Comments on: Google penalizes Realtor sites as a warning to the industry. http://www.realwebresults.com/blog/google-penalizes-realtor-sites-as-a-warning-to-the-industry/10/ Maintaining a successful online real estate presence for Realtors. Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:32:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Doug Towes http://www.realwebresults.com/blog/google-penalizes-realtor-sites-as-a-warning-to-the-industry/10/comment-page-1/#comment-71 Doug Towes Sat, 30 Jun 2007 13:40:00 +0000 http://www.realwebresults.com/blog/google-penalizes-realtor-sites-as-a-warning-to-the-industry/10/#comment-71 <a HREF="http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-smx-diaries-iv-the-matt-cutts-interview" REL="nofollow">Matt's second interview with Rand Fishkin</a> is where he comments directly on the recent penallties - Matt’s second interview with Rand Fishkin is where he comments directly on the recent penallties -

]]> By: Dan Connolly http://www.realwebresults.com/blog/google-penalizes-realtor-sites-as-a-warning-to-the-industry/10/comment-page-1/#comment-70 Dan Connolly Sat, 30 Jun 2007 05:44:00 +0000 http://www.realwebresults.com/blog/google-penalizes-realtor-sites-as-a-warning-to-the-industry/10/#comment-70 Doug,<br/>Would you mind pointing me to where Matt Cutts said the statement about firing a shot across the bow? I have yet to see him make anything but vague comments. Some months ago he actually said that reciprocal linking was okay as long as you personally knew the other Realtor and didn't do it to excess. I would love to find some of his actual statements on this. I was one of the AA sites penalized. Had state pages and about twenty recips at the most. Doug,
Would you mind pointing me to where Matt Cutts said the statement about firing a shot across the bow? I have yet to see him make anything but vague comments. Some months ago he actually said that reciprocal linking was okay as long as you personally knew the other Realtor and didn’t do it to excess. I would love to find some of his actual statements on this. I was one of the AA sites penalized. Had state pages and about twenty recips at the most.

]]> By: Marc Rasmussen http://www.realwebresults.com/blog/google-penalizes-realtor-sites-as-a-warning-to-the-industry/10/comment-page-1/#comment-69 Marc Rasmussen Sun, 24 Jun 2007 19:57:00 +0000 http://www.realwebresults.com/blog/google-penalizes-realtor-sites-as-a-warning-to-the-industry/10/#comment-69 Nice post. I was one of the real estate webmasters websites (www.thesarasotamls.com) that got penalized on May 9th by Google. While I agree that the real estate industry needed to clean up its act a bit I think Google's manner of doing it is not really fair. Years ago when I was new to SEO I learned like everyone that Google loved links. Like everyone, I started trading links with Realtors all across the country. It may have been against Google's webmaster guidelines but it worked. I started to rank well for an average site. After some success with my website by selling homes it allowed me to spend more money on my site. Which I did and it eventually became one of the best websites in Sarasota, Florida for real estate information. About a year a half ago I switched my focus of building links to building a better website. Which is what Google wants anyways. I may have traded a link here or there in the last year and a half but for the most part I stopped the practice all together. The mistake I made was not deleting my state pages and reciprocal links. I was ranking #1 in Google for the majority of real estate related search phrases so I did not want to rock the boat.<br/><br/>It is unfair that Google targeted and handful of sites while the rest of the industry remains intact even though they are still building reciprocal links. I know, I know life is not fair. Google is a smart company and should have had a better plan of attack than hurting a small number of Realtors in hopes of correcting a larger problem. I wrote about this here: http://activerain.com/blogsview/129469/Matt-Cutts-of-Google Nice post. I was one of the real estate webmasters websites (www.thesarasotamls.com) that got penalized on May 9th by Google. While I agree that the real estate industry needed to clean up its act a bit I think Google’s manner of doing it is not really fair. Years ago when I was new to SEO I learned like everyone that Google loved links. Like everyone, I started trading links with Realtors all across the country. It may have been against Google’s webmaster guidelines but it worked. I started to rank well for an average site. After some success with my website by selling homes it allowed me to spend more money on my site. Which I did and it eventually became one of the best websites in Sarasota, Florida for real estate information. About a year a half ago I switched my focus of building links to building a better website. Which is what Google wants anyways. I may have traded a link here or there in the last year and a half but for the most part I stopped the practice all together. The mistake I made was not deleting my state pages and reciprocal links. I was ranking #1 in Google for the majority of real estate related search phrases so I did not want to rock the boat.

It is unfair that Google targeted and handful of sites while the rest of the industry remains intact even though they are still building reciprocal links. I know, I know life is not fair. Google is a smart company and should have had a better plan of attack than hurting a small number of Realtors in hopes of correcting a larger problem. I wrote about this here: http://activerain.com/blogsview/129469/Matt-Cutts-of-Google

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