This is not going to be a popular subject with the admins here on this site I dont believe.

First from my research and from the conclusions I have come to. The real estate directories such as www.epoweredprofessionals.com and www.relo-experts.com

Are capturing local real estate search phrases. This in its self is costing real estate agents that have rankings business.

Me personally I figure it could cost me 40k or more per year in business. Directories are meant to target national search phrases not local.

Since I see this as a trend I have recommended to everyone within our relocation group that they remove these sites. I will also recommend through other real estate sites that the same be done.

Since I know Doug who owns this site and Epoweredprofessionals as well will not be happy with this post.

It is time as Realtors we stop being scammed by these directories as to what benefit they offer us. Those realtors that dont rank in the search engines this has some benefit to but those of us that do rank it cost us money.

I believe by removing these types of directories it will affect their positions in the search engines greatly. I personally do not mind a directory coming up in the lower half of the top 10 for a search phrase of mine...but when you have them ranking # 1 2 and 3 for phrases like Atlanta real estate agent .. atlanta real estate...Boca raton real estate.. atlanta real estate... las vegas real estate agent and there are many others and I only use those because I search those markets.

Coming up for those search phrases pulls a realtor out of those top positions and that cost them money.

I can say this is a mission of mine dont know how long it will take but I will proactively fight and post to make sure all that are affected by this does something about it. We as website owners spend a lot of time and money on our sites to have someone whom you must pay to get listed in their directory to where it would offer you benefit have them pass you in the search results. This COST YOU MONEY in your market.

I believe that this post will be deleted but I hope that it doesnt. Either way this post is being posted on every real estate website forum and some seo forums that I am listed with. I am not the only one that feels this way there are a great number of realtors that have started to look at this and want to take action. Please check your own local markets and search phrases

If you have any comments please post them if this isnt removed. Would love to hear ALL opinions on this. I dont cliam to know it all but this is how and many others like me see it.

Atlanta Real Estate

I doubt this thread will be deleted because its kinda stupid and ass backwards.

P_L_E_A_S_E

ALL You have to do is knock off those sites they do not own the rankings. START your own site!

I thought that "relo" was a trade mark shouldn't be in a domain name. That's one way to knock em off ..lol . There are good ways to do it and bad ways to knock people off. Wow too much of the Soprano's for me.

Why is it that no one cares if a site ranks below them? hmmmm

If it is going to cost you 40k a year in two years that would be 80k offer him 60k cash for the site and you'll be ahead. J/K
Hell give me 30k and I'll do it

What happens if you have a new real estate site? boom you get a link and then you get traffic. Really that is the whole natural of the interent to share info and really is nobody's fault on how important the search engines think that site is.

PLUS the good news is ... nothing is set in stone! tomorrow everything could be different

Watch out
Yahoo ( parts) ZEAL, DMOZ are NEXT !@%$%^*(^


Don't get me wrong I am REALLY mad at google and am planning my little mlm type parody. you click on sponsors and you get fake money to buy REAL items at an online store. Googles greed is making me mad. hmm or is it my greed? hmm

Hey Wayne,
Don't hold back brother...tell us how you really feel It's obvious from your site that you put an enormous amount of time and effort into things and I can sympathize with having your traffic gobbled up by directories. That being said...how many people put in the effort that we do or ever will? The vast majority of the real estate sites out there would have exactly zero visitors if they weren't in directories. My feelings are that the tide will turn over time as Realtors become educated on the importance of having a real net presence and the fact that it costs money to do so. Aside from the directories... how do you think it makes me feek for my clients when everytime I turn on the TV I see ad after ad for sites like justlisted.com and so on. They convey the idea that this is some kind of wonderful service to the homeseekers...far from it. How much traffic do you think their sites would get if their marketing told the truth like : log onto our site and give us your information...we will then take it and sell it to realtors in your area for a profit"

Realtors and brokers continue to look for the fast free fix when the answer is comprehensive marketing, branding of themselves and their companies and investment in the future. Most fall into two categories from where I sit. Not willing to see the value and future or not willing or able to invest appropriately in their businesses. Case in point, Our clients have hundreds of full time proffessional agents. Since we are handling all their marketing,advertising, web stuiff and so on, we recently decided to create some programs for them that wouldn't cost them a dime. Free ad design help, marketing plan examination and restructuring, special website with ad templates, marketing stuff..yada yada yada... Since we launched and pushed it to them would you care to guess how many have taken any measureable advantage of it?.....exactly 7. Just so happens that these seven are in the top 10% in closed commissions. Go figure All we can do is coach, guide and help the ones who want it and take pride in that. Holy crap..did I just type all that

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Rich
Advertising, Marketing & Virtual Tours

Well I do agree that directories are good for real estate sites that are not ranked but as I said I feel that most of the directories take advantage of that market LOL.

