Why Has Squidoo Locked My Lens?

I have been building Squidoo lenses for quite a while now, although recently I have been spending less time on them preferring instead to build my own sites. It seems that recently Squidoo has been getting stricter on lensmasters who do not keep to the terms of use and any dubious lenses are locked. The reasons for getting a lens locked usually relate to things like containing duplicate content, being overly promotional or just plain spammy.

I have had a couple of lenses locked previously and to be honest I don't think I had much to complain about as there was some duplicate content lifted from Amazon and the lenses existed purely to sell a product with my Amazon affiliate links. I figured there was no real way back for these so I just deleted them.

However, I have more recently had another lens blocked that contains entirely original content and is not promotional - it does contain three Amazon affiliate links to books related to the subject, but this is entirely within the rules. It also contains Squidoo's Ebay module. It contain a dead link which is what I am guessing tripped off Squidoo systems. This was to a Clickbank product which no longer exists - this was one single link at the end of the lens. I have now removed this link.

I have e-mailed the folks at Squidoo a while ago now and have had no response. This is very frustrating as if there is no response within 60 days then the lens will just be deleted from Squidoo. This is all rather ironic as this is probably the most original of my lenses and I really put it together to be useful to other people rather than to make any money. It is the lens that has had the most comments and positive feedback and one of my most visited lenses. Ultimately if I get no response then I will have to export my content elsewhere.

This has dented my faith in Squidoo somewhat, but has reinforced for me the need to focus on my own websites rather than relying on making money from posting content on someone else's.

Total Earnings for November 2011

Another month gone and I have been extremely bad at posting not only here but on my other blog. I had hoped to devote my time to getting some sites ready to maximize my earnings from Christmas, but as ever time has run away from me. I do have some sites which have been making some money from Christmas shoppers, but they are not as well developed and as visible in the search engines as I would like. I am intending to continue to develop these over the coming months and hopefully they will continue to earn me some money.

I have continued to make sales on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk and I am expecting to receive a payout from both of these shortly. My total this month was particularly helped by a big sale on Ebay.

Here are the totals:

Ebay: $383.38
Clickbank: $11.20
Surveys: $25.04
Swagbucks: $5.00
Squidoo: $2.64

Total = $427.26

A pretty decent total all in all, but this is not something I can really repeat as it was only brought about by selling an item on Ebay that I don't need any more and I don't have many more of those!

Monthly Earnings for October 2011

Another month past and another month of some positives, but also some considerable frustrations. The big news of this month is that I have had my first payout as an Amazon.com affiliate. This has taken quite a while, but I have really only been concentrating on Amazon in the last few months.

This month I have made a total of 26 Amazon sales across the .com and .co.uk sites earning $51 in all. Not bad, but certainly not life changing. I am hoping that in the run up to Christmas I will make more sales.

In relation to Clickbank sales, I have made 2 this month after a couple of months not making any. I can't really complain about this though as I have been concentrating on my Amazon review sites.

Here are the totals (this is what I have actually received, not necessarily what I have earned this month):

$129.74 - Amazon.com
$6.37 - Surveys (Pinecone)
$2.23 - Squidoo

Total = $138.34


Still a long way from earning enough to really make a difference. I am focusing Amazon review sites at the moment, but only in the run up to Christmas and then I want to move onto something else.

Monthly Total for September 2011

Time to review my monthly earnings again. I am still struggling to turn that corner to make real money online. I have had some successes this month, but not enough to make a real difference. I have not made any Clickbank sales at all this month (the Clickbank income showing this month is from August), but I have made 18 Amazon sales (11 on co.uk and 7 on .com) which has brought in $26 in income overall.

I have made a tentative start this month on an authority blog which I am intending will be my main project. However, I am not expecting this to make any money for a little while yet.

So here are my totals for September (bearing in mind this is the money I have actually received):

Clickbank: $14.86
Private advertising: $30
Surveys: $90.38 (YouGov: $77.91, Pinecone: $12.47)
Swagbucks: $5
Squidoo: $2.60
Zlio: $1.67

Total = $144.51

Still rather short of where I want it to be, but not too bad I guess.