No more Squidoo

Ok my 2 year fascination with Squidoo has run its course.

Google keep changing their rules and algorithims about spam, spun content and duplicate content and Squidoo kept changing the rules to keep up.

Today was the last straw. They started telling us how to design our lenses. They said that they had created a prompt that strongly suggested that we have an Amazon Sales modules at the top of the lens - at least within the first 5 modules. Up until now, I have always placed my amazon modules at the end of most of my lenses.

I have also become worried about all the personal information and family photographs I was putting on my lenses. I have been thinking of removing them from Squidoo for quite some time now, so when they decided today to tell me how to design my lens, I decided that enough was enough.

I had 266 lenses in my account this morning. I deleted about 85 lenses - mostly the personal ones with personal information about me, and/or photos of various members of my family.

Now I have 181 lenses. I am going to keep those in place, just to continue receiving any residual cash I may pick up.

I wrote a comment in the forum about the HQ policy of this Amazon prompt. A lot of lenses just dont flow smoothly if you interrupt the flow of the content with a sales blurb. Especially if you are required to place a blurb in a specific location. I know HQ denies this, but I beleive that any lens that does not put an Amazon sales module at the top, will eventually be penalised

I also stated that the mere fact that HQ are mentioning this, indicates that income from sales and advertising is clearly dropping and the HQ team are losing income, so they need us to make more money for them. I know this is true because the amount of money I made from Squidoo also dropped for the first 3 months of 2013. My response was that I am not going to massage my lenses just to help them make more money.

To my astonishment, I got an email from the boss man himself - Seth Godin. I may have over-reacted just a smidgen . He claimed that those who did NOT put their Amazon modules near the top of their lenses, would not be penalised. But something tells me that eventually they will be.

His last line said - Sorry to see you go. Good Luck.

 I am not leaving Squidoo. I am leaving my account up, and just choosing not to make any more lenses, that's all.