[curtisreddehase]

We have an agent in our office who has a most basic site with REW. He does nothing for his site whatsoever. He simply gets leads through yahoo ppc. I typed in "austin real estate" HE IS NUMBER 3!!!! He is a great agent and I am happy for him. But how the heck is he numer 3 in the natural search?

[danger9918]

Yahoo has a very weird way of ranking websites, i'm assuming you're talking about goaustinrealestate(.)com ??
I noticed that the website is ranking 3rd with only no external links at all beating austinrealestateguy.com which has more than 4000+ link according to yahoo; It might be because of the Yahoo ppc lead thing but I highly doubt they would include that into their search formula.
If it makes you feel any better, the website is not ranking anywhere in the first 5 pages on google.

Ismail

[curtisreddehase]

Very strange. I think yahoo has a factor that is real that this site seems to cater to. I am trying to figure out what it is unless they just ahve a random factor that pulls up very lwo sites, but for what reason would they do that. all of the content is original, but not much of it. My guess is that it is totally random

[Lewi]

I believe both yahoo and google mix things up from time to time to see what sticks, nothing new, many have said the same thing. Today I observed a bounce back from yahoo. I had previously been ranked very high for my area, say #1 to #3 for various search terms. In recent weeks I fell to #4 to #10. I made a couple minor adjustments last week and today I popped back up .

Don't ignore Yahoo, it's a valuable source for visitors!

[AustinReilly]

I think Yahoo places a high value on keywords in the URL. If your agent's site is goaustinrealestate(.)com than that may explain it. Look at five of the top ten sites on Yahoo for "Austin Real Estate" and they all have the keywords, "Austin Real Estate" in the URL.

[danger9918]

Originally Posted by AustinReilly

I think Yahoo places a high value on keywords in the URL. If your agent's site is goaustinrealestate(.)com than that may explain it. Look at five of the top ten sites on Yahoo for "Austin Real Estate" and they all have the keywords, "Austin Real Estate" in the URL.

I doubt that is true as there are many websites ranking lower than him with the same keywords in the title; austinrealestateguy(.)com is even using "austin real estate" in his meta title tag as well when goaustinrealestate(.)com is not even using a meta title tag; I also took a look at goaustinrealestate(.)com and he doesn't even use the keyword in his content much if not at all

Ismail

[Scott.Hack]

I agree with Michael. Don't check just Austin, check 10 different markets, you'll see a trend.

[VRI]

Originally Posted by Scott.Hack

I agree with Michael. Don't check just Austin, check 10 different markets, you'll see a trend.

There ya go, and that's one of the benefits of being here. You'll network with others by PM who can check out what things are looking like for their keys, competition, etc.

There are just too many different things to look at in too many different places for one person to ever reasonably to get a handle on what's going on by themselves (present company excluded).

I'd just suggest to not call out specific sites, particularly if they're friendly, as the attention doesn't always do a service to the site in question. (smiley here)

[svrpaul]

Originally Posted by Scott.Hack

I agree with Michael. Don't check just Austin, check 10 different markets, you'll see a trend.

Funny... I just checked out Las Vegas Real Estate and saw how keyword rich the domains were for the top 10... and some of these are sites I've never even seen or heard of before.

[rmasse10]

Keywords and title text play heavily on yahoo...I dont really worry about yahoo much...I use to optimize around yahoo and didnt see much, then I changed gears and reoptimized for google and that is when the fun started