Lensroll Social Blog

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

There seems to have been a bit of a panic about this outbound link limit that Squidoo will be introducing mid July.

In policy update #4 it outlines ‘A new limit on “overly promotional lenses”edfa‘ with the following:

…we’re introducing a limit to the number of outbound links to the same domain that you can have on a lens. If you have more than 9 links to the same domain on a single lens, your lens could get locked for review.

That’s not 9 outbound links total on your whole lens. Just 9 to the same exact domain.

It doesn’t include modules (so links added to the RSS, Plexo, Guestbook modules aren’t counted). It doesn’t include extra text links you may want to add to Amazon, Ebay and Wikipedia. As well a few other trusted and approved sites.

Those are on the the growing list of Whitelisted Domains. There is no limit to the amount of times you link to them in the one lens.

There is also a secret list of Blacklisted Domains. You can’t link to those at all.

While some will feel like the link limit is a strait-jacket, others will use it to think laterally.

In comparison to HubPages (HubPages has a two link limit), 9 links is a very loose strait-jacket. But I’m sure it’ll send some people mental.

HubPages counts tinyurl, bit.ly and other URL shorteners/redirectors as wildcards. Will some lensmasters try to subvert the 9 link limit by resorting to sneaky tricks? I wouldn’t be betting my money that they won’t.

Masking multiple links on a lens will only do one thing: turn off the visitor. They’re going to think it’s a different page every time and by the time they’ve opened the same page for the third time, they’ll be in a sour mood.

Do people need more than 9 links to the same domain?

In most cases, just 2 will do.

If all a lens is set up to do is be fodder for Search Engines and get people clicking through to somewhere else, have two links. One in the intro, and one at the end.

If getting them to hang around and actually read the content is the point of the lens, then save the link until very last.

My last point is this: Just because a site is not on the whitelist, it doesn’t mean the end of the world.

And there’s no need to get scared that you can’t ever link to your own blog. Just don’t do it 10 times from the one lens!

Of course all this is null and void if you’re a Giant Squid. You can go nuts and link as many times as you like, provided you’re not linking to Blacklisted sites.

About time Giant Squid status got some real perks and rewards.

Similar Lensroll news:

1. Squidoo Tightens Squid Rules Squidoo HQ is introducing a limit to the number of...
2. Text Link Ads coming soon to Squidoo I had just got onto Twitter and noticed that 1...
3. Squidoo Lensmaster Interview with Oniyagi Oniyagi is into blues music, gaming, filmmaking, Guiness and has...
4. Squoogle: Article Directory Many of you who frequent our site may know that...
5. Squidoo Interview with Keries From the SquidU Interview Archives, an interview with Keries… Glen:...