About Reclaiming Lens Urls
Since there’s been a good bit of an uproar over “reclaiming ” lens urls of locked Squidoo lenses, I thought I’d go ahead and make a post to clear up some misconceptions about it all.
For a short background on all this (for those that are clueless about what’s been going on over at Squidoo.com) – Squidoo has been on a massive clean-up effort in attempt to get rid of what they consider ‘low quality’ web pages on their site.
When their staff finds one of these pages, they do what’s called “locking” the lens. In essence, that particular web page on the Squidoo site is taken down and is set for eventual deletion.
Once a lens is deleted, the url of that lens goes back into the “pool” of available lens urls that anyone can then make a new lens on.
Now, here’s the kicker – many, MANY, of the lens urls that are recently released back into the pool still hold a good bit of authority with Google. BUT when Google kept trying to go to it, they found a 404 type page that says the lens was taken down…..
From a SEO standpoint, a couple 404 pages, no big deal. But since October 2012, Squidoo has lost top Google rankings for something like 5 MILLION keywords.
Now, that’s not 5 million PAGES , ok? One Squidoo lens could rank for hundreds and hundreds of keyword phrase variations on its own. But all these 404 type pages combined account for a good bit of the 5 million lost Google rankings.
If *I* owned Squidoo, I would WANT people to build out these urls with great content…wouldn’t you?
What would YOU rather on YOUR site… 404 pages that eventually Google drops? OR – great new content on those urls so Google gives those rankings BACK?
That was MY thinking.
How Do I Find Those Urls?
Before I even dig into the how, let me clear something up.
The accusation and/or insinuations that I “troll” online in forums to find people who say their lenses have been locked is…. is… well, just plain WRONG.
WRONG on SO many levels – and I do NOT do that.
I also EXPECT those experienced Squidoo lensmaster to reclaim their OWN urls.
For those that have had lenses locked, why AREN’T they reclaiming their lens url if it worked great for them before?
I don’t get NOT doing that.
If I had a page on this site here – PotPieGirl.com – that suddenly lost its content and was throwing a 404 error to Google, you BET I’d rebuild that page url for so many reasons (404 pages NOT good, get my Google ranking back for that page, get my traffic to that page back, etc etc).
If you never even considered reclaiming your lens url – here’s how it works.
– your lens gets locked
– you open your lens in edit mode and take your content somewhere else (ie, another site – NOT back on Squidoo)
– you then DELETE that lens
– when you go to the lens now, it should give the ‘Go Fish’ message
– immediately make a new lens with the SAME EXACT url
– put great content on it and play by Squidoo’s new rules and republish
Done.
(if you can’t seem to reclaim it on the original account, try another account if you have one)
What About Duplicate Content?
Ugh, I hate that term…lol! But ok, here’s the thing – lens gets locked, Squidoo takes content OFF said lens, Google drops that content from their index, content put somewhere else equals new content. That’s my short answer.
Listen, you worked hard to get that lens to rank and played within the rules that were in place at the time.
Why SHOULDN’T you be able to keep that url, but put new content on it just like ANYONE who makes a new lens could also build on that url?
This isn’t “stealing” – it is protecting YOUR WORK and YOUR TIME and YOUR EFFORT to get it ranking in the first place.
Why would you even chance anyone else getting that url that YOU worked so hard on? (that is, IF you even care about that url)
Ok… all that said –
Here’s how I find these urls
I have a monthly subscription to this service.
It is a very important tool for my business online – and that is totally aside from finding Squidoo urls.
It’s not cheap, but being able to KNOW what keywords any web page or website is ranking for is a BIG DEAL.
But to keep on topic of lens urls…
Back in the day, when Squidoo locked lenses, you could easily do a Google search for a certain string of words that were found on locked lenses.
Now they do it differently, and if there IS a way to find them thru a Google search, I can’t seem to figure it out. Plus, doing it thru a Google search still wouldn’t tell me what keywords that lens url ranked for… or if it ranked at all.
So, I use my software.
I realized that if I isolated the reports it ran and used the filter options carefully, it would return lists of keywords that Squidoo used to very recently rank for in Google, but have dropped.
THEN, I have to click thru each and every lens url result on that report to see if the lens is actually live and just had a hiccup in Google when the software scanned OR if the lens is actually locked and/or available.
That takes a LONG time to do – and it’s tedious as you-know-what.
But I know, as most of us do, that there were TONS of people randomly making Squidoo lenses as a “drive by” backlink and/or extra Google ranking. If/When their lenses got locked, they aren’t coming back to fix it.
