Squidoo Account Locked!

Squidoo has been undergoing a lot of changes the past few months after a major page rank slap from Google and a serious decrease in earnings for the site and thereby very low payout per tier.  As a result, Squidoo has installed a series of filters which have swept the site both giving warnings and then locking lenses (without warnings). Like many, I received both warnings and locked lenses. Some I edited and got republished without incident, while others I decided to either delete and give up entirely (severely under performing lenses with little content) or move to other platforms (my blogs, other paid to write sites, etc...).

While Squidoo was undergoing these changes, I didn't really edit any of my lenses or create new ones. I figured I'd ride out the wave and focus on the lenses that were hit by the filter and against Squidoo's new rules and edit/improve my other lenses after things settled down and when I had more time. (Things have been extra crazy at work with no less than 4 trials this summer and lots of craziness on my other cases--in case you cared. )

Today, I received notification from Squidoo that my entire account was locked. I'm not sure whether the e-mail was a boiler plate email that everyone gets (it looks like it) or whether it has details specific to me, but it says that my lenses were SPAM. While I do at times discuss certain products or more accurately other paid to write sites where I have found success, I don't think any of my lenses fall under an accurate definition of SPAM and they all comport to my knowledge and understanding of Squidoo's rules as they have published them. (It has become clear that certain new rules that cause the filters to lock lenses have not been published and the lenses that Squidoo refers readers to after locking their lenses or account are the same ones they've always had.) The one Squidoo violation that I am in some lenses guilty of is forgetting to add an image credit. Without a place to specifically add it when uploading a photo I often forget (and when I was requesting that a locked lens be reinstated, I specifically suggested that all image modules and the like have a place for an image credit).

The big question now is do I try to get my account reinstated or just save all of my lenses and republish them elsewhere? Before its fall, Squidoo was my highest earner--with the exceptions of some months where I was very active on Examiner and really raking it in. I think I will save all of my lenses (I only have 7 days to do so) and appeal and take it from there. If they don't reinstate my account, I'll republish elsewhere and then decide if I want to create a new Squidoo account and start from scratch or just focus on other platforms.

Have you had your Squidoo account locked? What was your experience?

Changes to Infobarrel

Infobarrel has made changes to how you can make money writing for them, effective as of yesterday.  Previously, when writing for Infobarrel, you were not paid directly by Infobarrel, but rahter inserting your Adsense, Chitika, and Amazon Associates IDs into your account.  Your affiliate IDs were then shown anywhere from 75-90% of the time depending upon participation on the site.

Infobarrel has now changed the system where you can be paid directly by Infobarrel.  Infobarrel has gotten rid of Chitika entirely as well as an Amazon banner on the side.  (Writer can still incorporate Amazon elements into their articles.)  Writers will now make money through two tiers of ads on the site.  I believe Tier 1 is Adsense and Tier 2 is Chitika, Amazon, and similar ads that they get on the site.  Existing members have the option of keeping their Adsense IDs on the site as it was before.

The plus of using the Infobarrel payments system is that payout will be $50 from Infobarrel via Paypal rather than Adsense's $100.  Therefore, writers can reach payout faster.  Infobarrel also hopes that they will be able to get higher quality ads which will mean higher revenue for everyone. Revenue share will be split with the same percentages previously used.

I have decided to switch to the new program and while there will be a few hiccups for me.  Some minor (changing the formatting of the spreadsheet that I used to track my monthly earnings) and some not so minor (being stuck below minimum payout at Chitika and Adsense), I will find ways to deal with it.  With Adsense, Infobarrel was my biggest source of Adsense earnings and what was really pushing me towards reaching payout.  My other sources of Adsense earnings: Triond, Hubpages, Wizzley, and personal blogs, are minor by comparison.  I will have to amp up writing for these sources and promoting them in hopes that I can get Adsense payout at least once per year.   On Chitika, Infobarrel is the only place I use Chitika and the earnings there are fairly low.  My current balance is around $7.50 and their payout is $10.  I hate to lose that money.  I might have to incorporate Chitika ads here and on some of my other blogs in hopes of reaching the minimum and then I can either close my Chitika account and take the ads off or if they are some what successful, leave them on.

