I agree with that, if you look through some of the lenses they are filled with nothing but sales adds, and spam. Squidoo does not monitor or have guidelines for the content so anyone can post anything. 2 of my lenses had disappeared COMPLETELY from the search results, and then came back but lower than page 1 where they used to be.
BUT
I will tell you that if you join the groups on Squid and especially the top 100 (and there is a group for every possible topic) and also join the Isle of Squid (directory) then you get backlinks for your squid lens and rank goes up, PLUS
there is a strong network there and you get a lot of traffic on your lenses, and comments, which really helps to rank better. I found that since I joined like 50 groups my traffic has tripled on my lenses and I got a couple of sales.
HUB pages on the other hand, monitors the content with strict rules, regarding excess of affiliate links and salesy content, they also give each HUB a score dependent on amount of content. Google still favors and ranks HUB pages high because the content is much higher quality overall than Squid.
Also it is a very tightly knit community on the user end.
The key to HUB pages is to write HUBS as if you are talking to family, and NOT selling something, I usually only put 1 affiliate link at the bottom after I have given lots of helpful information.
ALSO reading other hubs and becoming a fan of those and leaving comments for them results in others going to your hubs and doing the same and that increases traffic to your hubs and helps with the serps.
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