WHEN:

Just a few days ago, Squidoo converted all groups into regular lenses. You can no longer add your lens to a group, and your existing lenses are no longer members of any group.

WHY:

Because groups were turning a bit spammy and useless, and nobody really got any great benefits out of joining a group except the groupmaster. This really isn’t how it should be, so goodbye groups.

BUT DON’T WORRY:

If you had a group, it all still looks pretty much intact, with your modules in their places, and your URL has stayed the same. So links you’ve set up to your group will still work, and Google will continue to index it as before.

GOOGLE RANKING:

So what can you use to replace the wonderful Google Ranking Power of a Squidoo Group? Right now you just have lenses. Groups ranked so well partly because you had instant backlinks to your group just by people adding lenses to it (every lens added linked to your group from their sidebar).

So to replicate the Google Ranking Power you just need to build more backlinks.

How hard can it be

Lewis

Squidoo groups have really begun to prove themselves in Google. In almost all cases they outrank lenses, get a higher PageRank, and get more backlinks naturally than lenses.

That’s right. Groups are outranking lenses in Google.

This means is would be incredibly wise for you to add Squidoo groups to your list of Google Ranking Weapons.

For Example: If you just made a lens about The Little Shop of Horrors, make a group for it too. You can target a slightly different keyword/phrase, add your lens to the group and feature it on the group homepage, and your lens sidebar will automatically link to the group.

Squidoo Groups have been partially hidden by Squidoo HQ because they haven’t had the time to devote to making them better as they have with lenses.

This means your groups don’t show on your lensmaster page, and the Workshop Edit mode tools are still very old compared to the fancy new workshop mode we have for making lenses. 

But they are still extremely powerful in Google. I have been looking lately at which Squidoo pages are ranking well in Google, and Groups always come up top. Above lenses with more content, even.

So start making companion groups to go with the lenses you want to get traffic to!

This is something I have not done enough of and am really going to start putting a lot of energy into.

Have you had good results with groups yet?

Lewis