Realtor Websites, Real Estate Leads from Realtor Sites - Real Web Results Blog

Moved to a Wordpress Blog

2008-02-01T16:54:00.000-06:00

I have moved this blog over to a Wordpress blog so this is the last post here on Blogger / Blogspot. You can find the new version at http://www.realwebresults.com/

Free Buyer and Seller Real Estate Leads

2008-01-29T07:47:00.001-06:00

Today's Seller Lead is... Houston TX

Buyer Leads....Buffalo NY, Macon GA, Vernon BC, Grande Prairie AB, Pembroke ON, Langley BC, Nanaimo BC, Moose Jaw SK, Lloydminster AB, Niagara-On-The-Lake ON, Port Coquitlam BC

Information about these leads and how to contact me to obtain the lead for your area can be found in a previous post - Free No Fee, No Referral Real Estate Leads

Buyer and Relocation Leads

2008-01-28T07:30:00.000-06:00

Today's Buyer leads....

Orlando FL, St. Catharines ON, Lloydminster SK, Regina SK

Information about these leads and how to contact me to obtain the lead for your area can be found in a previous post - Free No Fee, No Referral Real Estate Leads

Today's Free HomeBuyer and Seller Real Estate Leads

2008-01-27T10:26:00.000-06:00

Information about these leads and how to contact me to obtain the lead for your area can be found in a previous post - Free No Fee, No Referral Real Estate Leads

Buyer Leads - Wasaga Beach ON, Surrey BC, Peterborough ON, Thunder Bay ON, Lloydminster AB

Seller Leads - Niagara Falls ON

Today's Free Real Estate Leads In Canada and USA

2008-01-26T08:28:00.001-06:00

Information about these leads and how to contact me to obtain the lead for your area can be found in a previous post - Free No Fee, No Referral Real Estate Leads

Buyer Leads - Toledo OH, Regina SK, Leduc AB, North Bay ON, Thunder Bay ON, Pembroke ON, Lloydminster AB

Seller Leads - Merced CA

No Fee, No Referral Real Estate Leads

2008-01-25T11:01:00.000-06:00

Being in the business of providing Realtor websites, I sometimes have websites up and ranking in search engines - waiting for a Realtor to take over the spot. When that happens I often get members of the public filling in the request forms (even though the site is identified as being in need of a Realtor).

Instead of letting these leads "fall on the floor" as I have been doing up until now, I have decided to make them available to local agents at no cost, no referral and no strings attached! I will be posting fresh (from within the last 24 hours) leads - usually daily - here on this blog. The leads include the prospects needs and their email address and phone number to make it easy to contact them.

If you are a Realtor who works in one of the areas posted and are interested in working one of the leads - simply email me letting me know of your interest and which market area and I will forward the lead to you.

Most of the buyer leads will be from Canada as the buyer traffic from US websites is being directed to local Realtors already. There will still be some US seller leads though so keep checking back to see if there is one in your area.

**I will be limiting the number of leads sent to any one agent to six - but you can always have all of the leads by simply taking our website package for the available area. We only produce one website package in each market area - so areas are exclusive.

To get started, below are todays leads...

Seller Leads - Fort Worth TX

Buyer Leads - Regina SK, Windsor ON, North Bay ON, Thunder Bay ON, Orillia ON, St. Catharines ON, Pembroke ON, Medicine Hat AB

Google penalizes Realtor sites as a warning to the industry.

2007-06-10T18:21:00.000-05:00

Last month, Google penalized Realtor websites from Advanced Access, RealEstateWebmasters.com, and a couple of other providers as well. According to Matt Cutts from Google's spam team this was a "shot across the bow" to the real estate website industry to warn that extensive reciprocal linking is not acceptable to Google. This was a manually applied penalty and not something (at this point) that happened algorithmically.

Why is extensive reciprocal linking not acceptable? Because it works - and causes individual Realtor sites to rank well for real estate related keywords and Google would rather not have individual Realtor websites ranking for general "my city real estate" keywords.

Google has always made ajustments where necessary to include or exclude sites in order to have the results presented that it deems appropriate. Google deemed many years ago that it is OK for Realtor sites to rank for "Realtor" keywords but Google would really rather have a different type of website ranking for "real estate" keywords.

The earliest attempt by Google to shape the "real estate" keyword results that I remember occurred around the turn of the century. Google used to give a lot of "weight" to a site if it was listed in the Open Directory Project and when this became widely known Realtors or their webmasters tripped over themselves to list their websites. It worked well and Realtor websites ranked well in Google of "real estate" keywords.

