Has anybody had any experience with worldhomesearch.com?

No i don't.. would you mine, what is all about that? thanks in advance..

Wow...seems pretty large scale. I would think having a single website to cover real estate throughout the world is a little excessive, but if they can do it, more power to them.

Has anybody heard that Google is beginning to penalize for excessive link exchaning?

They have penalized some Realtor sites in the past as a warning - see this blog post for more info. Link exchanges are usually just ignored by Google if excessive or not but the sites are not usually penalized. So link exchanges for the most part are just a colossal waste of time in the end - especially if you exchange with an aggressive trader (which is just about anyone who emails you for a link exchange).

worldhomesearch have been around for a little while now. Their website is in serious need of an update. My personal opinion regarding global real estate is that it is now an essential tool for all realtors across the globe. I know that might be a bias comment due to my business, but given the global credit crunch and the housing market slump in some parts of the USA and other countries, international investors are a good market. I spend my time between the US and Australia and there are a large number of international investors who want to buy cheap property "in distress". We are a global village, its not Marge and Bob up the road who buy the house as much these days... It is just as likely to be Raj and Taj from Dehli!

question for GreenMarketer -

what kinds of upgrades do you think are needed for the WorldHomeSearch site ?

just curious so our http://iNet-Directory.com site can benefit also

No problem Gringo Bob. Now the following comments are my own opinion and I say them with respect for WorldHomeSearch.com.

Firstly, they need to start again with their home page. I log on and it looks like a 1990s website, visually substandard. I also like to keep things simple. People only spend an average of 12mins (Hitwise.com) on their favorite websites, if they log onto a website like this, with a confusing homepage, with too many options (difficult to navigate), they are likely to go somewhere else because they have better things to do with their time.

In order to market agent's listings effectively you need to make it as easy as possible to see a listing. If a user has to click thru more than 5 pages before seeing a listing (Hitwise stats again) then they will go somewhere else.

They need to drop the forums and the blogs. Websites like this one are for forums and have a big community, Worldhomesearch will never catch up. Blogs need to be done by a professional (experienced agent) for credibility. They are a good marketing tool, done by someone experienced. No-one will read their blog.

1. They need a full make over of their website
2. They need to keep it simple, in other words cut out all the extra bits that wont value add
3. They need to focus on their core business, which is customer listings, rather than charge (from what I can see) an absolute fortune for banner ads
4. They need to make it as easy as possible for people to see the listings they want to see
5. They need some way to capture property seekers info so they can market future listings.

Theres just a few. I think they are on the right track as far as a global listing service, but they wont have a look in unless they are professional, in both look and operation.

PS: I couldnt see your website for some reason Gringo Bob?

So in a way, would you say that Google does penalize you for exchanging links because they are not going to recognize those links as carrying any weight or helping you move up the rankings?

Sure - the penalty for exchanging links with the sites of aggressive link traders (pretty much anyone who emails you asking to exchange links) is the time you have wasted. You can never get back the time - and it would have been better spent doing something that is more productive.