Home > News > A special note about the Page Break Module

A special note about the Page Break Module

Megan Casey by Megan Casey on Wed, May 18th, 2011

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~~This post only applies to our Giant Squids, who get access to some extra features and perks.~~ Edit: This applies to anyone who was able to access and use the Page Break module, which is now being converted to a regular Text module.

Image credit: http://sayingimages.co

The background: About a year ago we introduced a bonus module called the Page Break module. We gave it to Giant Squids only to try out. The module essentially allowed a Giant to split up his or her lens into a few different pages, like a mini website, linked via header navigation. As with all new features and experiments, we had high hopes at the time and even a few strong use cases to go on. Some Giants tried the module and liked it. Some tried it and didn’t like it.

What people using the page break module should know now: We wanted to let you know that this special bonus module is going to be discontinued in about a week. That means:

Existing PageBreak modules in use on lenses will be converted to simple Text modules.
So you won’t lose any content that you wrote within the Page Break modules.
But it also means your lens content will no longer be organized into multiple pages. You’ll probably want to spend a few minutes deciding how best to reorganize it all on one single page.

There are many reasons for this decision: The first being that the page break concept just never converted to additional page views for lenses. The second is that instead of helping lensmasters organize their long lenses for better reader understanding, this feature created an experience that confused readers, who wound up missing most of your good content. The third reason is that instead of helping lensmasters shorten or focus their lenses, for perception as well as performance reasons, instead the page break module enabled lensmasters to create even longer, denser lenses, which was never the intention. Finally, the module had a very low adoption rate and was a headache for many who did use it.

But the main reason for discontinuing this experiment is that we believe that the unit of content on Squidoo, the lens, performs best as a uniquely single topic, single page. The Page Break module essentially moved lenses into the territory of mini-websites, which was not our original mission. And while we reserve the right to re-iterate in that direction at a later date, the Page Break module was not the right feature for the site.

We’re sorry to create extra work for you using this module, but hope that this advance notice (and direct email outreach) will help you get your lens organized as a single page again in plenty of time before we make the change. Even if you do nothing with this information for 6 months, your lens will be just fine, it just might need a little organizational TLC when you’re ready.

You are welcome to ask questions about any of this in the comments below.

Thanks for your understanding and your good will.

UPDATE: Please read this update in the Comments section. We have listened and decided to delay this module conversion to give you more time. I will post the new date when I have it, but suffice it to say this conversion will not be next week. Also, we are providing a list of lenses to the lensmasters who used the Page Break module. That is coming via email to all lensmasters who used it. Thanks.

About Megan Casey

Cofounder of Squidoo.

Comments:

Deb Lauman

When will you be making the change?

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

In a week. I wish I could give you the exact day and time, but with many releases happening all the time, and with some dependent on others, I don’t want to promise a date that we might not nail. But wanted to give you heads up time!

Deb Lauman

Thanks. I’m looking at the few I have, and I’m thinking it might be easier for me to make the changes after the page break has been converted to a text module and it’s all one page then anyway.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Good point. That might be easier.

http://www.affiliatepirate.com/ Andrew Po

Will the old page break URLs at least redirect to the main lens properly?

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

GREAT question. I’m sorry I didn’t address that above. Yes, we are absolutely redirecting the old page break URLs back to your lens. Which means any traffic going to one of your page break pages will automatically and instantly go straight to your lens. Thanks for asking about that.

http://www.facebook.com/kevinwilson1 Kevin Wilson

Will the redirect go to the page-break-module-converted-to-a-text-module, or will it go back to the start of the lens?
http://squidutils.com/ thefluffanutta

Please can you consider doing two things:
1) redirect page URLs to the appropriate #module anchor on the lens.
2) rewrite any page URLs on the lens (or any lens) so that they go direct to the #module anchor instead. This would save the visitor reloading the lens, and also encourage search engines to drop the page URLs.

Thanks.

http://www.affiliatepirate.com/ Andrew Po

I’m sure some people will choose to break them up into separate lenses though.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5AXIMQHAP3X2SJEEQAIFGHSZZU Jana

This sounds like a GREAT IDEA!! Brilliant suggestion, thefluffanutta!!! This sounds like A FANTASTIC SOLUTION to the problem of lensmasters’ angst, distress, and wasted time and inconvenience!

