Squidoo No-No’s | Lenses that Squidoo Will NOT Allow

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A very common question I get is, “Can you really create a lens on Squidoo about anything?? ” The short answer is, No – you cannot create a page on Squidoo about ANYTHING.  Squidoo has strict guidelines and is very clear about the type of lenses they will not tolerate.

From the SquidDon’t lens (Thank you, Megan!)

–Pharmaceutical reviews and sales
–Online gambling sites
–Underage or violent sexual content
–Dealing with credit card debt

So the deal is: you can’t build any content in these areas on Squidoo.

Bottom line – Squidoo does not allow spammmmmy lenses. Lenses on these topic will end up in what is called the “SquidDon’t Filter”…and will be locked.

What Happens if My Squidoo Lens is Locked?

I have read many people talk of their Squidoo lens being locked…What Now?

1. Go back and edit your lens. Make it about something else.

2. Delete the lens. Make another about something else.

3. Stake you Squidoo reputation on the fact that your lens actually isn’t spambait, and actually isn’t trying to sell Xanax online, and you think it’s worth having a real live person look at it. If you choose this, we’ll have your lens hand-reviewed by the SquidTeam within 3 days. If we agree that the lens was accidentally caught in the spam filter, and that it’s actually safe for the roads, we’ll publish it for you and send a note. But be careful! If we disagree with your claim, and think the lens is spambait, we’ll delete it, and possibly all the other lenses in your account. So make sure you’re playing fair and have a lens you’d be proud to show your grandmother before you ask us to hand review.

But My Squidoo Lens was Not About a No-No Topic!

The Squidoo site is very large, and is getting larger every minute. Naturally, mistakes can be made…and these errors can happen to any of us who create pages on Squidoo. If you feel your lens has been locked in error…

We encourage you to do 3 things when this happens.

First, review your lens and see if you can figure out what the problem might be. I’m sure there’s plenty else about your Vegas vacation worth recommending, not just the casinos.

Second, if it gets caught in the spam filter, feel free to ask us to hand review your lens. We’d love to give you the benefit of the doubt!

Third, please bear with us! It’s hard to draw the line on good topics vs. spambait topics, and we’d just rather not leave loopholes for spammers to slip through.

Will Squidoo Lock or Delete My Lens If They Don’t Think It’s Very Good?

This is another common Squidoo question from some that don’t feel they are ‘good at Squidoo’ and fear their lens being deleted for being of ‘low-quality’.

Here is what Squidoo has to say about that (again, from the SquidDon’t lens by Megan Casey)

There’s plenty of junk inside of Squidoo. Pages you don’t like so much, or find a waste of time. But it’s not up to us (or you) to ban these people. Sure, feel free to give them a low rating, but just as Amazon doesn’t decide which books to sell, we don’t decide if a lens is lame or not. The community does, and they vote accordingly.

Squidoo No-No’s Summary

1. We don’t permit spam (the verb, the act of bothering people with messages they don’t want to get, or blog comments they don’t want to read). We don’t permit misleading labeling or content either.
2. We do permit junk. We don’t like it, and we try to help people transcend it, but it happens. You are welcome to build a lousy lens, or a shallow one, or one that we’re not crazy about. It will get ranked low, though, and no one will look at it (why should they?).
3. BUT, we don’t permit spambait. These are lenses about areas that are almost exclusively in the domain of spam. Don’t go there.
4. We have a team of people reading lenses, looking for spambait.
5. We have an automatic filter that blocks spambait lenses.
6. Every lens has a ‘report this as spam’ button on it. Not so people can flag pages they don’t like. No, not that. It’s for people to complain about lenses that were the subject of spam activity like email blasts, inappropriate comments, and blatantly misleading marketing.
7. Play hard, play fair, nobody hurt. There you go. Have fun.

Squidoo will not allow just ANY ol’ topic within their site. For those of around during the “Squidoo Slap”, we know perfectly well why the above mentioned type of lenses put a kink in the Squidoo festivities. However, if you are wanting to try to Squidoo, and have no plans to create content on any of the above “No-No” topics, don’t let your fear of not being ‘good enough’ keep you from trying.

We all started somewhere =)

For more information about the Squidoo Terms of Service, click here.

Learn how to create a Squidoo lens in easy steps right here on this blog! Also, for more advanced Squidoo use, read SEO for Squidoo and learn how to SEO Optimize a Squidoo lens