Squidoo vs. HubPages – Update #3

*Here is the 3rd update on the Squidoo vs. HubPages case study. Check out the original post on the case study here.

I went to check my rankings this morning for my Squidoo lenses and hubs and got a not-so-nice surprise. Last time I had checked my rankings for my lenses was the beginning of last week right after I finished all the 20 backlinks to each lens. Out of the 5 lenses I had 4 of them ranking on the second page for their main keyword and I was getting pretty excited that they would be seeing the first page of Google soon.

Well, I was wrong as when I went to go check the rankings today, all 4 of those lenses are now nowhere to be seen in Google. They are still indexed but not ranking within the first 300 results. Now, this may just be the “Google dance” but it is quite frustrating. I also find it a little odd that it happened to all 4 of the lenses instead of just 1 or 2 of them. I’m hoping that they come back soon and they are ranking even higher which sometimes happens when sites go through the “dance.”

So as you can tell my Squidoo vs. HubPages case study is not going very well right now. I really haven’t made that much money from either site, so I’m not really sure that they can be used as fast cash as some people claim.

Each lens and hub has 20 backlinks through BMR (Build My Rank). The last backlink was published last Wednesday so the rankings for today will definitely still change over the next few weeks.

Squidoo Stats

-ranking in parenthesis is from last update post

Lens #1 – Toy Niche

• Main keyword  – #136  (162)
• Secondary keyword  – #14 (16)

Lens #2 – Electronics Niche

• Main keyword  – #0 (22)
• Secondary keyword – #0 (31)

Lens #3 – Shoes/Accessories Niche

• Main keyword – #0 (22)
• Secondary keyword – #0  (17)

Lens #4 – Personal Care Niche

• Main keyword – #0 (17)
• Secondary keyword – #0 (15)

Lens #5 – Baby Niche

• Main keyword – #0 (98)
• Secondary keyword – #98 (not ranked)

Money Made – $43.87

Interestingly enough the money that I made from Squidoo was from the lens that has not been anywhere near page 1 on Google. I’m thinking that it must be ranking for a long tail keyword and that is how I made the sales.

HubPages Statistics

-ranking in parenthesis are from last update post

Hub #1 – Shoes/Accessories Niche

• Main keyword – #19 (34)
• Secondary keyword – #10 (19)

Hub #2 – Toy Niche

• Main keyword – #9 (392)
• Secondary keyword – #14 (not ranked)

Hub #3 – Beauty Niche

• Main keyword – #25 (64)
• Secondary keyword – #20 (50)

Hub #4 – Shoe Niche

• Main keyword – #251 (not ranked)
• Secondary keyword – #17 (296)

Hub #5- Clothing/Accessories Niche

• Main keyword – #19 (not ranked)
• Secondary keyword – #42 (388)

Money Made – $.12

It appears as of today my hubs are ranking much better than the Squidoo lenses, but as I mentioned I am hoping the lenses are just going through a shuffle and will come back stronger. The money that I made from HubPages is just from Adsense and I have not made one sale on one of the hubs yet.

What’s Next For the Case Study?

From the looks of it, 20 BMR links is not enough to get the hubs or lenses ranking well enough to make any real money from them. I know that not every hub or lens you make is going to be a winner and just like your websites you should focus on the winners.

So, what I am going to do is take the top 2 hubs and the top 2 lenses (according to ranking and traffic) and send them more backlinks to see how long it will take to get them to rank within the first 5 results of Google. I’m going to start with 10 more BMR links to each of these hubs and lenses and see how that does.

I’ll update this case study again when the additional backlinks are done for the 2 hubs and 2 lenses.

Tagged as: Hubpages, passive income, Squidoo, writing sites