zuzanna wrote:

Because of that we are not provided with any way to verify that the royalty payments that are being made every month are made fairly, I was trying to achieve that in a very simple way - by following the Top 100 by LensRank and Most profitable as well as comparing my Adsense earnings with those published in this Lounge, taking into account information provided by Gil that Adsense royalties depend on average LensRank and traffic.

Having that information I asked in the Lounge two important questions, for which I didn't get responses:

1/ http://www.squidu.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2652 - post #23, I asked:
"I remember well that in January (and almost always in the modern history of Squidoo) mynameiskate was on the top of Lensrank and Most Profitable lists. I understand that Lewis and Relache had more lenses than mynameiskate in those rankings, but it wasn't so with Greendrv. How come, then, Greendrv was more profitable in January than mynameiskate? I'm afraid  some kind of accounting error happened at the HQ..."

2/ http://www.squidu.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3114 - post #12, where I give full detail

We don't comment on "why one lens is ranked higher than another" or "how come this lens made more money than that one" for a very specific reason: If we answered to one person, we would be obligated to answer to everyone. However, I will make an exception this one time to prove that our system is working as expected. Please do not ask me these types of questions again.

1) Greendrv and the handbags lens significantly outperform Kate and the laptopbags lens in terms of revenue. Both of these lenses are fantastic, but each has a unique focus. Laptopbags is focused on reviews, and Handbags is focused on current deals on eBay. As a result, the handbags lens sells an extraordinary amount of merchandise on eBay.

2) At the time of February payout, Pabro had more lenses than you. Since each lens earns a cut of the Adsense revenue, Pabro received more.

------

This is the last comment I will make about Lensrank for a while. Honestly, I have grown tired of defending our position, and feel that no matter what we do there will always be some who doubt our motives and question our competency. I have been very transparent about the way our systems operate, and will continue to do so in the future. We do have a number of ideas in the works that we think will improve the accuracy of Lensrank, but we are not ready to discuss them yet. Please sit tight.

Thanks,
Gil

Gil,

You (and the rest of the Squidteam) have gone above and beyond what should be reasonably expected on this subject.  The Lensrank algorithm is and should be proprietary information. 

It is also evolving as the site matures and more data is available to base tweaking on.  From what I've seen, the Squid team is responsibly making adjustments as warranted.

Keep up the good work!

Cheers...
Mac

Just for the record:

1/ on every day in January (my question was about January!), mynameiskate was #1 on Top 100 by LensRank and Top 100 Most Profitable - before greendrv. If Kate was earning more money every day, how could she earn less in total for that month?

2/ in February I had more lenses (7) than Pabro (5). Also, I had much more traffic and much better average LensRank during that time (I consider Pabro a very talented lensmaster and I like his lenses very much).

Sincerely,

Last edited by zuzanna (04/13/2007 10:36 am)

I will go further --- if level of lensrank does not result in more money shared --- lensrank is nothing more than a number for folks to obsess about --- entirely meaningless (except for search ranking).

Rick, this is what we've been trying to figure out, how EXACTLY does lensrank matter when it obviously is the hinge on which everything else hangs.

Even though we've been around a while, still, lensrank seems to be something we can't 'get a handle on' and yet it is so important that it affects everything- on our dashboard it lines up the lenses, it lines up the lenses in our groups, it determines payrank, and even with the new stumble on  the top of our pages, it affects which ones the visitor will see next. 

So it is important AND unimportant, and we're all struggling with it, Gil not the least. It also makes us cranky trying to figure out how to deal with it properly.

As far as value of a lens: I also am buying lenses and I'm not limiting myself to $1 or $2 if a lens is extraordinary.  If it isn't extraordinary I agree that such a small amount is probably sufficient for the next several months at least.

Using the figures that were released about the sale of  youtube to google, I figure that for Squidoo as a company, each lens in any condition is worth probably about $200, even crappy dead lenses.

As for us, I think that squidoo is only just getting started doing what it can do. 

Internal traffic from squidoo lensmasters is one thing, but it  is the outside traffic that we can drive here that will make squidoo much more profitable.   (Thus my objection with the stumble arrow!) 

It was outside traffic that popped the apparitions lens high in lensrank, and also top MP, and brought about 7500 NEW visitors to squidoo.  I didn't expect much from that lens because it is an obscure topic, but it found its audience.

So I think the lenses will increase in value as one-by-one they find their real audiences and get return visitors and 'fans' who like to share them.  It requires great patience!

So as far as lensrank goes, it is simply a tool that we are all  trying to figure out how to use, what to do with it, and what its level of importance actually is.  It is stupid to say it is meaningless.  It is also stupid to have it be the only thing one worries about.  I'm sure you  agree with that!  The truth, and what we need to know, is somewhere in the middle and once we get the hang of that, we'll really be able to do something with it.

zuzanna wrote:

So, Mac, shouldn't I get more money? According to TOS, I should, but I didn't.

zuzanna,

Based on the numbers you provided above, yes, I would expect that the adsense earnings difference between your lenses and Pabro's to be larger.  I don't know why it wasn't.

