Hungarian Spaetzle Case Study

Welcome to the analytical and informational Hungarian Spaetzle Case Study where we lensmasters take a closer look at the analytics and statistics behind a lens. This case study profiled on the Topicability blog is a companion analytical analysis to Hungarian Spaetzle - Little Dumplings.

You know, being on Squidoo, we lensmasters GOT to participate in a bit of a social experiment. Oh, I’ve tried my own type of social experiment and sometimes it works and then sometimes it doesn’t work. It’s OK to admit that you made a mistake about something and then pick up your chips and move on. And, the important part of that social experiment is to hope AND sometimes PRAY that the others are professional enough to understand … and let it go!

So, I had an idea, long ago and far away, about doing a Hungarian Spaetzle Case Study lens to track a lens’s performance. In the beginning, I was more proactive with the lens promotion. However, life intervened and I took a backseat to the normal type of promotion. After awhile, one hopes for normalcy and for fairness and for a return to the good old days when things were simpler and articles rose because they were good and got normal traffic that was also good.

I don’t cater to asking every tom dick and harry for a Squid Angel blessing. If YOU think my lens deserves that blessing, well go ahead and bless it! Personally, I think this is a pretty swell lens.

Size matters folks — and it’s NOT just in little dumplings aka Hungarian Spaetzle! Thanks for dropping by … I hope I can fulfill your needs today.

Photo credit of obviously delicious Spaetzle taken by Kobako.

Hungarian Spaetzle Squidoo Lens Published

This lens was published at 9am EST on 8/31/09. Ranked #2,073 in Food, #46,019 overall.

I am using this lens on Hungarian Spaetzle as a “case study” lens to document how this lens is promoted and to chart lens stats. It was my idea to publish a lens to be used as a “case study” as I was writing on the topic of lens promotion for a special project. It made sense to me that a lens be the “case study” to show how lens promotion could impact lens statistics — including traffic and lensrank. So, I made that suggestion that everyone do a “case study” lens to demonstrate their topic of discussion on Squidoo and Squidoo lenses.

Of course, we all know the IMPACT of Squid Angels in that lensrank — so if a group of angels were to bless a lens, that could definitely skew the rankings. At this time, It is not believed that this lens HAS had many of those angel blessings. So the lensrank achieved for this “case study” lens should be truer to the lens promotion that has been used for Hungarian Spaetzle — Little Dumplings. Nowadays, with all the groups supporting group members, it is difficult to get many lensmasters’ ratings for non-group lensmasters. I don’t currently belong in any “groups” aside from Seth Godin’s original Tribes project. So, getting visitors to rate lenses demands more creative lens promotion!

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This lens was originally created on 8/28/09 and worked for for a few days before publishing. This screen capture, taken before Noon on 8/31/09, shows that the lens has a 5-star rating, been rated by 5 people, and is Ranked #2,073 in Food, #46,019 overall.

A bug: This lens was originally created on 8/28/09, but was held until 8/31/09 to publish. It got caught in the bug that showed the lens in red WIP on the dashboard. The bug assigned lensranks of Aug 29: 792,181 and Aug 30: 794,020 with a two day Average Lensrank for Aug of: 793,101. A bug report was issued to ask that this lensrank be adjusted to 0.

Hungarian Spaetzle - Lensrolled
This lens was lensrolled on 8/31/09. These is a rather 'heavy' number of lenses for a typical lensroll.

 
After lensrolling, throughout the day, this lens was added to social media platforms, first through the lens buttons to StumbleUpon, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, Delicious. It was added later in the day to Stumpedia, RedGage, Tagfoot, and ThisNext. A blog post was done on JaguarJulie Blog On and On along with a Posterous blog entry.

Hungarian Spaetzle - Dashboard Stats
As of 9am EST on 9/01/09 - Ranked #175 in Food, #2,880 overall.

Here are the Lensmaster Private Dashboard Stats as showing 24 hours after lens publication.

Traffic Sources:
Referral: 11
Direct: 10

Surfer Stats:
Clickouts: 10 (last 30 days)
Number of times lens has been emailed: 4
Number of times lens has been marked as favorite: 8

Referrers:
twitter.com
squidoomarketing.ning.com
tagfoot.com
facebook.com
stumpedia.com
squidoo.com
delicious.com
stumbleupon.com

Hungarian Spaetzle - Squidoo Directory Submissions - 9/01/09

Squidirectory – A categorized Squidoo directory featuring an interesting variety of different subjects ranging from arts and literature, shopping, and eco friendly tips, to vehicles for sale, travel, and everything in between.

Lensroll: Hungarian Spaetzle — Little Dumplings
The Isle of Squid
Squidom.com
Squidinkpot.com

Hungarian Spaetzle - Lensrank Chronology
Google and Yahoo started referring traffic on 9/02/09!

