Home > Lensmaking Tips > How To Get The Greenlight

Squidoo has a really amazing set of filters and algorithms that scan new lenses before we allow them to be published. Some of the info we check is the content of the lens, the content on the pages it links to and the comments in the guestbook. All of this information is then analyzed by our magical, top secret algorithms and sent through finely-tuned filters to double check that any lenses that get published are up to snuff and representative of the high quality lenses we love to have on the site.

Unfortunately, no automated system is perfect and sometimes a perfectly good lens will be held back from publishing. When this happens you’re given the option to “Request a Greenlight.” This sends the SquidTeam a short note with the link to your lens so we can check it out, analyze the data and decide if the computer was right in holding the lens back from publishing. Think of it as a real-person “sanity check“. We offer you a “note” space where you can leave us a message, make your case and share any relevant information you think we should see when making our decision.

Today I’m going to give you some tips on how t0 write a good note and what we’d like to know about you and your lens. This information will help us to make an informed decision regarding the publish-ability of your lens. You don’t need to do all of these, and in fact, you don’t have to do any of them to get your lens approved, but all of this information would be very much appreciated by our hardworking team of real people. The more information you provide, the faster we can help you out.

1. Tell us why you’re qualified to write this lens

Did you draw from a real life experience? Read a really great book that inspired you? Tell me about it! Keep it short but mention why you’ve created the lens and what you know about your subject.

2. Send us the links to any sources you excerpted or your own site

Does your lens have excerpted content from another site? Are you quoting your own blog? Send me the links so we can compare the source with your lens. Our algorithms are fairly sophisticated when it comes to detecting duplicated content but again, they aren’t perfect. They make not be able to tell the difference between a verbatim copy/paste and an appropriate excerpt.

3.  Please and “Thank You” let us know you’re not a spammer

I often see short notes like “it is good and unique content” or “it doesn’t contain low quality” with greenlight requests. As you might expect, those lenses almost never contain good, unique or high quality content.

However, if I see a note that reads: “Dear SquidTeam: I wrote this lens about widgets because I used to work in widget factory” and ends with “Thank you!” I know you’re a real person writing a real lens that most likely deserves a greenlight. I open those tickets first. If all you send in is “it has my original contents”, you can be sure I’m going to save that ticket for last.

4. But don’t just sit on your hands, you have the power!

Don’t think that you have to wait for a greenlight request to get a lens published! Keep editing, re-writing and adding new, original content, then click that big orange “Publish” button!

Check out the links you’re using, there could be all manner of SquidDon’t topics mentioned on them or simply low-quality writing that’s been recycled from somewhere else. I often get a second note from a lensmaster telling me they were able to get their lens in publishable shape before I even have the chance to look at it.

A quick scan of our Scroll of Originality and the SquidDon’t Policy could help you to identify any issues that could be flagging an otherwise great lens. You should also police your guestbook comments for spam – often a lensmaster will update their lens and be unable to publish because they’ve received a few spam comments that they neglected to delete.

You can also head over to SquidU, our unofficial forum for users and ask our friendly community of lensemasters for their help.

Is there anything you’ve done to get a lens in publishable shape? Tips and tricks for creating original content? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

photo by [phil h] on Flickr