THE SOLUTION
If the Squid Team could :
1) automate the creation of appropriate #module anchor tags in the lens for each page which is converted from a menu page to text
2) do a rewrite for each page URL on the lens to redirect it to the #module anchor tag position
3) notify the lensmasters of each affected lens (this is apparently being taken care of)

THE BENEFITS
If I understand correctly, this solution would take all the angst away from lensmasters who have used this feature, with the following benefits:

1) lensmasters would NOT need to do any manual conversions of existing multi-page lenses
2) they would not have to worry about changing any published urls on other websites which link to the menu sub-pages
3) they could check the conversions are working ok by using the list provided by the Squid Team (since many of lensmasters have forgotten which pages they used the feature on).

THE CONVERSION PROCESS
Hopefully, this conversion procedure would be thoroughly tested first on a test site with a comprehensive test plan and with the participation of some of the affected giant squids and some end users. It sounds as if there is something to be learned from non-giant squid users who had this feature withdrawn on May 8th and had to report bugs in the process (see an earlier comment by Ellen Brundige). Perhaps they need special attention.

THE POOR LENSMASTERS!
Finally, I would like to suggest all affected users, including non-giants such as Ellen Brundige, need a lot of TLC as compensation (Awe, come on Squid Team, I know you know how to do that so well!! :)

http://www.facebook.com/kab.squidoo Kab Squidoo

Can we get a list of the lenses we have with this module? I’ve got lots of lenses, and my memory isn’t so great.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

I had a hunch that might be handy for some people, but for the sake of advance notice wanted to get the info in front of you guys quickly. Investigating the idea of specific lists. We’ll see.

http://www.facebook.com/kab.squidoo Kab Squidoo

It would be handy. A few lenses come to mind, so I’m off to fix them up for the change.

Susan Kaul

I’m kind of sorry to hear this. I have only just recently begun to use the page break module but really liked it, and had no intentions of not using and to certainly use it again. However, if it is not doing what was intended, then change and moving forward is for the best. Thanks for the advance warning.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

We’re sorry to hear it too! Never fun to say goodbye to features that we worked hard to build, and that you guys worked hard to use. But yes, important to learn and adapt. Thanks Susan.

http://makingamark.blogspot.com/ makingamark

Can somebody tell me which lenses I’m using multiple pages on – I can’t remember!

I really don’t want to have to check through every lens to see…..
http://makingamark.blogspot.com/ makingamark

BTW Many thanks for the ability to comment and the dedicated page – makes a huge difference to these type of changes to be able to talk to the tech team
Karen Coupland

It’s interesting you’re doing this right now, since I had just decided last week to split my only lens with a page break into two lenses. So I’m partway there already. The page break did sound like a good concept, but I didn’t see many clickouts from the second page. If I showcase it as its own lens, I may get more traffic to it.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

“The page break did sound like a good concept, but I didn’t see many clickouts from the second page. If I showcase it as its own lens, I may get more traffic to it.” — Correct.

http://flynnthecat.blogspot.com/ Flynn the Cat

Um, this isn’t a Giant’s only thing. it was made available to everyone after the initial month or two.
http://flynnthecat.blogspot.com/ Flynn the Cat

ALSO ONE WEEK? SERIOUSLY? That is NOT long enough. Some of my lenses will take several hours to transfer into new lenses, and I do not have that time right now.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

As above. Thanks, Flynn.

Ellen Brundige

*faints*. Thanks for the notice, although one week is a bit panic-inducing.

I’ve got some major lenses on Squidoo that use page break, each page focused on a related subtopic. I’ll have to create about 30 new lenses and transfer all that content to the new URLs. That’s a lot of lost traffic. Redirects will not help, since they will be pointing to modules that no longer exist. I’ll have to contact several educational websites to get them to change their links. Unless there’s some way that we could code redirects to point to the new lenses?

I understand your reasoning; the page break format always required that we make our own page-to-page navigation to make it work well.

And I know that long-term, even though I’m going to lose a fair amount of traffic, it’ll come back, but…eeeeeeek, this is not what I’d planned to work on for the next two weeks!

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Please see the update at the top. That should help relieve some panic!

http://flynnthecat.blogspot.com/ Flynn the Cat

Um, the comments are jumbled. The update – if you mean the comment further down – isn’t up top.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

http://www.squidoohq.com/2011/05/18/page-break-module/#comment-207234558

http://makingamark.blogspot.com/ makingamark

Where’s the top?

http://profiles.google.com/sandyswebnetwork Sandy Mertens

Look like I have a lot of work to do. Too bad it is being taken away.
Ellen Brundige

As for advanced notice: all non-Giant page break lenses have already been converted to very long pages which can’t be used by human traffic. Page breaks have been available to non-Giants for a while.

All non-Giant page break lenses lost page breaks back on May 8th, and we’ve been commiserating in the forums. It’s caused considerable hardship for some lensmasters. Many have sent in bug reports about it. Announcing it now — as if it’s something that hasn’t happened yet, and it’s only going to impact Giants — suggests you haven’t seen those reports.

