Search Engine Optimization Project

[frobn]

I am working on a search engine optimization project and looking for other real estate sites that have an integrated MLS or over 100 listings (listing pages must be readable by search engines). Anyone meeting these criteria and interested in improving the SEO of their site, email or PM me.

Note: If you contact me please identify your site by url.

[MaxSinclair]

frobn, by integrated MLS, did you mean an IDX solution?

[frobn]

frobn, by integrated MLS, did you mean an IDX solution?

Yes, I am referring to either a non-frame IDX solution or a site with 100 or more listings.

[San Diego Real Estate]

frobn...I must say you have my attention...

[frobn]

I am working on a search engine optimization project and looking for other real estate sites that have an integrated MLS or over 100 listings (listing pages must be readable by search engines). Anyone meeting these criteria and interested in improving the SEO of their site, email or PM me.

Note: If you contact me please identify your site by url.

I am still looking at alternatives to the dead "let's swap links" reciprocal approach. I have a lot more information now that broadwaykeys.com appears to be out of the sandbox with excellent initial positioning on many secondary key words. I also have a new hypothesis that "on a well organized real estate site relevant local links are as important or more important than relevant real estate links." See my post: Weird Google Behavior (http://www.realestateforum.com/showthread.php?p=5127#post5127)

[marcinsarasota]

Frobn,

Are you talking about a page like this?

Sarasota Condos (http://www.thesarasotamls.com/island-condos-real-estate.php)

These listing are intergrated into my website.

[Real Estate Forum]

Sounds interesting - keep us posted, guys :)

[frobn]

Frobn,

Are you talking about a page like this?

Sarasota Condos (http://www.thesarasotamls.com/island-condos-real-estate.php)

These listing are intergrated into my website.

Your listing page is in an iframe that comes from a third party. My original idea was to incorporate external links from the listing view page that originate on the web site, however, I am no longer pursing that track as SEs may have some difficulties with it.

[Las Vegas Homes]

If you are referring to turning listings from your local MLS into static pages we already have this in the works and it is just about finished. The programmer is in China right now and should be back in about a week to start to run test on this and work out a few bugs. Once I launch this I will come back and post a link.

This could be powerful for the consumer and the SEs and have huge benefits for IBLs

[Real Estate Forum]

I am still looking at alternatives to the dead "let's swap links" reciprocal approach. I have a lot more information now that broadwaykeys.com appears to be out of the sandbox with excellent initial positioning on many secondary key words. I also have a new hypothesis that "on a well organized real estate site relevant local links are as important or more important than relevant real estate links." See my post: Weird Google Behavior (http://www.realestateforum.com/showthread.php?p=5127#post5127)
For the record, I've edited the url in your post to get to the right page of this forum. Sorry about the inconvenience, but since we've moved to realestateforum.com, the old urls lead to a catch-all page and specific pages have to get re-identified by replacing http://www.national-real-estate-directory.com/real-estate-forum/ with http://www.realestateforum.com

I can't wait to see some of what you guys are talking about in here in action.

Actually see the functionality, the look, and then test it with the search engines to find out what we can expect. It sounds very interesting and has my full attention.

Please let me know (you can PM me too) if you have some examples to show me.

Everything will be handled confidentially :)

[HHI Golf Guy]

I know that with most MLS solutions that it is a violation of the user agreement to alter or reformat the code or data that is presented. Technically, because it is not the original feed it may also be classified of theft of data - even if it looks the same as the original.

This may or may not be the case in this experiment, but I suggest that everyone reads the fine print of their copyright and user agreements before they make any changes. It could cause problems for both you and your BIC.

[San Diego Real Estate]

HHI Great Advice as usual!

[Las Vegas Homes]

Your are correct it is a violation to alter the data but that is the raw data. You may use the raw data in accordance with the regulations agreed upon by you and the MLS provider. It is not a violation to use the data on a website nor does it state in the user agreement that you can only use this data in an iframe.

The raw data is what you agree not to change or its format of how the information is displayed. I have already checked with serveral MLS boards and none of them have had any issues with showing the data this way as static pages.

It is simple a code that allows these pages to be turned into static pages without changing the format or look of the information provided by the MLS board.