I *WANT* new – GOOD – content on those urls. I do NOT want Google finding all those 404 pages and watching the number of keywords that Squidoo has top ranking for CONTINUE to drop and drop and drop.
If a lens got locked for bad backlinks, the url should NOT be put back into the pool of available urls….. but there are TONS that just need to be reclaimed and new really good content put back on them so we can get those Google rankings BACK.
Again, if Squidoo were MY site, I would absolutely, totally want people to do this.
Yes, I Sell Lists of These Squidoo URLs
No, I’m not linking to WHERE I sell them in this post – that’s not why I am posting all this.
As I’ve mentioned, there are a ton of these urls available just waiting for someone to reclaim them and get some great stuff on it.
I’ve read people say that this technique is not “fair” or that Squidoo should protect those urls AFTER they’ve been locked.
WHY would Squidoo take those urls out of circulation?
And as for the ‘fairness’ viewpoint, why not go reclaim your OWN locked lens urls?
If you don’t want someone else to have it, and you care about the topic, reclaim it and rebuild it.
Should you just go reclaim a bunch of locked lens urls and then sit on them?
Heck NO, that is ridiculous!
For one, WHY get a url if you have no interest or need in the basic concept of the url?
Secondly, every day that the reclaimed lens url sits unpublished in WIP state on your dashboard helps nothing.
It doesn’t help you and it doesn’t help Squidoo.
Why Am I Selling These URL Lists and Not Just Giving Them Away for Free?
Two reasons –
1. I pay good money every month to be able to use that software (and before anyone even says it, NO that software is NOT… N.O.T. “blackhat” or any of that nonsense.)
2. I spend a lot of TIME doing this. I don’t know about you, but time equals money. I don’t work online for fun or as a hobby – it’s my business. If you hate me for it, so be it.
You can totally do this yourself! Just go get the software and start pouring through the results. You can use that software for ANY website or web page to see what they are ranking for AND what they lost rankings for –
including your OWN sites and web pages.
Ever wondered what keywords your web pages rank for? Not the phrases you are tracking, but all the other ones? The software will tell you (if your page/site is one they track – but they track millions and millions – and add more all the time).
Ever wonder what phrases your competition gets traffic from and ranks for? The software will tell you.
It’s awesome – not cheap, but a very valuable tool to have access to. You CAN use it for free here, but your results are limited to only 10 keywords. When you pay, you can get thousands and thousands of keywords and lots of options for the reports you generate based on the plan you have.
It’s also great when you’re stuck as to finding other related keywords for your sites/pages – you can great ideas to run through your keyword tool.
So there you have it – I’m not stealing, I’m not being “shady” or a “bottom feeder” or trying to profit off of others bad situations either.
If you want your lens url back, reclaim it.
If you don’t want it, delete it and let someone else build it out (just keep in mind dashboard money when doing this. Not 100% on the ‘rules’ about all that, but keep it in mind)
If everyone that had a lens that ranked well in Google and they cared about would reclaim that url and put new, unique, original, awesome-according-to-Squidoo content on it, Squidoo would be in a much better situation.
Yes, traffic IS dropping to the Squidoo site – but it’s because we’ve lost SO MANY keywords we used to rank for because Squidoo locked/404’d those urls – and eventually, Google will let those urls go from their index unless someone can get good content back on it.
Here are two screenshots to give you a visual of just how bad it really is – and it is NOT Google causing this to happen.
(btw, the site name has been erased out because Squidoo requested I not mention the site name on my landing page where I sell the lists.)
This is back on October 2012.
Squidoo had top Google rankings for almost 8 MILLION keywords. The graph is from inside my software and reflects the number of KEYWORDS – not traffic.
If Squidoo had to PAY for that traffic via paid Google ads, we’re talking Millions and Millions of dollars. BUT, we lensmasters gave them content so they got all those rankings for FREE.
Now, look at the number of keywords Squidoo has top ranking for as of June 2013:
Barely over TWO million!
That’s a LOT of lost Google rankings in such a short span of time.
And the monetary value of their traffic (organic vs paid) has dropped drastically as well.
Squidoo makes a chunk of their money from those that pay to advertise on their site – traffic is very important to their business (no, not if it trashes up the site, which is why I suspect they are doing all this – less ad impressions is way better than lost advertisers because site quality).