I wondered why I suddenly stopped getting sales on my best-selling buyer’s guide!
AJ

Given that I am “famous” for making long lenses, I am relieved to say that I have very few lenses using this feature (wish I could remeber exactly which ones) – the reason being that I realised very early on that despite providing links at the end of each page, people often did not realise that there was more.

It also made me realise that if I had enough on the lens to split into pages then I may be better making more lenses.

However, when I saw “1 week’s notice” I could not help but think this is not enough time for a lot of people. Am assuming that this has been planned for awhile and would have thought the minute the decsion was made, it could have been communicated – I realise that it is difficult for HQ to say exactly when, particularly as this is only part of a major overhaul, where one decision can have a knock on effect.

As Ellen has intimated, many of us plan ahead as to what we will be working on and for some of us it will mean having to sideline other tasks because we cannot afford to have our lenses looking “wonky”.

All in all I completely understand why the feature is being removed, but think we could have been given the heads up sooner.

AJ2008
(Now I am off to see how to get my smiling mug on these posts :) )
Anonymous

Panic inducing is right. Wow, I don’t know how many lenses I created pagebreaks for, but I have hours and hours invested in them. It’s going to take me a lot longer than a week. I hope you can give us a list of the lenses that need to be reworked. ….to infinity and beyond!
Anonymous

Although it will be sad to see the page break leave and it will create a lot of non-value add time to many lensmasters. Squidoo has the stats and if stats show that in general it’s best to no longer have the option than I guess that’s what best.

Do wish we had longer than 1 week to fix things.
Plus I also wish that we could just log in with our Squidoo log in and not from one of our other accounts. I like to keep it all separate.
Anonymous

I feel like my page break lenses have been hit by an earthquake – shattered!
Anonymous

Like I said in a forum thread last month, I am using the page break a lot because it Did have the feel of a mini website. Unfortunately, I somehow missed any email that may have been sent. Finally, you have managed to hit me with a Big Club.

I have developed the skills of a “rearrangement artist” but have been exposed to the unexpected so many times on Squidoo. Co-workers at my old job always said, “When in doubt, rip it out.” I guess you have come to your final decision.

Very sorry to hear this news.

http://flynnthecat.blogspot.com/ Flynn the Cat

…I hope your old job wasn’t as a dentist.

Anonymous

haha I missed that. So funny. I worked with old telephone equipment, with opens and shorts causing troubles, some thought, just start over. Just like Flynn.
Thanks, Disqus

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

TLDR: Two things coming: More time, and a list of lenses.

But first, I want to be clear about what exactly is happening with this change. Let’s look at an example.

Take this wonderful lens of Joan’s, for example: http://www.squidoo.com/thomas-alexander-black-history-month-tribute It’s currently using the Page Break module to split up the story. Unfortunately, the second and third pages get largely ignored by readers: Not a fault of Joan’s, but of the feature. We want to have that good content back on her center stage, where people can dig down to find it via creative use of the (much better converting) Table of Content module. Anyway, with the conversion from Page Break to Text module, the 3 Page Break modules she’s using here to create those extra pages will be simply converted to Text mods, and the page will automatically become 1 single lens again *without her having to do anything*. In this example, the lens probably won’t need any edits at all. But we wanted to let people like Joan know about the change in advance because, well, it’s a change. Also because we understand there are certainly going to be lenses that were organized in such a way that they don’t re-form into a single page as seamlessly as Joan’s lens would.

That said, here’s what we’re going to do:

1. We’re going to extend the time before making this module rollback. Here’s why: When we looked at the module use list in aggregate, we didn’t see that use was clustered. Some people–around 40 or so people–were using this module very very extensively, in some cases on 50 or more lenses. While the change won’t cause content loss or break URLs, and lenses will be fully intact after the Page Breaks are converted to Text Modules, I understand that those people especially want a chance to consider whether their lenses need any special reorganization. EDITED to add: I will post the new date when I have it.

2. Today I will also be posting a list of the lenses that are using the Page Break module, sorted by author, so that respective lensmasters can find their names and be reminded which lenses of theirs they might want to address. I will email the spreadsheet to all Page Break users. There’s no private data contained in this list, but with access comes the responsibility not to abuse it.

Megan

http://www.facebook.com/kevinwilson1 Kevin Wilson

Will the list of affected lenses include lenses by non-Giants, too?

http://www.allconsidering.com/ Katinka Hesselink

A week is not advanced notice. It’s not as if it’s easy to find out which lenses I’ve used the module on…
I’m just going to let my lenses be what they are without the module and focus on other things that need doing. No way am I going to ship everything aside to check all my 500+ lenses on whether they use the module and how they should be reorganised.