Google's response to this was to change the Page Rank all of the "city real estate" directory pages at the Open Directory Project. Where these pages all had a PR of 3 to 5 previously, they were all changed to PR0 which reduced the ranking benefit and caused Realtor websites to drop in rank for "real estate" keyword searches. At the same time, the caetgories for larger real estate authority sites retained theit PR resulting in these sites increasing in rank in Google at the expense of Realtor sites.

The second major attack on Realtor websites began back in the fall of 2003 with the famous "Florida" update where the majority of Realtor websites in competitive market areas dropped dramatically in rank to be replaced by directory-type "authority" sites. This change in Google's ranking was keyword specific and geographic specific - it was applied to a list of keywords in combination with geographic names. Some cities were not on the original list and were unaffected initially. More were added in the weeks that followed. Some areas actually avoided the "Florida" update altogther - at least for "real estate" keywords. It seems Google overlooked some City names altogether.

As soon as the Realtor web design industry discovered that the "authority" sites that replaced their Realtor sites in Google's results were little more than directories with lots of links pointing at them - the Realtor website designers included large directories organized in different categories within their own sites and set about aggressively trading links.

This strategy worked (depending on the quality of the incoming links) and in the last few years Realtor websites have slowly been reclaiming some of the good "real estate" rankings enjoyed by Realtor websites prior to the fall of 2003. That strategy has now been rendered obsolete or at least extremely risky with Google's recent penalties. Most of the sites penalized removed all of their directory pages, filed re-inclusion requests and many have regained their previous rankings.

The problem is, that these reclaimed rankings will only be temporary. Now that these websites have removed all of their outgoing previously-traded links, their former partners will be doing the same in return. When Google gets around to factoring the new lack of incoming links into the rankings several months from now - these websites will drop once again.

Google will be happy - many Realtor websites will once again be absent from "real estate" rankings. Realtors on the other hand need to be looking to the future and trying to figure out how they will get their name out in front of those searching the web for "city real estate" keywords.

Some seem to think that social networking and blog communities may be the answer and it may be in part - for Realtors who are willing to devote large amounts of time and energy into adding fresh commentary and content. You see, this solution largely removes the ranking onus from the webmaster and puts it onto the Realtor - which is not the reason Realtors hire webmasters / realtor website designers in the first place. Most Realtors would rather be toe-to-toe with buyers and sellers than sitting in front of a computer screen trying to think of something to say.

For those that do not find an attraction in social networking and blogging, you may want to explore being listed within the authority-type sites that Google seems to like for "real estate" keywords. In many cases it is possible to have an individual presence for your market area within such authority sites so a web page promoting you and/or linking to your main website is found in Google when someone searches for "yourcity real estate". This solution frees you from the computer and gives you more face time with real clients.

Web Hosting For Real Estate Sites - Some Things To Consider

2007-03-08T22:58:00.000-06:00

In addition to having my own web server, I use the services of over a dozen web hosts and in some cases have multiple accounts with each. I have usually done a bit of research prior to signing up with a new hosting company and have generally had few problems until recently.

It seems that the barriers to entering the web hosting business have lowered to the point where almost anyone can now set up shop as a web hosting company and present the appearance of a large, stable, and experienced web host - even though they may have entered the business only a few months ago and be flying by the seat of their pants.

Competition has increased and as a result and the cost of acquiring web space has dropped dramatically in the past few months while the amount of space and bandwidth included has increased just as dramatically. This has made some long-time web hosts unprofitable and takeovers are common. A reduction in support services has also been noticed as cost-cutting programs reflect the new pricing structures.

In the past few weeks one hosting company I had recently signed up with basically closed up shop - websites stopped working and the company became unresponsive. Their support ticket system forms went nowhere, their online help was not online, and their telephone went to an answering machine (calls were not returned). Most hosting companies offer a discount if you pay for the year rather than pay month to month. I lost a years worth of hosting fees because I pre-paid for the year up front.

At the same time as this was happening, another hosting company also became unresponsive - their support ticket system stopped working and emails were not answered. Oh, no! Not again! I had paid them for a year in advance as well. After 10 days or so, a phone number appeared on their site which led to an answering machine and to my surprise I did receive a response to the message I left. It seems that spammers had forced them to shut down their email and support ticket system.