To me directories are meant to target the national market not local. It seems more and more looking at there pages and code that most of them are targeting local market share...and the problem with that is that the realtors are the ones giving them the power and most are losing money from it.

2savvy.. I dont know if you are right that relo is trademark but if it is that is worht checking into. I have nothing against Doug ..I know he has has this site for a while and its really not him its that dam relo and part of that is my fault for linking to them...but after saying that I want to take them down.

I am just tired after all the work I have put in seeing these templete sites that really dont offe the consumer anything but a search form and the spam from &^% websites that get ranking.

If you saw that G results taking out the filter for the sandbox effect then you see that with the way the site is now would rank # 2 in google and I didnt see any directories on the first page. So maybe G will change again and we can all live happier LOL.

Thank you for the comments and I hope to hear more whether good or bad. Oh and Doug just because one of those is your site please dont feel like you cant throw your 2 cents in . I would love to hear what your personal take is on this.

Atlanta Real Estate

Wayne,
I am pretty sure it is I have 2 domains with relo in them but I haven't used them I think that was because I read it here
http://www.relodotcom/AboutRelo/trademark.aspx Please insert your own .

I think it's pretty weak ™ and just because they say it ... well you know

Good Luck

PS I had a link up to them but removed it because they changed their format and I wasn't listed anymore

Our own directory was started as a way to provide a benefit to our existing clients - at no charge. Agents who are not our clients can also be listed - at no charge.

We do not sell leads or anything of that nature. Visitors to the site are encouraged to contact the agents directly for Home Searches and Evaluations.

Last November Google decided that it no longer wanted to list Realtor's sites for searches such as "atlanta real estate". Instead, it now lists directories and sites it considers to be authorities. We have been the beneficiary of that.

By saying you want to "take us out" - singling out two sites - you are ignoring the fact that there are probably several hundred sites that rank higher than you in Google right now. You are mad at Google's algo and are striking out at what you think are easy targets for your frustration.

If we would be gone from Google tomorrow it would not change your ranking.

You may want to reconsider your campaign to take us out as it will ultimately hurt you as well. You see, one of the first rules of SEO is to keep a low profile and not to draw too much attention to yourself and what you are doing.

Once you embark on your campaign it is only a matter of time until Google has a look at your own site to see what all the fuss is about.

When it looks at your site it will see the link farm you are involved in - the cross linking with other sites from every page of the participants' sites. All participants will be either penalized or all links discounted.

In addition, Google will find that you have thousands of links from sites that sell links and those will be discounted too. The sites that sell those links will be penalized - remember Search King? Probably not as you have only been doing this for a few months.

The strategies you are using may work in the short term but not in the long term. Who will you blame for you PFA $40,000 loss then?

Well I do know that I am not ranked in google yet because of the sandbox effect..but without that filter

Yesterday I was number 2 today number 5 so this is what the results would be without that filter. So you can understand why I am upset. Plus as I stated my opinion directories are meant to target the national market not the local.

Well as far as what you call a link farm is only a relocation referral group. If you look as G would you will see a statement about what the group is and it explains why we all are together. As of today this group has filed for a corporation statis and a new domain is being build as we speak.

Well I would have to disagree with you on this is a short term fix. I know that you have been doing seo for a long time but I am also sure you know who my seo is. With that being said he would not do anything that 1. would hurt my site...2. Would hurt his reputation in this business with all the top notch clients he has..not for my little old site.

As I stated before you may not agree with me nor I you..but I wanted comments about this subject and I thank you for them. This however doesnt change the fact that I dont like those 2 directories taking local keywords and I will understand more after the next update.

