http://sphinn.com/story/55504 - When you click through be prepared for a VERY long wait, and it might crash your browser (Hope it doesn't) but basically the blog post being Sphunn is accusing Trulia of cloaking for the Google user agent.

I have for the most part tried to stay on the sidelines with the whole Trulia deal, but this sort of gossip I always find interesting for some reason (I guess because I want to see how it plays out with Google) - if in fact they are cloaking, I can't see how Google could ignore it.

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Seems pretty clear....Here is Google's definition of cloaking from http://googlewebmastercentral.blogsp...delivery.html:

"Cloaking: Serving different content to users than to Googlebot. This is a violation of our webmaster guidelines. If the file that Googlebot sees is not identical to the file that a typical user sees, then you're in a high-risk category. A program such as md5sum or diff can compute a hash to verify that two different files are identical."

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John Allen
Realtor®/Broker
Allen Real Estate Services, Inc.
Sarasota, Florida
Representing buyers and sellers of fine Sarasota real estate. Search waterfront condos, luxury homes and Sarasota foreclosures for sale. Learn more about the community at the Sarasota Florida lifestyle blog.

I saw this this morning; pretty interesting! I'm particularly curious on the explanations that Trulia will (hopefully) offer to explain their use of this technique.

Seems fairly obvious that this is a "google no-no".

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Steve Castaneda, Realtor

Specializing in Houston Real Estate. Feel free to browse Houston homes for sale or read about Real Estate Technology for agents.

I just posted on it at the Bloodhound Blog...including a new post that Bramlett made. It is still photos of what they are doing. Here's a link to the BHB post.

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Eric Blackwell
Technologist, SEO Specialist and Consultant

Louisville Real Estate My Home Real Estate Site

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For the record, I think this TRULY defines how they view "partners"...they clearly see them as "lackeys" in my view...Somebody that they can get over on...

Something for us all to keep in mind when they call us, as REALTORS -- "partner"

Best;

Eric

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Eric Blackwell
Technologist, SEO Specialist and Consultant

Louisville Real Estate My Home Real Estate Site

Search Engine Marketing, Coaching & Custom WP Blogs Learn how to get the MOST out of your already awesome REW site.

Real Estate Industry Watch - Real Estate Industry News Blog Get up to date info on the Real Estate Industry

Sorry for the long wait, guys. I put up a pictorial and linked it to the video.

Also...I don't really see how there could be any explanation other than a plain-ol' cloak. Serving google bot one page, and users another is the definition of cloak. It's easy to see why they're doing it - they're pumping their city pages. Stupid, stupid move on their part, and I think it shows what their SEO team thinks of our level of SEO competency.

My guess is that a lot of their "partners" do not tend to focus on SEO and do not know what to look for. I am also guessing that Trulia's response will be that someone made a mistake and most of the "partners" will belive them.

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Carolyn Gjerde-Tu
Davis CA Real Estate
Check out my real estate blog
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I am sure they will spin this one as they spin everything else and just assume we are all idiots, pretty brazen stuff. Good work if you can get away with.

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Brandon Florida Real Estate
Do Follow, Comment Luv Tampa Real Estate and Top Commentator enabled
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Trulia has some very capable "politicians" on staff that do damage control for them.


And given that most of their "partners" are fairly ignorant regarding the whole SEO concept (or are probably paid) - all Trulia has to do is get a smooth talker to claim its a mistake, that Trulia cares about their partner relationships, visit their blog for discussion and they'll likely believe them.

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Jennifer Karlen & Jon Karlen
Kentucky Horse Farms - Louisville Kentucky Real Estate - Lexington Kentucky Real Estate
Serving the Louisville KY metropolitan area including Jefferson County - Prospect Shelby County - Shelbyville Oldham County - Goshen, La Grange and the Lexington KY metropolitan area including Fayette County - Lexington Woodford County - Versailles Scott County - Georgetown Jessamine County - Nicholasville