Buying Links from Authority newspapers.

[Falcon Living]

OK here I am looking at other markets. I come across cohomefinder.com. The site is a PR7. I go "NOO WWAAAYYYY". I check out his links in yahoo. What do you know, the guy bought 4 links in two major colorado newspapers with pR7 links (under a box named sponsored links). So I ask myself. Is buying links allowed? Why is google not going after these major authority websites like it did go after BMW. So blatant, simply not fair. Not even an option in google to report such a thing. What do you do? I mean Morgan this guy is about to beat every client of yours out there in Colorado (strangely he does not show up for Denver Real Estate but shows up for Denver Colorado Real Estate (ranked no1 or 2 for other City Real Estate keywords as he is going after every major city in Colorado. Who do you report this to?

[ResaleBroker]

I mean Morgan this guy is about to beat every client of yours out there in Colorado (strangely he does not show up for Denver Real Estate but shows up for Denver Colorado Real Estate (ranked no1 or 2 for other City Real Estate keywords as he is going after every major city in Colorado.

Mert, are you thinking that this guy is going to beat REW's Colorado clients in the SERPs because he bought a few PR7 links?

[Falcon Living]

No he already beats other agents with 95% of the major Colorado city keywords. He beat the others not only because he is a PR7 website but also he has quarter million pages on his website and he knows his SEO (even the links he bought were not home page links but 100% relevancy links. But being a PR7 site with a lot of pr 6,7 pages sure as heck does not hurt.I believe in being an authority site by being a pr7 or above. I just think it really really sucks that you become one by buying 4 links.

[Memphis]

I read some where, where "G" was getting better at determining if a link is a paid for link and that they were discounting or devaluing those links. I am wondering though, would that be across the board? I mean, if you were big shot enough to have a paid link on Yahoo's home page, does that not constitute some sort of Bravo Zulu in the link REO world?

Don't know, will be interesting to hear Morgan's thoughts.

[sdhomes]

He is an authority without those links. Ignore the foolbar PR.

[Falcon Living]

Actually, I correct myself. Those newspaper links are sitewide links (which makes his inbound links a massive 170K inbound external links and a massive half a million internal pages (mostly dynamic IDX pages). Those sitewide links count my friend no matter what especially since those are the only decent authority links he has.

[sdhomes]

No they dont.

[RonnieG]

The site mentioned is a large team/brokerage site. Check out their "About Us" page and see why they are so strong. They have a powerful management team, with lots of RE and IT experience between them.

Between this one and 15-20 others in our market who are strong in their particular communities, no single agent site has a real chance for great organic SERPs for a wide variety of RE terms and local communities without a major financial and time investment in SEO. Most single agents cannot afford this, especially in their first couple of years in business. Denver has lost thousands of high tech software jobs in the last several years. Hundreds of those out of work high tech software gurus have probably gone into real estate, just as I did. This makes the Denver metro area RE markets some of the toughest to compete in for Google SERPs and internet presence in general, because we have such a huge pool of internet savvy and experienced RE agents.

My own site gets good SERPs for only a very small number of terms and two local communities. That's why my focus is and probably will remain with PPC, where I can and do consistently dominate the top 1-3 sponsored positions for all of the communities I choose to advertise in. I spend about $15k/yr, 95% of my marketing budget, on AdWords PPC, for well over $100k in commissions, so I don't beat myself up about not having great organic SERPs. I could easily pay $8-12k per year for ongoing SEO, with no guarantees except that Google and the other SEs will constantly be changing their algos, requiring constant SEO work, and I would also have to spend hundreds of hours of personal time recruiting and maintaining inbound links instead of selling real estate, supporting my clients, spending time with my family and skiing! And who would want to link with my puny PR3 RE site, anyway?

[sdhomes]

Great post Ron. I would spend $15 to make $100 all day long.

[waynelong]

I check the back links that show on G and the total was 21,000. MSN shows 74,688. How is this possible?? Wayne