Also at the same time as I was having problems with these two hosts, problems developed with another host that I had also paid a year in advance. This particular host was chosen specifically because the the large amount of webspace and bandwidth offered with the account. Within a month I began to to run into problems with the host turning off my services even though I was using just 10% of the web space and bandwidth I was entitled to. It seems that the host oversold the server so every time the server was overworked they chose the busiest website to shut down to relieve the pressure. Since I had the highest traffic, my site used the most server processes and ram and I would be shut down on that basis.

A couple of points to consider from my experiences these past few weeks - first, paying for a year instead of monthly to save a few bucks may not be a bargain after all. Second - the amount of webspace and bandwidth offered is really meaningless unless you plan on filling up the space and plan on having little traffic coming to your site.

How do you tell a good host from bad? It is pretty hard nowadays as some hosts that used to be good and have been around for many years are now feeling the pressure of competition and their services have deteriorated or may be doing so soon. You can however increase the odds that the host you choose will be good by checking for a few things...

1) How long has the host been in business? Check the Wayback Machine at Archive.org

2)Is there a phone number on the site in addition to email and a Support Ticket System?

3)Do they have Community Forums? That is a big one for me as it is evidence that the host is open about their business and is willing to communicate with their customers. You can check the forums to research how long they have been in operation and how responsive they are to complaints. Most Hosts with forums use the forums to post server announcements as well so if you are having a problem you can quickly check whether it is a server problem or just you.

If a host checks out well on the above three points, they usually check out well on all of other items that may be important such as the quality of their servers, frequency of backups, etc.

You may notice that I did not mention price as an important thing to look for - it isn't really. You can pay too much of course - but you can also pay too little. By trying to save too much you usually end up with more trouble than you can bear. Be willing to pay a competitive price.

Paying monthly gives you the peace of mind that you can make a change at any time if the service is not good - on paper it may cost a bit more but it increase your flexibility.

Concerns About Website Visitors Clicking On Links And Leaving Your SIte

2006-12-14T07:53:00.000-06:00

From time to time I hear from Realtors who are concerned that if they link from their site to outside resources they are just creating a way for visitors to leave their site. I used to hear this concern more than I do now as in the past this fear was widely planted by some template companies who were trying to attach a benefit to the framed sites they were offering. Now most template companies, in attempts to make their products more search-engine-friendly, have stopped using frames (on their main entry page at least) so they are not promoting this "benefit" as much as they used to.

When Realtors do express concern over linking out from their site, here is my usual response...

Concerns about people clicking on links and leaving your site never to return are really groundless. It is a myth that has been circulated over the years by "gurus" who base their pontifications on their speculation and not their experience and by template site companies trying to sell their framed environment as a benefit.

Here is what really happens... people do not arrive at your website due to random surfing - they arrive because they search for specific word combinations in search engines and your site ranks for those words. Although people will use and find a Realtor's site for well over a hundred word combinations they all have something in common - almost all are looking specifically for listing information.

When they arrive at your site they head directly for your Home Search Form and your MLS Listings page - with laser precision. I am sorry to say but the rest of your site (especially information about you) is ignored for the time being so there really is no danger of losing prospects to another site. How do I know this? From over a decade of studying log files and the patterns they reveal.

The other pages and links on your site are not useless though. Aside from being important in search engines they do prove beneficial to your clients - after they become your client that is (when there is little danger of your losing them).

After a prospect has visited your Home Search Form and submitted it they usually leave your site to continue their quest for homes. Your receive the form and respond and begin a relationship with the prospect. At that point the prospect (especially out of town prospects) returns to your website and starts to go thru the rest of your content and really do appreciate it at that point.

The links to informative resources outside of your site are important to your clients - and there is no danger in losing a client because of them. In fact, they help to cement the relationship because your website becomes an important resource for them. You will find that people will time after time tell you exactly that when they are sitting in your car while you are showing them homes :)

Links leaving your site are also important to search engines when they are trying to figure out how to rank your site. If you link out to other real estate sites - especially those that are recognized by search engines as authority sites - and local information sources, it is a good thing and does help your ranking. Who you link to is as important as who links to you.

If you link to off topic sites (gambling and Viagra sites and the like) you will never rank well. It is a rare site indeed that will rank well in a competitive market with no links to other relevant resources leaving their site.

So if your site is properly designed to attract clients looking for real estate in your market area - pay no attention to those fears that that links leaving your site are just avenues for your visitors to escape. Those links are really an important component of your site's success.

