Hubpages Vs. Squidoo – The First 24 Hours

by Ryan on January 8, 2011 · 54 comments

This is a guest post by Ryan who writes on his personal finance blog – PlantingDollars. Through this post, he is contributing a case study that he did with his articles on two sites  – Squidoo and Hubpages, to see which got ranked better on Google in first 24 hrs. It will be interesting to see whether Google “really” loves Squidoo over other sites or it is just a little mythical thing. Let’s get started reading this case study…

I’ve been building websites and blogging for a few years now and somehow had managed not to wander over to squidoo or hubpages. Both sites are easy to set up, offer the possibility to make money, and admittedly get a bit addictive. However, I wanted to see which one ranked better, and caught the eye of Google.

Before I talk about what happened when I used both hubpages and squidoo I’d like to explain…

The Three Reasons I Signed up for Squidoo and Hubpages

1. Backlinks - Squidoo offers dofollow links right off the bat, and hubpages offers dofollow after you build up some notoriety on their site. Either way, you can build links to your blogs and websites with ease every time you create a lens or hub. Backlinks are the key to ranking well so either way, you should probably consider signing up to get some linkage.

2. Unique Topics to Write AboutI run several blogs, but what do I do if I want to write a post about “where to find boric acid“? Why would I want to write something like that? Because I see an underutilized niche, however I don’t want to build a whole niche website about this. Creating a lens or a hub is a perfect option that allows me to write pages for the search engines without setting up completely new websites.

3. Income - Your posts have ads which squidoo and hubpages will share with you if someone clicks on them. Pretty neat considering you don’t have to set up any contracts. All you have to do is have a paypal account with squidoo, but with hubpages you’ll need to set up adsense, amazon, kontera, and other types of accounts in order to make some moola.

Comparing the Two

I wrote a post on my personal finance blog about a credit card documentary I watched, called “In debt we trust.” I wanted to do a bit of promoting so I then created a squidoo lens and a hub on hubpages about “credit card documentaries”, both linking back to my main site about the documentary.

They’re very similar posts and talks about practically the same thing, but the difference in results in the first 24 hours really surprised me.

After 24 hours What Did I have?

Hubpages was number 11 for credit card documentaries.

Squidoo was nowhere to be found for the term credit card documentaries.

Credit Card Documentaries

This is just my first test run to see which site performs better in rankings for similar posts, but I’m already leaning towards hubpages since I’ve seen it rank well already for my other hubs like where to buy boric acid.

This is by no means a complete analysis, just some observations. I’ll be watching over the next few weeks to see which article service is ranking higher to determine where I’ll focus most of my efforts.


Do you use squidoo or hubpages?

Do you like one more than the other, or have seen one rank significantly better than the other? Let us know that by using the comment form below…


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Article Written By Ryan

Ryan is a niche site builder who also runs several blogs ranging from travel to personal finance.

Ryan has written 1 superb article(s) on this blog


{ 54 comments… read them below or add one }

jhon January 20, 2011 at 7:26 pm

Squidoo has lost its importance but Hub pages it moving towards pinnacle of the career. Hub pages also pay good article writer that is a main interesting aspect.

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Jeff Gold February 4, 2011 at 10:31 am

I am using Squidoo for quite a while and never got any money from ads. I have never tried the hubs before but it is good to know that it exists and i will definitely try it out.
Thanks for the info

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Sarah B February 4, 2011 at 4:09 pm

Wow 24 hours and Google already had it indexed and ranking 11th!? Doesn’t Google own hubpages? I have always used Squidoo and like the interface, but am considering using Hubpages after reading this blog post. How do you get the links to be followable on Hubpages? What are the requirements? I cannot seem to find them anywhere. Nice blog btw! Just subscribed :)

- Sarah

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Isol February 8, 2011 at 5:33 pm

There is no need to compare them they are both useful and effective in there on way.

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AbbieW February 10, 2011 at 10:15 am

I’ve been using Squidoo for a few weeks, and built four lenses. So far, only two are indexed. I think I’ll start building some hubs on hubpages to see how tat site works. I must admit I see a lot more hubpages urls at the top of my google search results.