And folks, Squidoo did this. I know people are mad about it and I don’t blame them at all. Whether it’s fair or not fair, they (Squidoo) are doing what they feel is right – just as WE get to do with OUR sites (and Squidoo lenses are not OURS. The content ON them is, but we don’t own our pages there)
I had 45 or so lenses locked on one of my accounts very recently – got the ol’ “All Lenses Locked” email. I’ve been working on moving the content of the locked ones elsewhere and then reclaiming/rebuilding the ones I really care about.
(and as I go through them, I’m amazed at some of the crappy lenses I’ve had out there…I’m first to admit that all my lenses are NOT masterpieces…lol!)
Bottom line:
If I lose a lens url and someone else gets it, that IS fair because *I* gave it up.
Ok, that’s it. Comments are open – for now. But if it gets out of hand by either bashing Squidoo or personally bashing ME, I’m closing them. This is a business topic so let’s keep it professional.
I’m one who applauds you on this, Jennifer.
I’m not in the market for new urls right now, but wow, if I were I’d jump on this.
Of course it is completely ethical! No question!
THANK YOU, Diane!
I’ve been sitting here watching for comments with dread and just waiting for “it”…SO nice to see a positive first comment from someone who gets it!
THANK YOU!
Jennifer
~PotPieGirl
hello Jennifer
I like your way of thinking and Squidoo approach with this method
I’m not a master at this model, however, your article helps even newbies like me (on this topic) to learn about lens and reclaiming their URLs…
By the way, I’ve heard Google nowadays updates their INDEX every 30 days… what do you know about this?
Hiya Ryan
Glad the info here helped =) As for Google… they are ALWAYS updating their index. Once upon a time, their index was only updated that often, but not anymore.
Thanks for stopping by!
Why would people bash YOU about this? You didn’t create the situation, you’re just pointing out what SQUIDOO has done. As you said, if people want their lenses, they’re certainly allowed to reclaim them. In fact, thank YOU for pointing this out. I didn’t have any lenses locked, fortunately (I only have 5), but I’ll be sure to watch out for this in the future. And now I know what to do, should that ever happen.
Glad it helps, Tony!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Jennifer
~PotPieGirl
Great post…the haterz complained because they don’t know how to find locked lenses. Now that you have explained how to do it no one will complain. Personally I have been doing this for 2 years. I have been a member of Semrush for 3 years. Just have never thought about selling the lists. Idea!!!
Thanks, Conray!!
I think it is very important and you have made the point well that you are running a business. I am also running a business and if I can find a way of legally making money and not hurting others then of course I will do that. To be honest Jennifer, I am just jealous that I didn’t think of this in the first place.
People did get their lenses locked for a whole variety of reasons but I don’t want to get into all of that. For years Internet marketers told “newbies” to build a lens at Squidoo and get a PR7 link back to the site. Apart from that not being true it also caused a whole heap of junk and spun content to be put on Squidoo.
Then there were the usual spammers and robot automated articles dumped on there as well. The reality was that a lot of what was on there was little more than junk. Did it need cleaned out? For sure it did. The problem was the way Squidoo didn’t clearly communicate their intentions that was the problem for all the angry people out there.
I also point my finger at Internet Marketers who have sold Squidoo courses that told people to chuck lenses on Squidoo and make money. Let’s face it, if you build your business on using anything that is free that is insane. The few courses that I did look at where junk as well.
The “problem” with what you are doing is this. The righteous and the “learned” believe that their writing is precious. The Seth Godin followers and Masters and Mistresses of the pen think Squidoo is some place for the best writers in the world, even though they pretend it doesn’t matter. If someone bought your list and made good quality lenses that would outrage them. The reason…they might rank higher than these bastions of writing.
Personally I say good luck to anyone who gets the list, makes good content and earns a few dollars.
The reason I didn’t buy your list was simple. If you had been selling individual sets of these say at $20 for 20 URLS, I would have bought 3-4 sets. I may even have bought more if they were lenses I liked. However buying one big list that has been sold to many people means they will either all be claimed or only the useless ones would be left. That isn’t good value to me.
People sell keyword lists, niche packs , PLR all the time. Doing this is not anything different and just a pretty clever idea. It did get me thinking and I did find a way of finding Gone Fishing lenses on Google. I found about 400 and about 10 of them interested me.
You are an honest and ethical person as far as I am concerned and just because you treat this as a business should not be something that people then think is somehow wrong. Good luck to you.
Wow, amazing feedback and insight – thank you for sharing!
In regards to the packs of urls idea, something I will take into consideration. This is all new, so I learn as I go. If I was always afraid to screw up, I’d be paralyzed and never do ANYTHING at all. Thankfully, fear of failure is not a problem for me…lol!
