Squidoo, Supplemental Results & Twitter Twittering

Where Art Though Squidoo Lenses?

Dude, where’s Squidoo? Has Jason Calacanis finally won? Say it ain’t so.

Jason Calacanis has been bellyaching over the spam issues at Squidoo for months (we’re sure it has nothing to do with him wanting attention for Mahalo. No. That would be unlike him), and Squidoo seemed to be paying attention, even outlining a 6-step spam fighting plan; however, it appears they were too late.

Since this past weekend, users have noticed Squidoo pages either dropping from the index completely or being buried pages and pages deep. Some Squidoo lenses have reported a 75 percent loss in traffic. Google won’t confirm or deny, but all signs point to an invisible Google penalty.

Danny Sullivan has in-depth coverage over at Search Engine Land, complete with a full timeline dating back to February. Personally, I’ve never been a huge fan of the site, but if you take a look at the sites now ranking above the Squidoo lenses, they’re not any better. We’re seeing lower quality sites with fewer backlinks. What gives, Google?

What Squidoo punished for spam? It appears so but I don’t know that I’d classify Squidoo anymore spammy than any other site.

We Need To Know Where We Stand, Google!

The blogosphere has been buzzing with posts about Google’s recent disabling of the supplemental results query [site:domain.com *** -asdfgh]. Basically, Google took it away and now webmasters want it back. Matt Cutts, however, seems happy that it’s been taken away as it will force webmasters to stop obsessing over it. Yeah, until they start obsessing over something else. Like how much they hate you, heh.

I’m all for webmasters not obsessing over things that don’t really matter (like PageRank, for instance); however, if my page is in the supplemental index, that matters. That matters a whole bunch. Not telling me it’s there doesn’t fix the problem; it actually prevents me from being able to fix the problem. It’s like when your girlfriend is all mad at you and giving you the cold shoulder and not talking but she won’t tell you why so you can’t make it better and just enjoy the darn movie you started. Yeah. Why is Google acting like a chick? (My apologies, Kim, I know you hate when females are referred to as "chicks":))

Part of the reason the query was disabled was because Google was concerned about competitors using it for evil. If that’s the case, I say use the compromise Rand Fishkin came up with and throw the functionality into Webmaster Central. Let site owners see what needs to be fixing. Maybe they’ll choose not to do anything about it, but they should have the choice.

Steven Bradley had a great post regarding the issue today in Google’s Supplemental Spin is BS. It’s well worth the read.

Should I Be Twittering?

Neil Patel had a nice article over at Search Engine Land yesterday entitled Twitter Useless For Driving Traffic? Think Again which suggests three reasons why you’re not getting as much traffic from the service as you were hoping for. Basically it’s because you don’t have friends and/or you’re doing it wrong.

I’m still not sure about this whole Twitter thing. I’ve heard from many people (including my BFF) that I’m missing the boat here. Perhaps someone can answer this once and for all: Do I need to be Twittering? Why or Why Not?

Fun Finds

Michael Gray gives ProBlogger’s job boards a big thumbs up and seems less-than-impressed with Craigslist offerings. If you’re looking for bloggers, you know where to go.

Chris Silver Smith argues that Domainers Can’t Get No Respect. Aw. Go give a domainer a hug.

See tcarson@bruceclay.com's author page for links to connect on social media.