How To Stop Spam - I now receive just 1% of the spam I used to get!

2006-11-10T22:30:00.000-06:00

Don't you hate spam? I used to receive over 1000 spam emails a day and it used to drive me crazy. I would wake up in the morning to find 600 in my inbox waiting for me - now there are just 6.

The best part is that stopping all of that spam costs nothing - it is absolutely free!

How do I stop all the spam from reaching me? I use Gmail, Google's free email service, which has excellent built-in spam filtering and I add my own filters to block even more.

All of my email accounts actually forward to my Gmail account which filters the email. So, I really only have one email account as all of the rest simply forward email to it. I use Gmail as webmail so it is accessible from any computer but I also have my email client (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.) download copies of the email just as you would with a normal email account.

When doing this, all of the spam is left behind and only the good email ends up on my computer. As an extra bonus, the end result is my email is backed up in two places - on the web in the Gmail account and on my computer in my email program - and I see next to no spam.

Email sent through Gmail on the web is also downloaded on to your own computer when you check with your email program so you have duplicated copies of sent email as well.

With Gmail I get no spam, email accessible from any computer, backup copies of all my incoming and outgoing email, and it is all free.

You gotta like that!

Google's Page Rank Is No Longer A Hot Topic

2006-10-04T15:44:00.000-05:00

In search engine forums around the internet people obsess over Google and every twitch it makes. Any time there is a change or a snippet of new information discussions are rampant for days and weeks.

It comes as a bit of a surprise to me that there has been almost no discussion about Google rep Matt Cutts' October 2 blog post titled "More info on PageRank".

I guess people have finally woke up to the idea that Page Rank is now just a very small component of Google's ranking algorithm now. It sure took a long time - we first discussed the Death of Page Rank back in June 2004!

Triangular or 3 Way Links

2006-09-14T16:53:00.000-05:00

We have all been inundated lately with requests for triangular or 3 way links. So far I have refused them all for myself and my clients. Why? Because those being offered are of minimal value - except to those doing the offering of course.

A triangular or 3 way link is one where website A links to website B but instead of B linking back to A - a different website - C - will link to A. The way this scheme is always offered is that the link you provide to B is valuable but the link you receive in return from C is worthless or at best worth a lot less.

The only such triangular link exchange I would recommend my clients accepting would be in the case where C is also a real estate site, the links page is listed in Google, and the links page has Page Rank at least as high as what you are giving in return. That way it is a win-win exchange rather than a "you lose, sucker!" exchange.

The only likely way to find such a win-win exchange is probably in a situation like my own where one person (me for example) controls many real estate sites. That way sites B and C can be equal and C is not just a low value site set up for links. Hey! Maybe I will start doing some triangular win-win trades myself this fall! If you can offer a link on a page in your real estate site that is actually listed in Google and has PR and want to receive the same in return in a triangular exchange - email me referencing this post and maybe we can get something going. I could do bulk trades with dozens of sites as well.

Yahoo Penalizes Template Sites

2006-07-19T12:44:00.000-05:00

Lately internet forums that discuss real estate and SEO issues have been buzzing about Yahoo and the across-the-board penalty doled out to two of the most popular template sites used by Realtors. These penalties actually happened a few months back but I guess many agents were just waking up to the fact that their presence in Yahoo had disappeared.

This should have come as no surprise as Yahoo has been penalizing template site companies and all of their sites for many years now - ever since template sites for Realtors first began. Those of us that were aware of the issue have been expecting these latest penalties for quite some time now. I wrote about this issue a few times over the years in posts at the Agents Online Real Estate Idea Center... -back in June 2003 I wrote "Something most Realtors are not aware of is that many popular web site providers have set up hidden "link farms" in an attempt to improve the rankings of their search-engine-unfriendly sites and in these cases almost ALL of their web sites end up being penalized. The list of the guilty include some of the biggest and most popular website providers who shall remain nameless..."

In October 2005 I wrote specifically regarding Yahoo and template sites - "a similar fate has happened to other template site providers in the past. It goes something like this...

The template site provider gets the idea to link their Realtor's sites together to improve search rankings. It works! Their sites move up and in some areas dominate the top results in Yahoo. After a year or so Yahoo notices this - probably from complaints from the public who do not think 8 out of the top 10 results from the same website provider is a good idea(they all look the same to a searcher). Since large template providers have thousands of sites this is a big problem for Yahoo. They take action and the sites no longer rank well.