PayRank (Best guess, or I could have just used the "search" function LOL)
Squidoo figures out the average LensRank of a lens throughout the pay period, as well as how much traffic it receives, and distributes a portion of the earnings based on  how that lens compares to other lenses in the system. Then, they add up the lens totals for each lensmaster and include them in the payment.
Other metrics are involved but theses are unknown ( And will remain unknown) for good reason, these other metrics can result in different payouts to different Lensmasters. ( I have seen this time after time as I can compare my other user id's)

Rick:
Due to the ease in which a person can now change their ip address it is impossible to police or stop a person from buying off any lens including ones they made. ( Jack: Same holds true with any other ip blocking ideas)
If a person was buying alot from Amazon I am not sure why they would go through Squidoo anyways, Squidoo 4% discount  Direct from Amazon 8% discount

"personally feel that it's relatively transparent "
I feel the same, Rick

One thing that is an advantage to having so many lenses is you can "see" changes in the algo.
eg. Recently I have noticed that lenses that get a  single sale no longer jump up in Lensrank as much as they use to. What does make a real differance is multiple sales.

My personal current take on Lensrank algo is

#1 Traffic (in and out)
#2 Sales ( repeat )
#3 Visitor/Lensmaster interaction ( Stars, e-mail, guestbook, updated etc)

Cheers
Jeff

RickPhillips wrote:

Jeff, you make an excellent pt about buying direct from amazon - I didn't know that. That said, with the obsession of a high ranking for a lens and the benefits it may or may not include -- I could see some buying from their own lens for the lensrank boost it provides. They may view the 4% difference as insignificant -- otherwise all of us who have already bought from our own lens would have done it. Information is costly.

Why would anyone want to buy from Amazon just for a lensrank boost?

A costly way to get lensrank in my opinion.

I buy from Amazon. There are things I can get there and delivered to Australia that is cheaper than buying right here in Australia. Or in fact it's easier to find it on Amazon then to get ahold of it here. In those cases it costs the same for me either way. But it's about availability.

It may take 1 to 2 weeks to get a particular novel I'm after delivered from Amazon. But it may take that long for a bookseller to get it for me too. And I have it delivered to my door via Amazon.

So that is a good reason to buy from Amazon.

The next good reason is buying it through my own link. Because I make a little of the money back.

I can't go buying Amazon products through my own Amazon Associate affiliate account. Because it's against Amazon ToS.

But I can do it through a Squidoo Amazon module.

It's interesting to note that Lensrank can be positively affected by ones own purchase. Though I'm unsure how Squidoo could filter my purchase from that of another person buying through the same product in the Amazon module. I don't think these are details that Squidoo is privvy to.

People don't take flights so they can get frequent flyer points. Frequent flyer points are a bonus.

Buying an Amazon product for a lensrank boost would be nothing less than a waste of money. Because lensrank is fleeting. It fluctuates.

Comparing 7 lenses to 5 lenses is hardly a quality sample.

It's like trying to gauge Click Thru Ratio trends on web traffic that numbers in the tens, or even hundreds.

Jeff ---- very interesting ranking of attributes --- pretty close to my feelings overall.
Glen -- believe it or not -- at this very second I'm doing a very large sample approaching 2,000 for a client; I know 7 lenses are not representative of the whole --------- but, what is representative is how my lenses change rank and what seems to drive that. The attributes on ALL of our lenses are affected by the same weightings -- since the number of possible `details' we can see are so small in number it's NOT hard to focus on them and trace the outcome. Additionally, have FEWER lenses would allow one to focus on that -- when one has a huge number it is all a mishmash.
Above I stated why someone would give up the 4% they could get additionally from Amazon -- they think the benefits of lensrank boost are worth that.

N376,
you misunderstood me.

What I meant is that the only two factors ever mentioned in the lenses as used in calculation of PayRank - which is the basis for Adsense royalties payments according to the TOS. Those lenses quote the TOS, FAQ and Gil. They say only about traffic and average LensRank.

The word "ONLY" was about those two ingredients, not about your Lounge activities.

I don't remember which "flaws in arguments" I ever left without a response.

Sincerely,

Well, Rick, as I said, even buying off one's own lens is far more legitimate than paying spammers $5 each to bring  in as many more spammers as they can convince to get in here and swamp the rest of us.

It makes no difference to me whether Gil wants to disqualify our own purchases from a lensrank boost

In my estimation, it is a STUPID THING TO DO JUST TO RAISE LR & GET ON  MP.

Why?  Because I've been seeing MOUNTAINS of duplicate lenses!  Haven't you noticed all the duplicate Coach Handbag lenses on MP, and  LR?  Being a commerce lens on MP invites the notice of people who are desperate to make a living, and by being MP one is very likely to discover that someone has decided to offer the same product, even use the same title, use your links and 'rewrite' your content, and copy your tags just to cut into your business. 

It seems to me to be smarter to NOT buy something from your lens if you have an easily duplicated commerce/affiliate lens in order to avoid having your market cut into.

There are LOADS of camera lenses and videocamera lenses.  I  see them all coming into the Mall group.  There are tons of handbag lenses, and watches lenses, all kinds of stuff that is absolutely easy for anyone who can read and write to duplicate. 

I'd rather stay below the radar.