I am glad we got something of a heads up, something you didn’t give the non-giants using the same module (the above sounds like they never could, but that’s just not true).

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Katinka, did you miss my recent comment below? I addressed your issues of time and not remembering which lenses the module was on.

Norma Budden

I’ve decided to look on the bright side; it will push me to my annual goal much sooner than expected. On a personal level, I can’t help but feel it just might be a blessing in disguise; time will tell. I will be happy to receive a list of the lenses which I have used the page break module on; it will make things much easier.

More time will definitely be good, though, especially since I have a blurb at the end of each page, redirecting viewers to subsequent pages.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WMBGNOPILKFZWL732G2K54G5VE ZedL

I hope this is a wake-up call for all people using squidoo and other social media websites. You are building someone else’s business, and you have put all the power in their hands. They decide what to do with your websites and when to do it, not you. When will you people wake up and just build your own websites?

http://twitter.com/rlmodranski Lynne Modranski

ZedL – you are correct – however, I had my own websites first, before Squidoo, and I didn’t and still don’t get even a portion of the traffic on those sites that I get on Squidoo. Perhaps I need more SEO; however, Squidoo does that work for me, for FREE and then pays me to have my content there. I may be building their business, but I’m selling my writings now. I never did that before. It’s a little bit of give and take and for me it’s a win/win!
http://www.facebook.com/kevinwilson1 Kevin Wilson

Many of us do. Squidoo is one of several streams of income for me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t value it, or care what’s happening here.
http://www.creditcardapprovalcenter.com/ Susanna Hamilton

ZedL.. Absolutely Right! There are some awesome lenses in here and people who are making some money. Can’t help wonder how much more they could making if they had the information on their own website. I think a lot of people like the security of a group and are a bit afraid to venture out on their own. However, sometimes you have to step outside your comfort zone to move ahead and become more successful. Having your own websites is all about content and links. Get that part down and you are on your way. The power is in your hands.. no one else’s.. and the best part.. the money is ALL yours.. no sharing it with anyone!

http://www.squidoo.com/what-you-should-know-about-the-occupy-wall-street-movement MiMi

Squidteam, great news that you are doing a new date and sending a list of page-break lenses to folks affected. …I was getting right panicky myself, and I don’t even have any page-breaks. :D
http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

WordPress won’t let us edit the original post right now (bug in their system that they’re working on) and so wanted to call your attention to this update from within the comments section from yesterday: http://www.squidoohq.com/2011/05/18/page-break-module/#comment-207234558. Also, that list of lenses with these modules is coming very soon. Thanks.

http://twitter.com/adriennejenkins Adrienne Jenkins

I like the automated default approach rather than having to copy and paste all the page break info. myself into the text module. Is there something I can do it myself like the thing you created to mass change the categories and subcategories ahead of time for the conversion or do I just have to wait for the conversion date?

http://twitter.com/KonaGirl June Parker

Bummer. I liked the page break. I was not only great for long lenses, but I used it to link together my series of Hawaii lenses. How much time do we have before it is no longer working?
http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

The original post has been updated with this, just to make sure no one misses it.

UPDATE: Please read this: http://www.squidoohq.com/2011/05/18/page-break-module/#comment-207234558.

And this: We have listened and decided to delay this module conversion to give you more time. I will post the new date when I have it, but suffice it to say this conversion will not be next week. Also, we are providing a list of lenses to the lensmasters who used the Page Break module. That is coming via email to all lensmasters who used it. Thanks.
Anonymous

I think this is a terrible move and it will impact on those who, like me, have used it with great success. Just because a few grumps don”t like it is no reason to change something we have built lenses around, It means a heck of a lot of work to change one of the lenses affected and this is turning me off.
http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/daoine daoine

I’m really sad to see this feature go. I’ve used it almost for a totally opposite purpose to its intention: I don’t want people to click on my “second page” because that’s where I store the images for my main lens if I need to do something fancy with them like having more than one image to a module. Or I put a “thumbnail” in the main lens and readers can click on that to go to the enlarged image stored behind the page break where casual readers wouldn’t see it. It was extremely handy for me to be able to set it up like that.

PS. Thanks for allowing us to sign in here with our Squidoo login. I’ve been wanting to comment since this was posted but couldn’t figure out how to work the Disqus thingy.
http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/Psycho-Gamer Psycho-Gamer

and i wanted it so much to use it when i would become a giant….so i can break down the lengthy lenses i make….bummer