It has happened to all other template providers that linked their sites together in the past. I am sure the company thinks their way of doing it (non reciprocal or 3 way links) escapes detection by spiders but the way the penalty has been applied in the past leads me to believe that the penalty is manually applied. Sometime too much success is a bad thing...."

One thing I found interesting is that although the penalties are applied to all websites using the guilty provider's services, in the past that penalty would still apply to the domain long after the agent had moved the domain and created a new site. I have had clients who had domains hosted by penalized template site providers and it was still impossible to get good rankings for the domain years after it had been moved. The only solution was to use a new domain. This might not be the case if the current penalized companies are able to successfully negotiate reinstatement but if they can't my previous experience suggests that the affected domains are probably now damaged goods.

Google's Matt Cutt's "Big Daddy" Timeline Is Revealing

2006-05-19T21:53:00.000-05:00

One of the more public faces of Google - Matt Cutts - has an interesting blog entry about the timeline of Google's implementation of "Big Daddy", Google's new search structure which has been unrolled over the last few months.

There are some interesting points made in the article which confirm some things that have been "known" for a while and also one or two points which may contradict some commonly held beliefs.

One thing to take note of is that linking is still important but who you link to and who links back to you is far more important than the number of links. In particular, If you are buying links or exchanging links on sites that are not related to real estate you are probably receiving no benefit.

Likewise, if you put links on your site to "spammy" sites and sites not related to real estate - especially if you put these links on your main entry page - you are telling Google that your site is not important and you will find yourself ranked accordingly.

Unfortunately, (for the mortgage industry) Matt does specifically mention a real estate site linking to a mortgage site as a "spammy" link. This may have to do with the industry itself getting a bad rap because of all the email spam from the mortgage and loan industry that we all receive. I personally don't think that there is a problem with linking to mortgage sites but because of Matt's comments I would refrain from doing so on the entry page of a site.

The article seems to be intent of discrediting the practice of exchanging reciprocal links and also link buying and selling. From Matt's comments, I would say that exchanging links with non-real estate sites is not a good thing and likewise buying links on non-real estate sites (which some do when trying to increase their Page Rank).

I think for the most part exchanging links with quality real estate sites where the link you receive in return is on a page that Google includes in it's index is still a good thing. I have written about this in the past and also have given detailed instructions for checking if a link exchange is worthwhile.

The article also mentions that Google has no trouble spidering deep down the directory tree - and that is something that some thought was a problem. Matt says in the article that Page Rank is a much larger factor. That statement basically says that Google still considers Page Rank to be important and that pages with higher Page Rank will be spidered more often.

The belief of most SEO's is that while Page Rank may influence spidering it does not influence that actual rank of a site as it once did. Still, if you can exchange links where your link will reside on a page with good PR - any PR on a links page is probably good nowadays - you will probably gain some real benefits simply because the page will probably be spidered and will probably remain in Google's index.

With this implementation of "Big Daddy", sites that have experienced a big drop or disappearance have likely done so because they have "spammy" links on their own main entry page or many of their link partner's pages have been downgraded or removed from the index because they are of low value.

To rank well in Google requires links from "trusted" sites - which now may be considered to be any links page that is still in Google's index and that has Page Rank. Just as important is to be careful about the quality of the sites that you link to - as that tells Google a lot about the quality of your own site.

How Often Should A Website Be Updated?

2006-04-13T09:03:00.000-05:00

I received an email from a client wondering about how often a website should be updated..." I have been reading Florida Realtor magazines and they suggest I should be "touching" my web site every other week to keep it fresh."

My response....

The idea the a website should be "touched" or updated frequently is for the most part an old-wives tale I am sorry to say. Most of the so-called experts who recommend such a thing actually have no idea what the roots of the frequent updating pastime are and are just repeating something they heard from someone else years ago.

Many, many years ago (9 to be exact) the most favorite search engine on the internet was AltaVista and AltaVista's spider would "learn" which websites were updated often and then return to re-spider those websites more often than websites that were not updated often. It was thought at that time that if a spider returned to your website more often then your website would rank higher (which was not true anyway).

Along came the template website industry and they needed to find some benefits to sell to prospective customers. Since just about the only thing a template site has to offer is that it allows an agent access to the website to make changes themselves whenever they want - the idea that a website should be updated frequently to be more successful was a perfect fit! The fact that any changes done to a template site could not be spidered by search engines anyways was ignored and the "spin" was changed a bit so the idea became just updating - period - was a good thing. So, the idea that websites should be updated frequently in order for a website to be successful grew legs and started to run because it helped sell template sites.

