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?

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Curtis Reddehase
Sky Realty
President/REALTOR
Austin Real Estate | Austin Commercial Real Estate | Lake Austin Real Estate

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

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Ismail Shihadi
Premium Real Estate Directory ~ RealtyArticles.net

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

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Curtis Reddehase
Sky Realty
President/REALTOR
Austin Real Estate | Austin Commercial Real Estate | Lake Austin Real Estate

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!

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Eric Lewis
Redding California

Redding Homes available at Redding CA Real Estate.
Redding Real Estate. -- For fun: Redding Golf at Golf Redding.com.

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.

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Michael Reilly, Owner/Broker
Great Austin Properties, LLC
Austin Texas Real Estate Brokerage

Austin Homes for Sale | Bee Cave Homes For Sale | Spanish Oaks Austin

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

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Ismail Shihadi
Premium Real Estate Directory ~ RealtyArticles.net

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

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Oldham County Real Estate
Oldham County
Nolin Lake Real Estate

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)

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OVERSITE.US For Agents & Brokers | Great references for great sites.
OverlyReal's GEORGIA Agents | The best in Georgia real estate websites.
Tampa Bay Fishing | Seeks references from the area resource pages of quality local sites.

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

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Tampa Real Estate | Tampa Foreclosures | Tampa Real Estate Blog

Team Masse services the Tampa Bay Real Estate market as well as the following areas: Apollo Beach, Riverview, Ruskin, Brandon, Lithia, Valrico, Gibsonton, South Tampa, and Channelside District along with St Petersburg and Clearwater. Referals are always welcomed and given.

Does anyone have a Yahoo vs Google optimization chart? I'm curious what the differences are.

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Oldham County Real Estate
Oldham County
Nolin Lake Real Estate