRank.

I did send my frank opinions to the authors of both products, yet they continue to deceive their customers.

Caveat: these comments only apply to Squidoo. The principle behind these products may or may not work for HubPages, but seeing as I've told you what the principle is you don't need to buy them.

I wonder is how often they update their e-books? Squidoo is changing all the time. Do they update every time there is a change?

Also, beware of anything that says "My honest review of..." and then the lens is full of links to the site where you can buy the stuff that is being reviewed. I live in hope of stumbling across a lens that says "My honest review of" and the lensmaster says "well I have to admit it is total ***p" so I am not giving any links"

As far as I can see, from the wealth of info that is on here and the more ethical Squidoo-related sites, then there is no need for anyone to part with a cent, in order to learn about Squidoo.

"Vampires" is a brilliant label Megan.

aj2008 wrote:

I wonder is how often they update their e-books? Squidoo is changing all the time. Do they update every time there is a change?

They usually don't, which leads to a lot of unhappy bug reports. 

The_Homeopath wrote:

Thank you, Megan, for bringing this up. It's not just fly-by-night quick buck types publishing them, though. I know of at least one big squid who shills their own.

I just keep preaching to everyone who'll listen - you can find anything you want for free. If you need to know something, you can ask someone and they'll freely tell you, and they're aren't any top-secret tricks to success. Even with the blogs, a lot of them still tell people to spam guestbooks. Grrrr....

Well said, and totally true.

It's all free and most of it is here. The basic rules work: good content is like honey to flies; legitimate links are fair play; spam is ugly and downright foolish in the long run; search Squidoo, read lenses and blogs, and ask questions. This is the most helpful friendly bunch of collaborative marketing competitors on the planet.

I do appreciate the insight you have provided with this topic. I am 'more or less' an OLD Newbie. I have been with Squidoo since 2006, but am only just beginning to figure out how it all works.
I have read and followed a number of lenses to sites that will 'tell me more' or 'show me how', if I purchase this ebook or that course.  I haven't...there are just soooo many of them out there.  Thanks so much for sharing this information. It really is invaluable!
MrsZ

I have bought two Squidoo guides that I feel are very valuable for two reasons:  They put everything together in one place so I don't have to go through the thousands of good lenses that have the free information. They actually do have many legitimate tips that I've never found in the Squidoo forum or lenses.  I don't feel like I've been suckered and the money spent has been well worth it. 

Two suggestions:  Get all you can free here first, and never buy anything that doesn't have a money-back guarantee.  If what you buy doesn't have anything of value beyond what you can find free, exercise your right to get your money back.

This is great information and something I've often wondered about.  But what about all the affiliate marketing information that's being sold?  Is it the same thing?  A couple of Squidoo lensmasters have really gone into affiliate marketing big time - like how to make it big with the Wealthy Affiliate, etc.  Are any of those worthwhile or are they bogus?

Edited to fix a typo

Last edited by CherylK (11/01/2008 11:30 am)

The_Homeopath wrote:

CherylK wrote:

This is great information and something I've often wondered about.  But what about all the affiliate marketing information that's being sold?  Is it the same thing?  A couple of Squidoo lensmasters have really gone into affiliate marketing big time - like how to make it big with the Wealthy Affiliate, etc.  Are any of those worthwhile or are they bogus?

Edited to fix a typo

Kind of the same thing to be honest. There are a ton of good lenses here that will give you the information for free, blogs you can read for free, and you can always post questions and someone will give you an opinion or the info you need.

Janet freely shares her success and tips here: http://www.squidoo.com/workathomewithsquidoo

I've got one documenting how I'm doing with Share a Sale: http://www.squidoo.com/share-a-sale

And Loyalis has helped SO many folks, his blog is a definate must-read:
http://www.captainsquid.com/

Fluffanutta has reviewed many of the programs too.

There are tons of free resources out there. I've seen many forums you can join too at no cost that are strictly for discussing making money online.

Thanks so much.  It's a struggle trying to sort through all the info out there.  I'm going to read every lens you've mentioned.  I am very thankful for this forum.

I'm cleaning out my bookmarks and replacing them with those you've shared here.  Thanks so much!

adez7 wrote:

Here go check this one out: http:// www squidwords.com

and it was plugged here:

http://www squidu.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=23536

Having looked at that resource it seems to be extremely basic, only a  couple of the common html uses are listed, a few basic buttons and banners that may be useful, it's very heavy on the advertising - In fact  the front page just seems to be an affiliate plug for an ebook (not sure which one!).
Delving deeper, as it's not apparent if the creator is an expereinced squid or not, and you find no mention of the credentials of the site owner. If the lensmaster plugging it on the thread mentioned is the actual creator, it's worth noting that they have 4 published lenses, and in the 2 I checked they don't use any of the banners or images, or even much of the html code and have a few default module titles too.
I don;t want to be too harsh here as I see plenty of potential for improvement, but currently they need some work (lenses & website)


Isn't this exactly the kind of resource that Megan warns about in the OP?

Last edited by The_Book_Garden (11/01/2008 6:02 pm)

adez7 wrote:

Ditto!

I don't know. It's free and it was one of the very first resources I found when I joined here. The HTML page is simplistic, but the layout is just really easy for me to copy the exact code that I need. Probably, because I've used it so much, I've memorized where everything is so it's just quick for me now.