Altavista stopped being the most popular search engine on the planet many years ago - well before the turn of the century but the myth of frequent updating has been kept alive by the template site providers. All of it is unnecessary. Actually, "Guerrilla Marketing" says the opposite - that marketing should not be changed - that the public never tires of your old campaign and changes actually cause you to lose prospective customers - that the biggest mistake marketers make is making changes just for the sake of change.

I have clients who have not touched their website in 9 years! In fact, they hesitate to do so because they think making changes could ruin the good thing they have going - if it works why make changes? The fact that they have made no changes in 9 years has not hurt them at all - of course it wouldn't since the idea that a website should be frequently updated is not valid and is not based on any sound marketing or SEO ideas.

Actually nowadays Google looks upon changes with suspicion and if you make big enough changes they will actually drop your site from the search results for several months until they make sure you are not trying to "game" them and that your website's focus is essentially the same.

So, relax! You have no reason to waste your time fiddling with your website - go sell some houses instead :)

Check Your Reciprocal Links! Most Have Stopped Linking Back To You!

2006-02-23T10:03:00.000-06:00

I would recommend that you regularly check to ensure those you have traded links with are keeping up their end of the bargain. You may be surprised at what you find. Today for example I was checking the reciprocal links of a client's site and found that 100% of the links we had carefully accepted over the last couple of years had stopped linking back. Every last one!

The links we were providing to these cheaters were all good links on a PR3 page - which was way better than we were getting in return in the first place. There was no reason for these sites to remove their link back. I guess some people just like to take advantage of others.

So, even if you carefully check out potential link exchanges (as outlined in other posts here) to ensure that you are getting a fair trade - you need to keep checking to make sure you are still getting value and are not being taken advantage of!

Real Estate Blogs

2006-02-09T16:24:00.000-06:00

Realtors are increasingly discovering the world of blogs and are beginning to use them to convey information about themselves and the real estate market in their area.

A blog is really just a web page you can post content to even if you do not have any web development skills.

A Realtor can use a blog to post listings, real estate news, interest rates, and it can be branded and publicized to reflect a local real estate market to attract regular visitors. A blogger just needs to find something good to write about everyday, but can be short.

Blogs are easy to set up and there are tons of good free blogging software out there, like blogger.com which hosts this blog.

Now there is a brand new search-engine-friendly directory that lists real estate blogs and also blogs of industries affiliated with and servicing the real estate industry. The directory is brand new - in fact this blog is the first one to be listed. You can find it at http://www.real-estate-blogs.com.

More To Look Out For When Exchanging Links

2006-01-21T11:07:00.000-06:00

In an earlier post I outlined how to tell if an offer to exchange links was worthwhile. Lately there has been some talk that exchanging Reciprocal Links no longer works. The fact is that link exchanges still work although I believe some carry more weight than others. It has been widely noted in SEO forums (and I agree) that a link from a site whose links are organized as a "web directory" IS ignored.

By "web directory" I mean where they have multiple categories not related to the actual theme of the site - so if a real estate site has a links directory that has categories for travel sites and health insurance sites etc. - you probably get no benefit from the exchange.

Also, if a site uses popular links programs like Linksmanager you most likely get zero benefit from from the link as Google would recognize such programs and ignore links from them.

It IS getting harder and harder to find link exchanges that are of value but there still are some out there.

Google's Honeymoon With The Media May Be Coming To An End

2005-11-13T23:15:00.000-06:00

When Google first appeared on the scene its relevant results and word of mouth advertising quickly propelled the search engine the top of the search engine heap. The media caught on to this as well and the gushing stories about Google solidified its position.

A couple of years ago - when Google implemented its infamous "Florida" update - many in the SEO industry began noticing that search results were not as relevant as they used to be and since then this has been a topic for discussion in most SEO forums. Those of us who have an interest in search engines have our own experiences with Google providing irrelevant results to our searches and we have heard the same complaint from friends and relatives who have no connection to SEO as well.

The media has until now continued to speak of Google and their search results in positive terms but tonight I saw my first evidence that the media too may becoming aware of some of Google's relevancy problems. Tonight on Canada's CBC Network on their national Sunday News program there was a piece about doing research for Canada's John Macrae and his poem "In Flanders Fields". It seems that in Google's top 10 results they found an anti-immigration site - which led to a warning to parents to be aware that their children should not rely on Google to research Homework assignments.