I will report back to see how the new payment system goes and I do have the option of switching back if I wish (although Chitka ads are definitely gone for good).  I imagine I won't want to leave earnings sitting with Infobarrel, so I'll probably stick with it unless it's an utter disaster.

My 2012 Earnings

I have been horrible about updating this blog and don't have a ton of time right now, but I want to at least give a quick update on my earnings for 2012.  In 2012, I made nearly five times what I made in 2011.
My Squidoo earnings were over ten times my 2011 Squidoo earnings and actually twice my total earnings for 2012.  However, the big sleeper was Examiner.  I got a new Examiner title towards the end of the year and made $705 alone in December!  The combination of Squidoo and Examiner ensure that in 2013, my earnings will far exceed my earnings for 2012, with my current goal for the end of 2013 being $10,000!

Wizzley was my big disappointment.  If you'll recall, I was inspired by initial results at the end of 2011 and inspired to make more Wizzes in 2012.  Well, I really dropped the ball on that.  I made one or two new Wizzes, although I'm not sure I even completed them both to the point of being published.  Anyway, as a result, my earnings from Wizzley was a whopping goose egg!

My 2012 Squidoo Earnings: $1,383.41
My 2011 Examiner Earnings: $801.50
My 2012 Infobarrel Earnings: $82.21
My 2012 Triond Earnings: $34.75
My 2011 Hubpages Earnings: $22.05
My 2012 Bukisa Earnings: $15.07
My 2012 Yahoo! Voices Earnings: $10.01

My 2011 Wizzley Earnings: $0

Total: $2,349

I have some goals for 2013, which I will share at a later date, but for now I wanted to at least provide this update which is about 2 months overdue!

May, 2012 Earnings

After a long delay, I have a some free time, so I thought I'd give an update on my earnings from May, 2009.  I took a major vacation from writing and have barely written in months.  In December, I set myself some goals for what to earn by July 1 so my plan for June is to write, write, write in hopes of meeting the goals I meant to spend 7 months working on.


Squidoo Earnings: $79.84
Infobarrel Earnings: $2.01
Hubpages Earnings: $1.16
Triond Earnings:$0.93
Yahoo! Voices Earnings: $0.80
Bukisa Earnings: $1.03
Wizzley Earnings: $0

Total May, 2012 Earnings: $85.77

My January, 2012 Earnings

I recently updated my Squidoo lenses regarding my January 2012 earnings (listed below) and the two biggest things I learned from my January earnings? 1. The amount you earn from Tier 1 lenses from Squidoo is a huge and significant jumpr form Tier 2 and Tier 3, and 2. It makes a huge difference when you actually write extra articles to increase how often your ads are shown on impressions of your articles with Infobarrel.

As you will see from my Squidoo Earnings, I made over $50 from one lens alone because it was a Tier 1 lens, bumping my entire earnings for the month of January to $65.55.  My goal is to find a way to keep promoting and creating lenses that will get enough traffic, likes, clickouts, and Amazon purchases to get as many Tier 1 lenses.

If you don't know, Infobarrel defaults that your ads are shown on 75% of the impressions of your articles.  However, you can write articles of certain length to earn points (500+ = 1 point, 800+ = 2 points, 1,000+ + 5 points) to increase your percentage to 80% for 20 points or 85% for 30 points.  For every article you write and submit to be featured (must be on a topic listed in monthly contest) you earn another 1% up to five for a potential total of 90% for the next month.  I did not write any articles for Infobarrel in November of December; therefore, my ad rate was 75% and believe it or not, it makes a huge difference.  My earnings tanked to $2.12 and $2.39 for December and January respectively.  In January, I wrote enough articles and submitted enough potential features to meet the 90% rate and boy does it make a difference.  On February 1st alone, I had 2 clicks on my Infobarrel articles worth $2.07--more than I made the entire month of January and then again, yesterday I had another click worth $2.22.  In four days with the 90% of impressions showing my ads, I doubled what I earned in all of January, so clearly it makes a difference.

