Why Do Search Engines Hate Real Estate Sites?

If you have a real estate website and have studied the search engines you are probably aware that se's are not thrilled with the multitude of real estate websites that they have to sift through for their search engine index.  I don't think our industry is treated fairly and with a true knowledge of our business practices.

I realize that there are many, many real estate websites and some use duplicate content and others use shady seo practices.  Many real estate agents don't know about seo at all and many that do cannot afford to hire professionals.  Some go out on their own and learn some blackhat methods such as hidden text, cloaking and keyword spamming.  They might not truly realize these are frowned upon by the search engines and can cause more harm than good. 

Then there are completely clueless agents that actually pay for blackhat seo without knowing it (until their sites get banned).  I feel sorry for them because I realize that not everyone has an interest in seo and general website maintenance like some of us do.  They find a so-called seo expert and shell out the cash for questionable tactics.

The SE's Just Don't Understand Real Estate

This was evident to me by a remark that a respected search engine pro made when doing a manual check of a real estate website at a conference.  He was referring to a real estate website linking out to an "unrelated" link source, a mortgage company!  Without mortgage companies there would be no real estate sales.  We just got an in-house mortgage company in my office.  Years ago my broker (at the time) was a partner with a mortgage company and we were trained on taking mortgage applications.  Real estate and mortgage companies unrelated?  Doesn't that tell you something about the se's not understanding our business?

Peer to Peer Linking

On the REW Forum there was a recent challenge of "to keep state directory pages or dump them"?  On one side of the fence are the members that feel linking from a site to agents in other states is unnatural and serves no purpose other than to unnaturally inflate incoming links.  On the other side are agents that truly feel they are offering a service on their sites to visitors that may be thinking about buying a second home or actually moving out of state.  They are setting up these state pages as a "referral" source, providing one or more agent's website with local MLS search.

Well, then those links should have a "no follow" to truly serve that purpose - in one se's opinion.  I disagree.  Why can't we pass on our votes and receive votes to our sites by creating a true referral network?  What is so wrong and what is really unnatural about it?  Agents are taught to network.  Again, se's don't understand real estate.

Real Estate Is Not Just Local

Real estate is not always local.  I worked with two relocating clients recently.  They came from other states to move to Illinois.  Was my website the catalyst for this?  Yes, although there was no referral involved.  These people did their own research and even bypassed agents they were working with but were not happy with.  In one case, the buyer started her search in a different area and found one of the areas I work in (via my top positioned website), and called me directly as it was a distance from where her other agent was showing her properties.

However, I do notice I get "hits" from other agent's sites that I've linked from.  I'm not sure whether these are other agents checking things out or true potential buyers, but there is activity.  In fact, I have personally used my own state pages to search for properties in states I might consider buying a property in.  I used my referral partners to search the MLS in different states.  I did not use a search engine, I started with my own state page partners.  If I do decide to purchase a 2nd home in Arizona or any other state, I will use one of my partners that I have gotten to know through my peer to peer exchanges.

Since I used my own state pages to search properties in different states, then I feel it is logical to offer this to visitors to my site.  Why force them to do a search on an se when I can provide them with similar information from my own site?  The older my sites are, the more traffic they receive.  I want visitors to bookmark my site and feel it's worthwhile enough to come back to.  So I like to offer as much information as possible.  I can earn money selling local real estate or by referring out to an agent in another state or country.  Why do we have to worry about offering this kind of non-local information on our websites?

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