Monday, January 9, 2012

Squidoo or Hubpages ? We Have a Winner

Squidoo and Hubpages are two of the most popular Web 2.0 publishing platforms, offering a similar range of features and thus making a comparison between the two inevitable. And if you Google something like ” Which is better Squidoo or Hubpages? ” you are sure to get 100s of posts and articles most of which are inconclusive or are written from a particular view point (which may not concur with yours). After being a member of both Squidoo and Hubpages for over a year I have had considerable experience with both these internet giants and am in a position to tell you exactly what I think of their services in a author’s-purpose specific manner.


Hubpages or Squidoo : Which is Better for Content Writers ?

In my opinion, Hubpages is more suited to content writers than Squidoo, especially if you your SEO skills are as lousy as mine. In my experience, Hubs (on Hubpages) gets listed lot more easily than a Lens (on Squidoo). Moreover, Hubpages is more adept at directing its members to new Hubs and also has features like Hub Hopping to help you gain more page views. Moreover, Hubpages offers roughly 60% revenue compared to Squidoo’s 45%


However, in the unlikely event that you are a SEO wizard then you should definitely go Squidoo, but you will probably earn a lot more just maintaining your own blog.


Hubpages or Squidoo : Which is Better for Bloggers ?


If you are keen on maintaining one or more mini blogs(such as a blog dedicated to your pet) then you should go with Squidoo. In fact, the Squidoo lens is specifically designed to be used as a mini blog offering the blogger TOTAL HTML control of the lens and even allows you to use your own affiliate banners, amazon codes etc. Like Blogger, Squidoo also comes with an impressive set of popular and profitable modules like amazon, zazzle, cafepress, e-bay etc.


Hubpages or Squidoo : Which is Better for Article Marketeers ?


As far as article marketing is concerned Squidoo is way better than Hubpages. In fact whereas Squidoo encourages you to use their platform for marketing your products Hubpages’ article acceptance policy is designed to hinder your efforts. Here is quote from an e-mail I received from them not too long ago:


The rules – read these carefully:
* If your Hub’s content is unique to HubPages (doesn’t appear anywhere else on the internet) then your Hub can have a MAXIMUM of 2 links to any one domain (tinyurl and other cloakers are considered wildcards). Links in the image source field of images count toward this limit.
* If your Hub’s content appears anywhere else on the internet, then you may NOT add links to sites or offers you are promoting. This means that you can not have any promotional links on Hubs that appear elsewhere on the internet.
* You can not give a short teaser and a link to “read more” or “continue”. The Hub must have the full content you want to present and that your title implies.
* You can NOT add links to sites irrelevant to the Hub’s topic
* Your Hub may not contain an RSS feed that directs to the same site as a link within the body of the hub