Interesting things happening at AR and G alert...

[jessiesc]

Not sure if this belongs here or one of the other areas, so move if appropriate (placed it because of the AR relevance):

I get G alerts for my kw's daily.

2 interesting items I seem to be getting quite frequently:

AR Blogs: Seems so many of these are now either advertisement for a listing, or kw spammed. Here's an example (not giving this any juice so cut and paste and fix the url, remove spaces): active rain com/ blogsview / 244829 / Calypso -Condos - Panama - City.

Is it me or is this insane? This type of blog posting is become more and more norm over there from what I can tell. And that's not the worst one I've seen, just the most recent.

So many agents are using their blogs for listing promotion. Is this becoming the norm for bloggers?

On a different note:
An SEO companies blog: 88747. blogspot. com/2007/10/ why-purchase-home-in-florida-real.html. Notice the link on Ft. Walton Beach points to Disney. Um, last time I heard disney was still in orlando. Unless of course there was an westerly wind that blew it over here

If I was a customer of this seo company I would take offense (one blog multiple customers links, look at the bottom). But I see now how some sites are getting their juice from mass blogging.

This article and others very similar are constantly getting into my G alerts. I don't want to turn off the alerts, but sheesh I rarely get anything of value anymore from them.

[Morristown]

Just my opinion, but AR seems to be becoming a big ball of spam and the management does not seem to know what to do about it. I complained about one of their members who happens to be in my area, of the last 12 blog posts this person put up at AR 7 of them were stolen, not even any effort to make changes to them, same basic keywords, same title and all.

All AR was willing to do was take away the persons points, but left the posts up. I could understand this move, but this is the third time this user has been busted. (I would expect any other site would take the posts down).

[jessiesc]

Interesting you say that.

I had a few comments from a few agents in my area "welcoming" me to AR. Sheesh, I've been a member there almost from our start up 2 years ago I just rarely post anything there.

Reading their blogs is like reading their mls listings. I mean, come on get a clue!

Aside from that, I have seen the same EXACT blog posted in multiple groups, I guess because you can so they figure "hey cool".

I'm just going to shoot myself and put myself out of my misery (j/k)

[gibex]

maybe they don't care, since owners wants to sell

[SteveTheSultan]

Yeah, AR is a little spammy But on the flip side, agents are posting to it, so there is something there.

I think some of the realtors miss, that AR's user base is mostly realtors. I don't think many buyers are going through blogs on AR and looking for information. AR is one of those sites, with a huge user base but its like a big real estate convention. Not many buyers, just a bunch of real estate people.

It does index with google well, which is an advantage.

But I could be wrong

[Eric Blackwell]

the concern with "spammy but it indexes well" types of social networking is that they tend to get devalued by Google over time and then NOBODY is happy because their "investment" was "davalued by Google".

G! did not devalue it. THEY did ...by posting crap and not policing it themselves..

A shame IMO.

Eric

[webmaster]

Jessie, did you ever read my active rain banned by Google post? http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/...rey/2151/show/ - (I put it on AR as well, and mostly got comment spammed lol)

It's a shame really - they came up with an addictive system that was great for referring new members - but never knew what to do with them.

If you build it, they will come ..... Then what????

[SteveTheSultan]

Jessie, did you ever read my active rain banned by Google post? http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/...rey/2151/show/ - (I put it on AR as well, and mostly got comment spammed lol)


If you build it, they will come ..... Then what????

LMAO Good point. You can throw a rock and hit 100 social network sites.

[jessiesc]

Jessie, did you ever read my active rain banned by Google post?

No, but I have now thanks for that Morg... Need I say it... YOU THE MAN!

[Eric Blackwell]

Some props are due there for this community...

It would be EASY to let any and everybody in and have no rules...but anarchy is a gutless choice on the web and it makes your online asset worth less (and evertually worthless...).

I agree that AR could be more and do more with some policing and self discipline.

Morgan was a little ahead of his time in thinking that through and avoiding the ready. fire. aim. mentality that seems to have gripped much of social networking today. It is a difficult balance to keep IMO.

Best;

Eric