On June 10, mainly as an experiment, I created my first Squidoo lens. In the Google SERPs, an RSS feed is outranking (currently replacing) my new lens.

Search phrase: Squidoo Windows XP Service Pack 3

Feed URL: http://www.feedage.com/feeds/2172637/squidoo-windows-xp-service-pack-3
Lens URL: http://www.squidoo.com/windows-xp-service-pack-3

I prefer that my lens would be listed in lieu of the feed. Any related observations and recommendations for enhanced ranking of my lens would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

We have that happen too. Sometimes our taxanomy page will outrank the original content. I tried to fix it by telling the SEs to not index the RSS or Taxaonomy in the robots.txt file. Sometimes they still do, but I am not sure what else can be done.

We have that happen too. Sometimes our taxanomy page will outrank the original content. I tried to fix it by telling the SEs to not index the RSS or Taxaonomy in the robots.txt file. Sometimes they still do, but I am not sure what else can be done.

Dan,

In your case, at least all of the URLs point to pages in your domain. (That's not to say it isn't a frustrating problem for you.)

In my situation, Google's results direct visitors to the feed's site. Since Squidoo is also not my site, I have little control over their use of RSS feeds and Googlebot's crawl rate.

While it is possible Google thinks that the feed's content is the original and the lens contains the duplicate content, I'd like to think Google can distinguish between a website and its RSS feed.

Interesting. I have read that Google gives a little rank for the page that first posted the content. Obviously you did that. I wonder if a Google bot hits them more frequently because they are updated more frequently? Maybe they have other more relevant content on their page because they are consolidating the content?

The only thing I could suggest is placing an original article (or more of them) outside your site and pointing a link back to your page. Maybe this can help your SERPS.

whittier picking which one ranks higher might be difficult but to resolve this issue you could delete the account or remove your feed.

As far as avoiding duplicate content or the source being filtered. It's good to make a slightly different version and include links near the start of your content.

you guys doing so good

Dan, I think that Googlebot got to the feed before it got to my lens. I cannot access Squidoo's traffic logs, so I don't know how frequently their lenses (pages) get crawled. I also don't know if pings are sent when pages are published.

There seems to be a 4-5 day lag between content updates and corresponding changes to Google's cached page.

Beu, I cannot control Squidoo's selection and use of feeds. I have to work with the tools they provide. The lens is intended to complement my blog and website, and create new SEO-related learning experiences. The traffic has not been overwhelming, but the trends are in the right direction.

I am trying to get from Squidoo, answers to the following questions:
- How often does Googlebot visit a lens?
- How soon after creating a lens can a lensmaster expect a Googlebot crawl?

Thanks guys -- please keep the comments coming.

Dan, I think that Googlebot got to the feed before it got to my lens.

I think that is the problem too. Maybe update your content more frequently and get that Google bot coming back more frequently. Also consider the links.

Again, I am amazed that Google would give them a higher rank even though they linked to your site - or did they link to your site? You might want to try to contact the webmaster and ask them to remove your content.

I think that is the problem too. Maybe update your content more frequently and get that Google bot coming back more frequently. Also consider the links.

Again, I am amazed that Google would give them a higher rank even though they linked to your site - or did they link to your site? You might want to try to contact the webmaster and ask them to remove your content.

The feed's page contains the opening paragraph of my lens (twice), and links back to my lens. In many ways, the feed's page is highly optimized and it should rank well for my search query.

Further information from Squidoo should help us understand the problem. One solution would be to ping the SEs with the URL of my lens. My ping might bring the bots to my lens sooner than their scheduled visit.

That is a great idea. Drupal automatically pings Google after every entry. Before we used Drupal, we used to go and ping it ourselves.

Seems like you could ping on the site you want to rank's behalf. That might help G see it more as the "source"...