The problem with the smaller pack concept is that it’s really only good for one person. I am seeing major lens url squatting going on and I don’t think that helps anything. BUT it IS an “action taker” kind of situation so based on that, it’s their business, not mine.
I had this warm ‘n fuzzy vision that folks would look thru all the keywords/urls and only pick ones they really wanted. I saw a lot available while putting the lists together that were totally on-topic of things I like to write about and/or niche sites I have, etc. I just don’t have enough hours in the day to snag them all AND build them out properly.
Anyway… totally appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. I agree with probably everything you’ve said 😉
Jennifer
~PotPieGirl
Thanks for the feedback. I can well imagine how much work there would be in trying to do smaller packs and tracking them etc. I guess the early bird catches the worm. I have never bought any of your courses Jennifer but you and Sara Young have a solid reputation out there for honesty and integrity. That is not going to go away so forget the “knockers” who spend their time moaning about other people’s business. I am just trying to figure this whole online business out myself which is probably a mistake but I am a stubborn old git.
You probably should sign me up for your “Stubborn Old Git” club because I’m probably as stubborn as they get!
Thank you for your kind words (and yes, Sara is awesome!) – you stick to your guns and hang in there… you’ll get it!
Jennifer, I’ve been your fan since I bought One Week Marketing last Dec and made my first sale in Jan and I still am. I bought your lists and have two sites up and a couple more in WIP and getting hits on all. I have “eyes” on more waiting for them to “go fish” and hopefully will get them when they hit the pond. I follow your blog and think you’re one of the smartest entrepreneurs in the field. Don’t let the haters get to you, it’s all jealousy and them wishing they were you! We just need to get an “Old Girl’s Network” going so we can support each other more!! Helen
Awesome, Helen! Way to take action!!! Glad to hear those reclaimed urls are doing well for you as well.
Let me know when that network is ready! hahahhaha!
I admire you jennifer and your whole back story. I see a whole lot of GREEN ENVY !!!!! Keep up the good work love your ideas and courage. I will still use your one week marketing program. I like to write so I will be mindful of the pages I create.
Thanks, Dee!!!
I think it’s brilliant, and nobody should be so upset with you for discussing it and/or profiting from it. Someone did shady things in the first place to get their lens locked, and they abandoned their lens instead of rewriting it… they gave it up. Nobody should be upset with you for this.
You wouldn’t think so, but…. well, doesn’t always work out that way =)
Thanks, Joe!
Jennifer,
Thank you for creating this post. The same people who hate on you and Squidoo for this situation that SQ has created (which is really just them acting yet again on all the Squidoo spam lenses) are the same people who cry Foul Ball against Google when they do something with one of their services that causes things to go haywire for a bunch of people (Adsense, Adwords, search engine results, etc.).
People just refuse to see that entities like Google and Squidoo and Facebook and plenty more are *businesses* and will do what’s in their best interest, in the short term and long term if they plan to be in it for the long haul.
If you are using free services to make money online, then common sense should tell you to make such business models (and I use the term loosely since they are free) only *part* of your income. Do not put all of your eggs in one basket, always diversify!
Good on ya, Jennifer, for seeing the business opportunity that this situation has created. I admire you for being someone willing to take action on current trends and for thinking somewhat outside the box. Obviously, as you have admitted, you were affected, too, by this SQ situation.
Instead of sitting around and moaning and groaning, you reacted in as positive a manner as you could and are doing what you can to rectify the lenses that you care about (and hopefully deleting the ones that you don’t?). I especially appreciate your admission that some of your SQ lenses had crap content on them. More people should be as truthful with themselves.
I wish you luck with redoing your locked lenses and with your current “lemonade” product and its on-going development/updates.
Sadie
Thanks, Sadie!
Oh yeah, some lenses shocked me when I actually looked at them for the first time in a while…. ugh-ola! For years, whenever I had an idea, I would just run and put up a Squidoo lens. If it got some traction, my mindset was that I could always go fix it up. Obviously, that didn’t always happen….hahaha!
Jennifer,
Actually Squidoo improved one or two things that I had publicly complained about; probably wasn’t because of me, but you never know.
I’ve been trying to do the OWM thing the right way and am seeing a lot of Amazon sales coming through. Not buying the Ferrari just yet, but it seems to be gathering momentum.
Hope it stays that way.
Best,
Roger
Hey Roger!
