January 22nd 2005
The practice of redirecting one domain or website to another does have some serious problems. It is commonly preached that as a way of increasing your internet business it is a good idea to have lots of domains - perhaps targeting different keywords or market areas - all pointing at your website. The reality is that this can actually cause you serious grief. Continue Reading »
January 8th 2005
When building a website it is always a good idea to look at other successful sites and see what they have done so you can find clues as to what you can do to be just as successful. Some decide that the easy solution is just to copy some of the content or duplicate the meta tags. Those that try the unscrupulous and illegal route will be very disappointed!
It is not that there may be a risk of being caught - it is 100% certain that you will be caught. Not only will you eventually be caught and face the potential embarrassment of having your crime publicized throughout the internet where anyone searching for your name and/or business will find that you are an unethical crook - the tactic does not work. Continue Reading »
December 7th 2004
Search engine forums have been buzzing with talk of the “Sandbox” for months now - “does it or does it not exist” and “can it be beaten” are the usual topics of discussion.
In case you don’t know, the “Sandbox” is a label that has become associated with Google’s practice of not ranking new sites - more precisely, not ranking new sites in new domains competing for competitive commercial search terms. Continue Reading »
November 17th 2004
In the last while I have had a few clients who have lost their domains because they did not renew them. Apparently they never received the renewal notices - which is one of the consequences of email becoming less reliable as mentioned in this blog a few days ago.
Theoretically once a domain expires you should be able to re-register it but that doesn’t happen often. There is a large group of people out there who pay services to let them know which domains are expiring every day and domains like yours (even domains that are your personal name) are snapped up right away because of the link popularity of the domain.
The incoming links allow the domain to rank fairly well right away - no waiting - and the buyers usually put advertising on it or affiliate links. They can earn some easy money because of the effort that was put into exchanging links and listing in directories in the past.
Realtor domains are at the top of their list so remember to keep an eye on your domain expiry dates and don’t rely on receiving a renewal notice because you may never see it.
November 13th 2004
I just finished checking reciprocal links in the Epowered Professionals Realtors Directory and had to remove a couple of dozen Realtors from the directory because they were no longer reciprocating links.
Every time I check it is the same old story - a number of agents put a link on their website, apply for inclusion in the directory and then once they are in they remove the link. I wonder if they are just as dishonest in their dealings with clients and other Realtors? Continue Reading »
November 9th 2004
Ever since Google’s big shakeup update last November - dubbed the “Florida” Update - it has been extremely hard for individual Realtor sites in most market areas to rank highly in Google for competitive keywords. This is not isolated to Realtor sites but is a phenomenon that applies to all commercial sites in all industries.
For Realtor sites it does not apply in all market areas either. Google has a list and some market areas are not on it usually because they are very small and managed to stay off the radar. The sites that replaced the missing websites were sites deemed to be “authority” sites or directories for the most part. Continue Reading »
November 4th 2004
I can’t believe how many requests I get for link exchanges that are rejected because they are of no benefit. I bet I reject 80% of requests and you probably should be doing the same. If you are wondering why your search engine positions suck - you should pay more attention to this issue as outlined in this posting at agentsonline.net
When someone contacts you regarding a link exchange you need to:
a) Make sure their links page is actually listed in Google
b) Make Sure the links themselves are indexable - i.e. not in script but plain html.
Instructions on how to do that can be found here.
November 2nd 2004
I was reading an article today in the National Post - a national Canadian Newspaper. The article states something most of us already know - that it is not a good idea to just take anyone on as a customer. This is something that applies to the web site business, the search engine marketing business, and also the real estate business of course.
The articles lists 7 reasons to say no to a customer: Continue Reading »
November 2nd 2004
Welcome to the Real Web Results Blog - where issues pertaining to producing, maintaining, and promoting websites for Realtors are the main topics of conversation. I hope you find some tidbits here that are helpful and please feel free to contribute your own comments as well.