8/31/09: Ranked #2,073 in Food, #46,019 overall – 5 ratings – 5 stars
9/01/09: Ranked #175 in Food, #2,880 overall – 8 ratings – 5 stars
9/02/09: Ranked #134 in Food, #2,169 overall – 10 ratings – 5 stars
9/03/09: Ranked #134 in Food, #2,169 overall – 13 ratings – 5 stars

Hungarian Spaetzle - Lens Traffic - 90 Day Review
Taking a look back at the lens statistics for 3 months as of 12/20/09.

First of all! This is a very important statistic to note in the “case study” with regards to my previous comment about groups! See the previous module that reported “Lensrank Chronology” of:

9/03/09: Ranked #134 in Food, #2,169 overall – 13 ratings – 5 stars

Compare that bit of information with this lensrank AND ratings:

12/20/09: Ranked #1,200 in Food, #20,821 overall – 16 ratings – 5 stars

Does this NOT speak volumes that this non-group lensmaster’s lens has ONLY been able to garner 3 ratings in a 3.5 month time period? That equates to one vote per month! Heck, I’ve visited brand new Rocketmom’s lenses with some 19-20 votes right out of the gate! And, I’ve visited many of the other private/semi-private groups members lenses to see equally high number of lenses’ ratings — far more than the 16 ratings on a nearly 4-month old lens.

The power of Squidoo = the power of groups!

Hungarian Spaetzle - Thank YOU Google!

Google is responsible for bring the majority of traffic to Hungarian Spaetzle!

I’ve written much in my lensmaking experience about the power of Google and how it equates to the power of Squidoo in lens traffic. The cool pie charts that you can find on your lensmaster dashboard can give you a good idea of the health of your lens promotion.

According to the 90 day review of 12/20/09, Google is responsible for bringing in 59% of the traffic to Hungarian Spaetzle - Little Dumplings. That 59% is not a “little dumpling” in the composite of the “case study” of this lens. The other 41% of traffic is attributed to Referral, Yahoo, Direct, Bing, AOL, MSN, Ask, and Lycos. Discovery accounts for 0%. We all know that it is important to not “put all your eggs in one basket” if you are relying on a steady traffic stream to a performing Squidoo lens.

Are you a Spaetzle Lover?
Hungarian or Otherwise? Do you love LITTLE dumplings i.e. Hungarian Spaetzle? My grandmother made the best “Hungarian” Spaetzle ... little dumplings!

History: Hungarian Spaetzle : Little Dumplings was originally created on Squidoo by JaguarJulie on August 28, 2009. On January 25, 2011 this lens earned the Squidoo Purple Star Award for quality content.

Traffic is Both Down and Up

The topicability index for today has stopped on traffic. Many lensmasters have spotted an anomaly with the traffic to their lenses reportedly not registering correctly. I've noticed that as well ... enough to stop and do this blog post.

MHM-666

It's not just one or two lenses that are off, but quite a few which raises a bit of a red flag. While it is difficult to analyze each and every lens when you have over 445 lenses; I have looked at some of my more popular lenses which have always gotten good traffic. It's odd to see so many different types of lenses being 'off' ... can this be attributed to the time of the year? For the most part, school is out for the Summer. Are less people on their computers? Are people going to other sites?

Many are saying that their lenses aren't getting the traffic to which they've grown accustomed.

On the other hand, I've noticed other traffic that is way up! For example, my inbox is flooded these days with the good [thank you my friends], the bad [bummer!], and the ugly -- those spammy emails! Traffic might be reporting as down to lenses, but traffic is up with the number of emails.

Looking through some of my stats, it was quite interesting to see that 96% of my visitors are new and unique! That's up considerably from the 77% or so of previous months. It's great to see that new readers are discovering the benefits of Squidoo. Now, we just need to sort out what's happening with those numbers!

P.S. I'd like to see some seasonality studies -- I'll report back when I find some. Meanwhile, I'm off to find the traffic. May the force be with you! And, if you haven't yet discovered the benefits of Squidoo, why not join me as a lensmaster and we can discover that traffic together!

Yahoo Overtakes Google as Traffic Generator

There has been an interesting SHIFT in the traffic generators for pulling in readers to Squidoo lenses. Not so long ago, you would expect to see the majority of lens traffic attributable to Google searches. Now, you can clearly see that Yahoo is making up the majority of lens traffic. In this particular pie chart analyzing the make-up of 30 day lens traffic, Yahoo is 47%, Google is 19%, and Referral is 13%.

However, taking a look at the pie chart for the same lens for the previous 7 day traffic, you see that Yahoo is gaining on Google! Yahoo generates a majority of 52% of the traffic while Google has dropped by 2% to 17%! Interestingly, Referral traffic has held steady at the 13%!

In a previous Topicability blog post -- The Topicability of Traffic -- It's Just NOT Enough! -- I presented another pie chart which showed that Google was holding a commanding majority of lens traffic easily exceeding 55%! That doesn't appear to be the case any more!