Nice to hear the momentum is building up – that’s awesome!! It’s also nice to know changes are being made based on feedback (if it WAS you, then thank you!)
Can’t wait to hear you got that Ferrari!!
Hi Jen,
I was a voluntary beta tester for Squidoo before it went public.
I’ve also purchased and recommended your Squidoo lens builder guide — good stuff. As to your url-list business I hope it goes well. I see no harm in your actions, and I agree it is much better to get a page up rather than let a 404 error or WIP notice take its place.
I’m a writer, using Squidoo has helped me improve my writing — thank you for your support of nice and easy to use Squidoo. I really enjoy the site, although I’ve made few lenses reccently. I’ve been traveling and life is too good to pause. Thanks for your consistancy.
Keep up the good work.
Allan
Hiya Allan!
I *LOVE* hearing people say they are too busy enjoying life and traveling to make new lenses… awesome!
I hope you’ve been to some amazing places!
Wow, Jennifer, I can’t believe anyone bashed you over this. I think it’s a great idea to put out a list of Squidoo url’s that can be reclaimed.
If the original owner wants them, they should grab them, as you said here, but there’s a good chance that some of them won’t be claimed by their original owners because they don’t want them any longer, so someone might as well take advantage of the already indexed pages.
Hey Denise =)
I agree totally… no point hanging on to lens urls you don’t want (unless, of course, there is money on the dashboard).
I have been following you for several years now and the thing I like most about you is your “never give up” attitude. Whether it’s Google algorithym changes or Squidoo locked lens, you do not sit around moaning and complaining. You immediately start figuring out a way to get over, under or around a problem. You come up with a plan, implement it and keep it moving. You remind me of the mice, “Sniff” and “Scurry” in one of my favorite books “Who moved my cheese”.
I also like that you are willing to share your solutions with your readers. You seem to understand that there is enough money out there for all of us if wwe are willing to work for it. Continued success.
I LOVE that book!!! In fact, it’s been years since I read it last – I think I’ll read it again. It sure DOES apply to situations happening online now – and well, with life in general.
Basically, I pretty much decided quite some time ago that you either roll with it, or get rolled over. As you said, there is PLENTY enough to go around, but it’s not gonna be handed to anyone. Ya gotta go get it.
Good to see you, Val! Thanks for your comment!
I only had a couple income producing lenses that got locked, so far. They were on page 1 but it’s only cost me about $80 – $100 a month. I moved all the content to blogger blogs, then took your advice and deleted them and re-grabbed the urls. Just need to write new content and then I’m going to link out to the blogger posts which have my affiliate links. Thanks for the tips.
Good job, Mike! That’s a perfect way to handle it!
Given that Squid tells you via email the lenses is locked and you typically have several weeks to do something about it, what is the problem? I love that you see an opportunity, take it, share it, and make some cash doing it. Everyone wins.
Thanks, Julia!!!
Jennifer, I am amazed that there are people who even thought to be negative about this. I read your post, thought “wow – that is brilliant – clever, clever, clever, logical” and went about my day. not even a shadow of a negative thought. So, I am only commenting to say – relax – those real marketers and newbies – whoever – out there can clearly see that you are genuine. I have been following you for 4 or 5 years – no unsubscribe all that time. We have even chatted via email back in 2009. I support you all the way. send me any local South African moaners – and I wil pop round to their homes and help realign their thinking 🙂
Hey Robert! Nice to see ya!
Thanks for the kind words AND for the offer to “realign” some thinking (too funny!!)
Thank you Jennifer for sharing amazing stuffs.
This urls method is awesome and I am going get it do it … make it.
I am not good at Squidoo but with your sharing I know I am able to achieve something good.
Thanks, James =) Just take your time with your urls and get some good content on it – and have fun!
Hi Jennifer,
I too started using Squidoo after reading One Week Marketing and joining WA. I am a fan of everything they are trying to do, but had not realised just how many keyword they had lost and the extent of the clean up. Fortunately to date I have only had one lens locked to date and it was essentially garbish and not worth salvaging. I had not thought about salvaging it for the age and keywords before!
Very helpful post and sure if you can make money selling the list go for it!
Only one locked? That’s very impressive these days! hahahaha!
Glad the post helped!
Squidoo seems to be deleting a lot of lenses right now. Can you tell me how I can create a lens that Squidoo will approve of and not delete a couple of months from now?
Hey John –
While no one can guarantee a “fool-proof” way to do this (rules change, etc), you should always be safe writing content from your personal point-of-view that is not designed to push any one “thing”. Also, as a self “quality check” – if you take all your affiliate links out, does the lens content still provide helpful info?