One note that is particularly interesting is that all of my February clicks for Infobarrel articles so far have been on my Fungal Ear Infection Treatment article, which is the first article I wrote for Infobarrel.  Over the summer I had a particularly painful ear infection that turned out to be a fungal infection.  You can read about the whole story in the article, but one thing I found myself doing while in excruciating pain was searching for different treatment and home remedies for fungal ear infections.  Unfortunately, most Google searches turned up information about dog ear infections and other fungal infections such as yeast infections or Athlete's foot. Therefore, I took what information I learned from the limited articles about fungal ear infections and wrote my first Infobarrel article.  It goes towards my previous advice to write what you don't know.

Here are my earnings for January, 2012:
Squidoo: $65.44
Infobarrel: $2.39
Hubpages: $3.18
Triond: $2.20
Bukisa: $1.70
I did not have any earnings from my 2 pages on Wizzley in January, 2012 and will not update my Yahoo! Voices earnings because I did not reach payout in January, 2012 and you cannot find your earnings by month until you reach payout.  I also earned $0.38 from Examiner.

Total Earnings for January, 2012: $75.29

Writing Tip: Write About What You Don't Know

While typically advice is to write about you know, I also advise that you write about what you don't know.  Meaning if a question comes up where you end up performing a Google search for the answer, why not use the information you learn to write an article about it? If you have are searching for an answer, odds are other people are going to do such a search as well.

Recently, I must have stepped on glass and ended up with a shard of glass buried deep in my foot. While some ways to get glass out of the foot is pretty common sense, I figured I would search for any other methods to remove glass from the foot in case there was anything I wasn't thinking of. After I searched several sites for advice on getting glass out of your foot, I wrote an article on Infobarrel about the various methods and ended up publishing How to Get a Shard of Glass Out of Your Foot.  Next time you find yourself searching for the answer to a question online, think about whether other might be performing the same search and write an article to answer the question

My 2011 Earnings from Writing Online & 2012 Writing Goals

Happy New Year! 2011 has come to a close and 2012 has started.  I have updated all of my making money earnings and made a total of $585.48 this year by writing online.  I made $554.32 from writing articles and $31.16 from affiliate sales.  A more detailed break-down of my earnings per program is below.

My goal for 2012 is by the end of the year to be making $500 per month.  A huge goal!  I hope to become more diligent about promoting all of my articles and creating backlinks for them.  I also plan to write, write, write.  I hope to have at least 100 articles/pages for each site that I write for by the end of the year and will greatly increase the number of articles I write for Infobarrel.  (I haven't written for Infobarrel in almost 2 months!)  This year I received my first tier 1 lens for Squidoo: Daily Deal Sites Like Groupon.  I plan to promote this lens so that it remains tier 1 all year and create at least 1 new lens that becomes tier 1.  (Ideally, I would like to end 2012 with 5 tier 1 lenses).   I also plan to create more pages at Wizzley, where although I have 2 very simple pages, I am pulling in strong Adsense earnings per page.

My 2011 Squidoo Earnings: $100.99
My 2011 Infobarrel Earnings: $20.38
My 2011 Bukisa Earnings: $11.81
My 2011 Triond Earnings: $2.14
My 2011 Associated Content Earnings: $94.62
My 2011 Hubpages Earnings: $2.61
My 2011 Wizzley Earnings: $1.76
My 2011 Examiner Earnings: $9.71
My 2011 eHow Earnings: $310.30

How did you do in 2011?  What are your writing goals for 2012?