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SeoDezin from fred loya insurance February 13, 2011 at 11:41 am

I have always preferred Squidoo services but your articles has explored me a different results.

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Imchen March 25, 2011 at 5:04 pm

After the recent google update, your squidoo pages is in the 1st page while ur hubpage is still in thr 2nd page!
Now, it seems that google loves squidoo more!

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Chandan April 1, 2011 at 4:12 pm

Both the sites are worth signing up and building your portfolios. Irrespective of the attribute ( nofollow/dofollow) backlink from these two domain counts for sure. Anyways good post.
Chandan recently posted..Earn Money Online in India being an SEO – Its ProvenMy Profile

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Michelle from Rhodes Ranch Real Estate April 4, 2011 at 8:18 pm

Result within 24 hours is very, very impressive. I’m not sure about Squidoo but I’ve been leaning more towards Hubpages. The site does not promise fast or huge money by working less so it pays depending on the time and effort we put on the hubs. I’ve seen my folks trying to achieve 100 hubs in 30 days!! its possible for some people but I’ve not taken up even the 30-30 challenge :) but ‘yes’ I work at my own pace and I’m just glad with whatever I’m earning from hubpages. I believe that as long as the content is evergreen its going to rule and by this I mean the content should not get outdated over the years. However, after reading this post I’m curious about Squidoo as well.

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Jean April 29, 2011 at 7:47 pm

What determines when HubPages allows do follow links? # of hubs? Hub score?
Jean recently posted..The Genie Bra Official SiteMy Profile

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sara May 5, 2011 at 7:48 pm

This is a wonderful post. I am sure you know about SEO, since you are on the first page of Google with this blog. I will try both sites now. Thanks.

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Scott Toller May 27, 2011 at 8:00 pm

I usually prefer squidoo, however this blog regarding hpage is very interesting. Is the squidoo lens ranking higher today? I do believe so…

Scott

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Bidre June 1, 2011 at 5:28 pm

How can anyone compare Squidoo and HubPages? Squidoo is light years ahead of HubPages

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Maryn June 14, 2011 at 10:12 pm

That’s really interesting about the first 24 hours. I just created some new lenses and a hubpage about my chosen topics, so they jury is still out on those. Thanks!

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Mary L. July 13, 2011 at 7:57 pm

Thanks for running these comparisons. I read that Google reformulated their SEO algorithm early this year. Did you do your test after that point?

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Zami August 11, 2011 at 12:36 pm

I’ve done some light work on Squidoo, wrote quite a few Hubs, and have started building Squidoo lenses again.

To me, it seems easier to get a Hub ranked than a Squidoo lens. With that said, I do like the flexibility that Squidoo offers (post Panda) to monetize via affiliate marketing functionality (Amazon, eBay, etc.).

Thank you for the post!
Zami recently posted..iPhone 5 News updated Tue Aug 9 2011 9:53 am CDTMy Profile

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Ofir October 11, 2011 at 1:08 am

Cool thanks. I am currently doing some reading about both squidoo and hubpages.

Seems hubpages ranks better but takes a while to get your links to be dofollow (you need 75 hubpoints which you accumulate by writing articles and participating in forums) but the rewards might be well worth the effort!

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Akash Kumar from Google SEO Blog October 26, 2011 at 2:31 am

Both of these sites encourage uniqueness and quality so if you have lens at squidoo or hubpage at hubpages it still is very useful as a backlink. These links are very strong in nature.
Akash Kumar recently posted..4 Common SEO Errors to AvoidMy Profile

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rock January 14, 2012 at 6:34 am

Seems hubpages ranks better but takes a while to get your links to be dofollow (you need 75 hubpoints which you accumulate by writing articles and participating in forums) but the rewards might be well worth the effort!

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Jonathan March 31, 2012 at 2:26 am

I tried squidoo and I got a link but nothing else. I must say that I probably could have put in more effort. I have seen many hubpages in search results and I put up my first one today. My own experiment begins now.
Jonathan recently posted..MMA training gear 2012 wish listMy Profile

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