Jennifer will there be new list frequently if so how frequent thanks
Complete new scans are usually completed the first week or so of each month – so if I do, it would be about the 2nd week of August.
Thanks for all the great ideas Pot Pie Girl! They have really helped me with my campaigns and niche sites. Squidoo is a great way to promote your products as well and I currently use Squidoo for most of my articles!
You’re welcome, Richard! Thanks for stopping by!
I’ve let your email sit, unopened, until today. Granted I laughed when I first read the title. Guess We all take a bashing every now and them. However I laughed even more reading this article. Not for the information. That’s great. But for all the people doing the bashing.
Jennifer, you’re still my idol! Even if you’re a bit more beaten up and a lot more busied.
Thanks for the smiles!
lol!! Thanks, Craig!
Jennifer,
When I saw your email about making lemonade out of lemons my first thought was – That Jennifer Ledbetter is so creative! I’m always inspired by you because you consistently come up with interesting ways of capitalizing on Squidoo. You are one of the few people that I follow who really does seem to care about those that use your products. Thank you for putting the package together. You really are helping everyone, Squidoo, your customers and internet users in general.
Hey Jill!
I happen to love Squidoo and while I understand their clean up efforts, it saddens me to see really great lensmasters running for the hills. I feel there always other options before bailing (but I understand why many have).
Thanks for stopping by!
Hi Jen!
Just wanted to stop by and add my own opinion that what you are doing is COMPLETELY ethical. No question about it.
I’ve actually dabbled in this a bit (using a different service), so I can confirm that it works 🙂
Sara
Hi Sara! Nice to see you!
Obviously, I feel the same way. Kinda threw me for a loop when reading elsewhere online how “wrong” some others felt it to be. That’s why I decided to explain the concept behind it in more depth here and (hopefully) that’s cleared a lot of the misconceptions up.
Hope all is well with you! Thanks for stopping by!
Fantastic idea Jennifer – wish I had thought of it. Bet that’s also what the haters think!
Thanks for all the all such precise ideas Pot Pie Girl! I have gone through the nichejet sites, they are very much supportive thanks once again.
Since I have made the decision to come back to pot pie girl with a different attitude and know in my heart I will work much harder and not let go until I start making some money my sister will be learning with me this time around,
In the mean time I cannot log on to squidoo wasted many hours trying to log on but now I know why I do not have an account with them at all 🙂 I am not upset about it but laughing @ all the time I wasted.
I know Potpiegirl will teach us both together at the same time and this time I will have money for advertising and software that I will need.
I have no problem with your offering whatever service you like 🙂 But there are several threads on the Squidoo forum about people re-using lens URLs and having the new lenses locked immediately, which is a bit worrying. In some cases for “duplicate content” even though the original lenses were deleted – I guess they remain in Google index for some time after deletion.
The other problem I see is that I totally agree that “If a lens got locked for bad backlinks, the url should NOT be put back into the pool of available urls” … but they are! At the moment, ALL lens URLs are released back into the pool immediately. Can your software highlight/filter out those with bad backlinks?
I would like to clear up a couple of point that have been made.
1. The idea that all lenses that have been locked must have been doing “something shady” in the majority of cases the only “shady” thing lensmasters have been doing is trying to make some sales in a perfectly legitimate way that has been advocated by both Squidoo and yourself over the years. Many of these lensmasters (including myself) got all their lenses locked even including purely personal lenses with family photographs etc. in.
2. The reason why some of us are not rushing to delete and reclaim our urls – I and others that I know have several locked lenses that have significant money sitting on the dashboard – in some cases hundreds of dollars. Squidoo have not stated what will happen to this money but I cannot afford to risk losing it all by deleting the lenses. However, if Squidoo deletes them before the next payout is due which is quite likely to happen, what happens then? It is horrible to think that someone may be sitting on a list of my urls just waiting to claim them if they can get to them before me.
So I think it is quite easy to understand why a lot of people are upset at this list you are selling. By the way I did delete one lens I had locked, re-claimed the url immediately and wrote new original content for it only to have it locked again within a couple of days for “duplicate content”.
I believe when Squidoo locks and deletes your lens, all pending payment for royalties /commissions related to that lens are forfeited and given to a charity of Squidoos choice.
This is what was said originally but that has since been refuted.
That’s what Squidoo says . Where was it refuted?
It was quoted in the forum from a HQ email I think