Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Squidoo, the build-a-free-lens-about-anything-and-make-money-off-it-web-site, sent out an email to its members today. At first, that message seemed to be celebrating how great Squidoo is. Then, however, it became clear that the message was an apology.

It seems that a bunch of spammers realized that they could use Squidoo to push their scam-riddled schemes online very easily. They created a whole lot of junk sites in a short amount of time - with the kind of content that you get in those nasty unrequested emails.

People complained, and Squidoo’s search enging rankings suddenly plummetted. Now, the Squidoo founders say that they’ve instituted a software solution to keep out spammers, and say that somehow, someday, the Squidoo lenses will enjoy the good Google rankings that they once had.

The message from Squidoo complained that one spammer even created 400 lenses on a single subject. Ooh, can you believe the nerve?

Well, yes, I can. Here’s the thing: I remember messages from Squidoo saying that multiple lenses on the same subject would be all right with them.

What’s the difference between a Squidoo lense and spam?

Maybe Squidoo lenses are not classic spam, but they’re definitely spammish. There’s usually very little original content in a Squidoo lens, just a lot of links for making money, rss feeds, and the like. They’re often topically organized, and that’s better than most spam does, but not much.

The lesson of the Squid: Linking schemes aren’t the best way to get going online. Create original content. Publish. Repeat.