Atlanta Real Estate



[This message has been edited by Soldbywayne (edited 05-05-2004).]

Even though the statment is on your web page regarding what the network is... you still need to be careful.

In the S-1 Form that Google filed with the SEC, Larry Page said:

We are susceptible to index spammers who could harm the integrity of our web search results.

There is an ongoing and increasing effort by “index spammers” to develop ways to manipulate our web search results. For example, because our web search technology ranks a web page’s relevance based in part on the importance of the web sites that link to it, people have attempted to link a group of web sites together to manipulate web search results. We take this problem very seriously because providing relevant information to users is critical to our success. If our efforts to combat these and other types of index spamming are unsuccessful, our reputation for delivering relevant information could be diminished. This could result in a decline in user traffic, which would damage our business.


Taken from: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504073639/ds1.htm

If it was meant to spam that would be different...But within this profession relocation partners are needed as a way of business.

So a relocation group I would not think could be penalized by any SE for offering a service to its consumers. This is one reason. Just as within a directory links are needed as a way of business...does that constitute index spamming??

Also I believe as to what he is eluding to as well is the fact that the indexing of keywords and anchor text that have no relevance to the content offered by the offending site.

I do understand when you have top sites on the web they are targets and I also know that G gets thousands of compaints a day about them. Because I know that my site and many others are in this line of sight there will be complaints..but as long as I have everything in line there is nothing I dont believe any Se would find wrong with it.

Thank you for your imput

Atlanta Real Estate

http://www.google.ca/webmasters/guidelines.html

Quality Guidelines - Basic principles:

Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users, or present different content to search engines than you display to users.

Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"

Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our terms of service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations:
Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
Don't send automated queries to Google.
Don't load pages with irrelevant words.
Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

This was taken from the www.realestatewebmasters.com site


Atlanta Real Estate


[This message has been edited by Soldbywayne (edited 05-05-2004).]

Good post Kristina!

Unfortunately Wayne, Google does not give you a chance to explain. They just look at the fact that you are linked from every page and think "link farm! Gonzo!"

There is no way you can rationalize the need to cross link from every page - other than it helps your link poplarity for the purposes of manipulating Google's ranking.

Anyway, it is off topic. If you have spent thousands of dollars on SEO that is not working as fast or as well as you would like it to - you should re-evalute your own stratgies and not lash out at others. As mentioned before - it will not help you one bit. Chill!

"Make pages for users, not for search engines."

Exactly. My concern was that you are not making your site for 'users' by having duplicate referral links on every single page of the site. I think having a referral network on 5-10 pages of the site is fine. That will provide you quality backlinks from your referral network.

If there is *any* concern at all I think it's just best to err on the side of caution.

The referral network may be fine...who knows. I would not recommend taking that chance though for people who are already sucessful in the search engines.

JMHO

Oh I am content with my Seo and have no problem with that.As I mentioned do you really think that an Seo that is as respected as he is and has the types of clients he does would do anything to hurt me his other business or his reputation. I dont think so.

I am fine with you Doug I just have a problem with directories and as I had said before when you are in the lime light you become a target. It just so happens that your directorie is in that lime light.

With the way G changes its algo all the time this maynot even be an issue next update but I wanted the opinions of others to see what others were thinking that have top notch websites.

Please dont take this as a direct attack on you personally..it is not meant to be one

Atlanta Real Estate

[This message has been edited by Soldbywayne (edited 05-05-2004).]

EEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTttt......
Sorry guys...Just thought I'd step on the brake pedal a little

We all have different sources and methods which is why I enjoy sharing with all of you. It's always been that way with SEO as far as I remember..Just don't let your egos get the best of you boys and girls

Peace out...

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Rich
Advertising, Marketing & Virtual Tours

I should stop posting... but just wanted to throw in that I don't think anyone is saying that your SEO is trying to hurt you. I don't believe that at all.

Rather, if there is something that I have a tiny bit of concern over the *possibility* of something bad happening, I wouldn't recommend it.


BTW - Doug, is there anyway to get emailed when someone posts at your forum? Personal preference: I like getting emailed when people post so I can go check it out... rather then forget what's going on and come back two days later to see a fun conversation I might have missed. Please let me know!