P.S. Have you participated in the very topical Hey Monkeybrain debate, GOOGLE vs. YAHOO -- Which side are you on? Now is the time to be heard!

Traffic and Lensrank - Follow-Up

The other day, I discussed how total traffic cannot be the only factor in determining a high ranking in the Top 100. Today, I wanted to follow up in my non-scientific analysis to revisit some randomly selected lenses to see how traffic stacks up against other lenses in the Top 100.

For an interesting comparison, I will show the same lensrank from both days, with a comparison of the seven-day, total week traffic and current lensrank. These are NOT necessarily the same lenses! The listing in red is the lens and associated lensrank and traffic from the other day. Today's ranking and associated traffic is in green. I've added a few lenses to the mix, so the previous day's visits are not easily known. You'll note that some lenses seem to be getting LOTS of traffic -- those visits are bolded. For the most part, these lenses with lots of traffic are hitting the topicability index for what's hot in the news or for the past holiday of Valentine's Day. Those lenses one would normally expect to be in the Top 100 overall.

#1 Lens -- Total Traffic: 975 visits this week
#1 Lens -- Total Traffic: 983 visits this week

#3 Lens -- Total Traffic: 949 visits this week
#3 Lens -- Total Traffic: 783 visits this week

#9 Lens -- Total Traffic: 462 visits this week
#9 Lens -- Total Traffic: 3,847 visits this week

#12 Lens -- Total Traffic: 460 visits this week

#14 Lens -- Total Traffic: 452 visits this week

#15 Lens -- Total Traffic: 306 visits this week
#15 Lens -- Total Traffic: 291 visits this week

#28 Lens -- Total Traffic: 474 visits this week
#28 Lens -- Total Traffic: 995 visits this week
#38 Lens -- Total Traffic: 248 visits this week
#38 Lens -- Total Traffic: 5,667 visits this week

#56 Lens -- Total Traffic: 1,414 visits this week

#58 Lens -- Total Traffic: 265 visits this week
#58 Lens -- Total Traffic: 2,323 visits this week

#66 Lens -- Total Traffic: 447 visits this week
#66 Lens -- Total Traffic: 3,564 visits this week

#80 Lens -- Total Traffic: 1,432 visits this week
#80 Lens -- Total Traffic: 6,426 visits this week
#81 Lens -- Total Traffic: 841 visits this week
#81 Lens -- Total Traffic: 604 visits this week

#82 Lens -- Total Traffic: 269 visits this week
#82 Lens -- Total Traffic: 5,710 visits this week

#83 Lens -- Total Traffic: 17 visits this week
#83 Lens -- Total Traffic: 1,033 visits this week

The Topicability of Traffic

The Topicability of Traffic - It's Just NOT Enough. A really hot topic these days is still lensrank. Normally, a higher lensrank position would be equitable to higher traffic. But, because of other factors that is not always the case. To illustrate this phenomenon, I have randomly selected several lenses and looked at the seven-day, total week traffic and current lensrank. Have a look for yourselves:

#1 Lens -- Total Traffic: 975 visits this week
#3 Lens -- Total Traffic: 949 visits this week
#9 Lens -- Total Traffic: 462 visits this week
#15 Lens -- Total Traffic: 306 visits this week
#28 Lens -- Total Traffic: 474 visits this week
#38 Lens -- Total Traffic: 248 visits this week
#58 Lens -- Total Traffic: 265 visits this week
#66 Lens -- Total Traffic: 447 visits this week
#80 Lens -- Total Traffic: 1,432 visits this week
#81 Lens -- Total Traffic: 841 visits this week
#82 Lens -- Total Traffic: 269 visits this week
#83 Lens -- Total Traffic: 17 visits this week

As I am quite familiar with one of these lenses listed above, I know that it's best lensrank overall has been #4. It's had a lot of Google love for quite some time after being created in late 2007. This lens is a rather niche-like topic and not the standard fodder for most lenses. But, this lens has gained in popularity since 2008 thanks to the online buzz and also thanks to Martha Stewart.

Well, obviously online buzz and Martha Stewart can only do so much to contribute to a Top 100 ranking for a lens. It's been noticed that this lens has slipped in rankings. So, what has changed? There is a hypothesis that such a slip in the ranking of this lens is due #1 to a change in algorithm or #2 a lack of squid angels' blessings or #3 more squid angels' blessings for other lenses or #4 the dreaded squid angel ding -- but, we don't think #4 is the reason as we are optimists and believe that the lovely people behind the scenes would see that a high-ranking lens had received a ding and then swiftly remove it.

Many factors are considered when objectively ranking lenses -- perhaps the number of lensmasters who have rated the lens and favorited it; number of click-outs; total sales; and a variety of other factors that can be implemented to keep you on your toes and working on keeping your lenses fresh and loaded with quality content.