This is quite a change as Google usually enjoys bubbling media comments recommending it as the place to find whatever a person wants.

How does this affect real estate websites? I think it means Google's popularity has probably peaked and that other search engines such as Yahoo and MSN are going to increase in popularity. If up untill now you have been thinking of Google as being the only search engine that mattered - it is time to pay more attention to making sure your real estate website has good visibility in the other major search engines as well.

Google's "Jagger" Update

2005-11-01T18:33:00.000-06:00

Google is once again in the middle of a major update - this one has been dubbed "Jagger" and the good folks at Google have been kind enough to tell us that Jagger is actually being rolled out in 3 parts. As of this writing, we are still waiting for the completion of Jagger2.

This update did not just begin - the changes some are seeing now have been happening for several weeks now as Google has been incorporating new backlink and PR updates into the indexes. The update was just recently given a name but probably has been underway for many weeks.

So far, both Jagger1 and Jagger2 seemed to be primarily about how links are evaluated. Real estate sites that participate in link exchanges where identical pages of links are exchanged among a group of websites have suffered. The value Google places on different links probably has changed too to which has caused some sites to go up and others to go down.

Duplicate content (anytime Google sees the same content on more than one web page in its index)and improper redirections (not using a 301 redirect) have been an ongoing issue with Google and with this upddate more sites seem to be hit with penalties because of this.

It will be at least another week until Jagger is finished and it is best to wait until it is all over before evaluating how your site is affected. However, here are a few recommendations.... if you do participate in any link schemes where the same block of links are exchanged between participants I think you can safely discontinue that. If you have a template site where your provider links your site with other sites they produce - you can bet Google and Yahoo have you in their sites if you are not already penalized for this. If you have pointer sites that are redirected to your primary website using the redirection service offered by your domain registrar - you should be aware that usually these are not 301 redirects - the only safe redirect to use these days. Make sure that you always use the same url when linking - either http://www or http:// - if you interchange the two Google picks up on this and often thinks you have duplicate content and penalizes.

None of this is new really - it has been going on for a long time. Google just seems to be tightening the screws more with each update.

Over 30% of Your Site Visitors Are Not Using MSIE

2005-10-01T14:29:00.000-05:00

I was just going through some of my website statistics and was surprised to find that over 30 percent of visitors are now using a browser other than Microsoft Internet Explorer. This is a very large increase in the past year and it is important that website owners and webmasters understand that websites do not display the same in all browsers.

If you design your website (especially if you use a Microsoft product to do so) and never check to see how it displays in some of the more popular non-Microsoft browsers like Firefox and Netscape you may be interested to know that your website may look horrible to 30% of your website visitors. In some cases it looks so bad that visitors will leave immediately.

It is probably not a good idea to be turning off a rapidly increasing number of website visitors!

If you only check your site in one other browser -I would suggest you do so in Firefox which is available for free at http://www.mozilla.org/. Firefox and Netscape display pretty much the same as far as I can tell and those two browser's make up the lion's share of MSIE's competition.

Google's "Bourbon" Update Still Not Finished

2005-06-02T10:09:00.000-05:00

Google began another major update of it's search results about two weeks ago and according to Googleguy (a Google representative who posts at Webmasterworld Forums) this update is incorporating "3.5 improvements to search quality" and they have not finished yet. The last improvement is slated for next week and then there will be an adjustment period where search results still are not settled. That could last an additional week or two going by past experiences.

Googleguy says to take a rest from checking your site positions until then because you may go crazy watching the major fluctuations. I would agree with that- no point in getting all worked up until you know for sure how it all ends up!

Disabling Right-Click Is No Solution For Content Theft

2005-05-24T17:41:00.000-05:00

Some agents are concerned that their website content is being copied by others and are looking for a solution. Various website providers and webmasters have been recommending and implementing a so-called solution that prevents web surfers from accessing the menu that is seen when the right mouse button is clicked.

This is done because when that menu is accessed one of the choices is "View Source" which allows the code to be seen. The thinking is that if you can prevent the code from being seen then you can prevent it from being copied. A nice thought but most webmsters and anyone but a web "newbie" knows this to be total fantasy.

There are many ways to access the web page code if someone has disabled the right mouse button menu - including just using the "view source" option under "View" on the toolbar above the open window. One can also just save the page using that option under the "File" menu and also turning off javascript disbles the code that is disabling the right-click menu.

