Canned content, Newsletters?

[roiannecox]

Just wondering if one of the canned newsletter/content subscriptions would hurt my website or help.

I was thinking particularly about RealEstateABC.com.

Any opinions, experience?

Roianne Cox
Vancouver Washington Real Estate
http://www.clarkcounty4sale.net

[HMiller]

I'm not familiar with RealEstateABC but if they have content that will be useful to viewers of your site I don't see anything wrong with it. If you do use "canned" content that appears on other sites you may want to add some extra unique content on the page to avoid any dup content issues that may or may not arise.

[Homesurfer]

Though we didn't really create the Newsletter/Content program to enhance search engine performance, some people claim it helps -- though not for the reasons you might expect. I don't take a position on whether it helps or not.

Each agent has about 150 pages hosted on our server. Each page has at least one text link and graphic link back to your home page. Since the pages don't link to any other exterior pages except for your own home page (not even ours), they don't "leak" PageRank.

Additionally, if you go back in and "edit" your personal information, you can create your own "anchor text" for the text link.

Right now, Google shows approximately 49,000 pages in our Content/Newsleter program are indexed. If it helps with search engine performance, it isn't because the content pages are going to be number 1 in Google. It would be because the extra 150 pages are indexed by Google and help you build page rank but don't "leak" it out to anywhere but your home page.

Of course, to get them indexed, you have to create navigation to them in the first place.

Even so, the main point of the content/newsletter is to make your site more sticky and provide more resources for your visitors...not to enhance search engine performance.

[webmaster]

abc does each agent get the same content?

[judyo]

I am a paid subscriber to the content & I believe it is all the same, just our contact info is different. I only link to the information, I don't actually put it on my site. It's just something I provide for my web surfers since I have a limited template site.

[webmaster]

ah IC, but you get backlinks from the realestateabc site right? That sounds like a decent deal, you could link to the articles not only from your main site, but from blog posts etc to help get them spidered with a bit of PR, and then they would make great topic specific links to your homepage. What is the cost for this service?

[judyo]

Without looking anything up & just relying on my memory (scary), I think it was $95.00 for a glossary, seller info, buyer info, mortgage guide, credit guide & a 4 page newsletter. And they make it look like my website.

[Las Vegas Real Estate]

So, Morgan.... no worries about dup content? This question has just come up for a friend of mine also, about including canned content on his site.

[webmaster]

well you dont want dupe content on your site, but in this instance the content is being reproduced on realestateabc so should not effect your site (Unless I missunderstood) - I think that realestateabc can get away with it because the intent of the content is truly to help users, not search engine rankings, and also they have built up quite a lot of authority, I would not suggest duplicating content on your own site though, as it is always a bad thing.

[Homesurfer]

Every agent gets the same content. There are only three main differences.

1) Each agent's page titles reflect their name, company name, and website address.
2) Each agent's header looks completely different than everyone else's header.
3) The footer information contains the agent's contact information, including a link with anchor text that they can specify.

The content is not stored on realestateabc.com, but on realestateabc.org -- so it isn't actually "connected" to our main web site -- nor does it contain a link to realestateabc.com, even though realestateabc.org now contains 49,000 indexed pages and I sometime "wish" I had created a link in them. But the "point" of it was to help agents, which is why we've kept a low price. We're increasing prices on April 15th, but our new price will still be less than half of anything close.

Since we don't have external links to advertisers and such from the content pages and all the pages contain links back to the agent's home page, it doesn't "leak" PageRank -- so there is no harm to the agent (and perhaps some benefit) in having it be located off-site.

We consider it to be a "bolt-on" product, something that is not "part" of your site, but "bolts-on" to it.