Whats the deal with Squidoo?

[adriandg]

It seems like a lot of our competators are getting lots of link juice from fake/spammy looking articles on squido.  Is it worth the effort to make these articles and add links to them, or is google smarter than that?

Example here: http://www.squidoo.com/selfstoragesmyrnatn

links to: www.migsonstorage.com who seems to be doing pretty good according to OSE with a PA of 63 and a DA of 56

[caseyhen]

A thing to remember is that OSE doesn't discount any links or websites that may be spammy.  My guess is that Google is discounting those links and pages since Squidoo is known to be very spammy and most likely was effected in the last updated by Google.  My suggestion would be not to follow in the same suite as them and avoid falling into getting links from these type of spammy places.

Casey

[JaneCopland]

Hi there,

Most definitely seconded to what Casey said. Linkscape doesn't filter based on spam, so the authority you see passed here is skewed in terms of real world effectiveness in Google. Squidoo really is one of the most awful dens of spam online. Interestingly though, I was just taking a look at the full list spreadsheet of sites hit by the Farmer update (according to Sistrix's data) and Squidoo isn't mentioned.

But it really is awful. Stay well away

[moldybacon]

If they are ranking above you.. then it must be working. From what I can see, they are providing unquie content.. and google is eating it up. Not a good idea for long term, but for now, the proof is in the pudding.

[moldybacon]

If we stay away from squidoo and other article sites, what other options do we have? haha, the options are growing smaller by the day.

[moldybacon]

Where is a does a non-spammy link come from?

Even the directorys list on SEOMOZ is outdated (according to staff).

[mozzello]

I've been thinking about Squidoo for a while also...

It's not because I like Squidoo... In all honesty, i've been thinking about how I could use it to send some more link juice to my site.

Although it definitely is a great vehicle to host spammy pages with the sole purpose of generating backlinks and pass on linkjuice, I think it can also be used for a white-hat approach.

The way to do it right should follow rule #1 of good internet marketers: to create valuable and unique content with  useful information that helps people out.

In this specific case, it might be a how-to piece "on how to select the best self storage service" or "5 pitfals to avoid when selecting selfstorage".

The article should be unique (in terms of content, so it is not picked up as duplicate content), **useful **(so that people actually read it and eventually tweet or +1 it) and **authoritative **(using 3rd party references to support what it says). No hard selling pitches, no blatant promotion of products/services... only useful information, with relevant links to different and authoritative domains... and, of course, a couple of good links back to your site.

PS: I haven't tried it... so I don't know if creating such a page would have any impact on a website ranking. What do you guys think? Is it worth spending the time to come up with such a  page?