So, the only people who would not be able to figure out how to view the code are so new on the web that they would also have no idea of how to copy the code once they viewed it. Disabling the right-click menu is no solution at all.

If you are one of those who is doing this on your own website - you should ponder this... according to your logic, web surfers only know how to use the right click menu and not the toolbars above the window. So, by disabling the right-click you are not only preventing people from viewing your source but you are also preventing them from bookmarking your page - and with Firefox - from bookmarking your page and/or sending the page to a friend.

It seems to me that even under your logic (or your webmaster's logic) disabling the right-click function in an attempt to prevent content theft is probably a foolish and costly idea!

New Google Patent Indicates Direction Of Changes

2005-03-31T19:10:00.000-06:00

In a new patent application filed in December 2003 and made available to the public today, Google gives clues to the changes that began with the Florida Update in November 2003.

The Document is titled "Information Retrieval Based On Historical Data" and basically outlines all the ways Google would like to use your site's past history in determining its present ranking. The document also makes clear that Google now takes a whole site into consideration when ranking unlike PageRank which just considered individual pages.

Some quick points that I jotted down include...

- The inception date and history of a domain, DNS Records, site, content, links, link text, changes, traffic etc. are all tracked (or will be) and are taken into consideration when ranking a site.
- There are different ranking criteria used to evaluate different keyword queries.
- Google puts a great deal of attention on using many different ways to find link exchanges, paid links, doorway pages - anything that appears to be unnatural is now or soon or will be caught and penalized.
- Penalties for acquiring links too fast or too slow, also for having many links with the same link text or different link text
- Commercial queries treated differently. Sites targeting commercial keywords are automatically suspected of spamming.
- Changes in your traffic - up or down - may not be a good thing for your site.
- How often a page is selected from search results and how long visitors stay there compared to other sites is taken into consideration.
- How your site ranks over a long period of time is tracked. A sudden increase in your ranking would lead Google to look more closely to see if you are spamming.
- Age of the domain and how long you registered it for is important. Spammers often just register a domain for just one year. A domain registered for 10 years is likely not a spammer.
- The quality of the advertisers on your site is important.
- Changes in the topics covered or an increase in the number of topics your site covers would be a cause for concern.
- How often a site is found from Bookmarks is important. One way such data is tracked is by using non-browser sources - such as the Google Toolbar.

There are many other points not mentioned here so you may want to read the document for yourself. From my experience some of the items talked about have already been implemented and others have not yet been. At least we now have a confirmation of the direction Google is taking - and many theories (sometimes portrayed as fact) have been dispelled.

Roughing IT!

2005-03-31T08:47:00.000-06:00

Where I live, this week has been Spring Break and the kids are off school and in need of activities to keep them occupied and out of mischief. So, I figured it would be a good time for my pre-teen son and I to head up to the family camp along the shores of the Winnipeg River in North West Ontario and take care of some work that needed to be done there.

The lengthy drive was quiet and peaceful - because "modern times" allowed my son to watch DVDs on my laptop the whole way (with head phones on as a bonus for dad!). Once we arrived at our destination, we found that there was still a couple of feet of wet snow in the bush so had to put on snowshoes and make the trek through the bush on a trail we shared with deer carrying our gear with backpacks and hands full. It took two trips to pack all our gear in - You would be amazed at how heavy a notebook computer becomes when carrying it through two feet of snow!

The cabin had settled over the years which caused the sewer pipes to no longer flow downhill which in turn led to frozen waste in the pipes - and broken pipes. Our job was to fix it. I had cleverly planned this exercise for Spring Break and foolishly thought it would still be cold enough that all the spilt sewage would still be frozen on the ground. Wrongo!

It was like a pig wallow under there and to top it off there was only 14 inches of room under that part of the cabin - what a smelly mess! I can honestly tell you that this was one if the most unpleasant jobs I had ever tackled. Add to that the fact that we had no water except for the melt water running off the roof - on its way under the cabin where we were working!

This was one of those weeks where absolutely everything that could go wrong - did. Now, being out in the wilds like that under those conditions - may lead some to believe that we were really roughing it - and we were. But just to show how times have changed - guess what my son and I agreed was the worst part?

The horrible thing was that we were stuck using a dial-up internet connection on a bad telephone line - it was unbearably slooooow!

We could have put up with any discomfort that nature and circumstance could throw at us - but the lack of a high speed internet connection was the one thing that we found the hardest to bear.

"Roughing it" in today's world is a whole lot different than it was even 5 years ago!