I guess I'm pretty naive but up until recently I had no idea to what extent real estate webmasters will go to promote their businesses. One site that is in competition with me registers almost 19,000 link-backs in Yahoo. Upon checking this out I found there is a massive "referral network" out there on agent sites that consists of nothing but bought and/or traded links. On top of this, the site I mention has thousands of entries in spam blogs (splogs) out there that have absolutely zip for real content and nothing but garbage text with links in a very poorly disguised attempt to generate linkbacks.

Aside from external links, the internal links on their sites (duplicate sites with different domain names - both in Google's top 10 for our search phrases) are just a bunch of links to the same page, with different link names to match whatever they want to promote in the search engines. There's hardly any real content at all!

For years I have tried to be on the up and up, to build content and real relationships online and to be a leader in our niche. But when the competition is up to such dirty tactics to gain an edge, it makes me wonder what chance we have when we play the game the way we're supposed to.

I even searched these forums for any spam posts from these guys, and sure enough, there they were, thinly disguised and luckily, exposed by other posters.

I'd like to have a frank discussion here with other real estate webmasters on how to deal with these situations - what tactics are considered clean and what are really dirty SEO tactics in real estate.

Any helpful feedback will be appreciated.

-hicrc

report them to Google, maybe?

If you learn the real power of white hat SEO, you will never need to use any of these tactics to compete. That goes for any industry.

Not only do they risk the chance of one day getting black listed, using spam tactics is just not that effective in the long run. It simply goes back to the "cheaters never win" theory we learned as children.

It kind of reminds me of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds...they were so loved in baseball, they reaped huge rewards, big paychecks and lots of love from everyone...but, now everyone knows they cheated by taking steroids. Now, they are looked at as one of the biggest disgraces in all of sports.

Their place in the history books is so tarnished...they also almost went to prison. Bonds still might. I guarantee that it wasn't worth the short term glory for any of them. They're definitely paying the ultimate price for what they did. It's actually very sad to hear what people say about them on a continual basis in the news.

Moral of the story: Don't give in to the dark side, the short term rewards are just not worth it.

__________________

Integrity is one of the costliest human principals practiced.

Short term rewards are not worth it .... but the subsidy factor eases the pain.

This is a quote from a book I've preparing to write called -

"Integrity, and other words that start with I."

Exercising good business character is easy for me, whereas blowing the whistle may in itself be walking on the dark side.

__________________
Austin Real Estate Network
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"Austin's Original Real Estate Network"

In this context, integrity would be seen in terms of the quality of the site content and the links, both internal and external. However, it could also be applied as a human principal where these practices are deemed unethical and provide competitors with an unfair advantage. Search engine guidelines and spam reporting are supposed to be in place to curb this kind of thing so it doesn't spiral out of control (although it has - to a previously unimaginable degree). So do we all end up battling each other for SEO instead of focusing on the quality of our content?

With their 19,000 linkbacks (and our measly 1,500) they still haven't passed us in search engine positioning, which makes me wonder about the assessment that Google is making with regard to the quality of their links.

As for reporting them to Google, the only way I could see that working is if they are in direct violation of the guidelines. Their doorway pages and duplicate content do in fact place them in direct violation. Google insists they carefully evaluate all reports of spam but with all the crazy stuff going on they must get millions of reports. How can they possibly keep up with that? And what about human error? Who's doing the evaluation at Google? So, we may be able to report it but I have no confidence that it will be followed up on at all, or correctly for that matter.

My point exactly ... you did not stray to the dark side and you beat them anyway.

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Visit my blog

"Austin's Original Real Estate Network"

Yes but for how long? Their pages are stuffed with keywords beyond belief and their Alexa traffic rankings beat us out by at least 100,000. For the phrase "hawaii real estate" (which is definitely *not* my specific niche), they come up number one! There is so much competition for that phrase, yet they come out at the top despite their tactics. These guys are edging in on other markets fast and I expect, with their placement for that top phrase, it will only be a matter of time.

Move down that page to the 6th result (including their top 2) and you see basically the same site, slightly different look, but different domain name. As of this morning Yahoo links to the site numbered 18,300 so I was a little off.

Stay the course and you will find that the 19,000 linkbacks are of no concern to you. I outrank many sites that are quality sites and have many more inbounds. The inbounds are only a portion of the site quality. Always think quality, visitor, and then SE.

I find my links on lots of scraper sites - I did not place them there or request them there, nor did I pay for them to be there. I think I get no value from the link and I don't think the guys with 19,000 links get juice from them all either.

I guess the really dirtiest thing I have experienced is where my site name and desciption snippet are displayed on a scraper site but the link and URL displayed is not a hot link. Anyone wanting to get to my site would have to copy and paste or type. The only clickable thing on the page will be to the black hatter. I definitely think that those sites should be found out by some sort of algo and disappear from the engines forever (and maybe they do).

__________________
Cal
Orange Beach Condos | Gulf Shores Condos | Keller Williams Gulf States

The Gulfshoreslife.com Team serves the Baldwin County Alabama Real Estate market from The Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay to the Southern Shores of the Alabama Gulf Coast: Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, Fort Morgan, Point Clear, Fairhope, Montrose, Daphne, Spanish Fort, AL. Referals are welcomed. For more information on AL Gulf Coast Real Estate, please contact me or visit our website.

hicrc,
Keep in mind site aging may come in to play there. I spent 2 years watching a poor site with poor content remain #1. The only thing I could attribute it to was the age of site (it was one of the first RE companies in the town to have a site).

Persistant white hat (and we don't always know what that is, but try to) has my site #1 for the past 2 years.

__________________
Cal
Orange Beach Condos | Gulf Shores Condos | Keller Williams Gulf States

The Gulfshoreslife.com Team serves the Baldwin County Alabama Real Estate market from The Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay to the Southern Shores of the Alabama Gulf Coast: Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, Fort Morgan, Point Clear, Fairhope, Montrose, Daphne, Spanish Fort, AL. Referals are welcomed. For more information on AL Gulf Coast Real Estate, please contact me or visit our website.

Hicrc--

I wrote a blog post about this almost a year ago...just re-read it and guess what? It still applies:

http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/...well/690/show/

Google is in the business of sorting the relevant from the irrelevant. They are DANG good at it. Trust their ability to see the spam. Let them play police. (Just my opinion..but I think they will see spam for what it is...)

Your efforts are best spent on building your asset.

I can appreciate your concerns, though.

Hope this helps...

Eric

__________________
Eric Blackwell
Technologist, SEO Specialist and Consultant

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