[HHI Golf Guy]

Your are correct it is a violation to alter the data but that is the raw data. You may use the raw data in accordance with the regulations agreed upon by you and the MLS provider.

I'm sure that is true for many of the MLS packages, but not all. My statement encourages everyone interested in this experiment to check the fine print first. You should also call your MLS provider to confirm your interpretation. If they agree, then I would get that agreement in writing.

You can never be too careful when dealing with copyrights, terms of use, and contracts.

[Las Vegas Homes]

I agree and that is sound advice. I do have this in writing for Las Vegas but for Florida we have not got that far yet. Only per my conversations with the MLS board have I got this information.

I guess my point was really if it is allowed with your MLS it could be a very powerful tool for you and your consumers.

[frobn]

I know that with most MLS solutions that it is a violation of the user agreement to alter or reformat the code or data that is presented. Technically, because it is not the original feed it may also be classified of theft of data - even if it looks the same as the original.

This may or may not be the case in this experiment, but I suggest that everyone reads the fine print of their copyright and user agreements before they make any changes. It could cause problems for both you and your BIC.

HHI you advice is right on, anyone contemplating adding an IDX to their website should carefully read their MLS's agreement and any questions as to what can or can not be displayed should be clarified.

I have not seen all the different MLS/IDX agreements but the ones I have seen (20+) restrict what IDX data may be displayed. They also have expressed and/or implied assumptions that the data will be displayed in an appropriate manner and will not be misleading. I know from remarks in this forum that there some overly restrictive MLSs that appear to be sabotaging NAR's IDX intent. What I have not seen for MLSs that do not fall in this later category are restrictions on the format of the listing view pages that would prevent a Realtor from placing internal or external links on that page.

Again, my original thought was to incorporate external links in listing view pages. I have abandoned the idea because it may have a negative effect in the Search Engines.

What I find interesting is that many Realtors that have IDXs are unaware that the listings on their site are a third party feed and not available to any additional programming. But that is another topic.

[HHI Golf Guy]

I guess my point was really if it is allowed with your MLS it could be a very powerful tool for you and your consumers.

How? I must be missing something here. MLS data changes every day, so the data that is spidered and indexed today will probably not be available once the data (new pages) is integrated with the SE database.

From a web surfer standpoint, I know that when I use a search engine to find something, click on the link, and then don't see what I was looking for that 99.9% of the time I will go back to the SE results and not continue search the site. I would suspect that is the same for the majority of web surfers.

I assume that the primary goal is to boost SE's by manipulating MLS data to incorporate your own anchor text and generate additional targeted internal links. Will this work?

It may help to bolster the site theme, but remember that the anchor text is important when it ties to a specific web page. Let's say that you have 100 listings where you can utilize the anchor text "mycity real estate". My opinion that is that it is much more beneficial to have 100 links pointing one page than 100 links pointing to 100 (listings) pages. To me, the latter smells of link spam. Again, you may have a different strategy for anchor text, I don't know.

Perhaps you are using this technique to try and bolster minor key phrases (i.e. ABC Community mycity, etc.) and not major KW's. In that case, these internal links may provide a small boost.

To top it off, how will the SE's interpret the dead pages (i.e. individual MLS listings that are no longer available)? Will they be 404 pages? Will you have permanent redirects? Man, that would be a lot of work to keep up with, even in a small market.

What does happen when an SE hits a large number of 404's coming from one page? Frankly, I don't know. Maybe nothing detrimental happens. Maybe the SE's begin ignoring deeper links from that page. Have you found any research on the topic?

[frobn]

How? I must be missing something here. MLS data changes every day, so the data that is spidered and indexed today will probably not be available once the data (new pages) is integrated with the SE database.

From a web surfer standpoint, I know that when I use a search engine to find something, click on the link, and then don't see what I was looking for that 99.9% of the time I will go back to the SE results and not continue search the site. I would suspect that is the same for the majority of web surfers.The database is indexed on the mls # so the url for the listings do not change. As long as the listing remains active it will be there. For inactive listings I have set up the pages to say the listing is no longer active and to give some additional information. The information changes from page to page.

I assume that the primary goal is to boost SE's by manipulating MLS data to incorporate your own anchor text and generate additional targeted internal links. Will this work?It may help to bolster the site theme, but remember that the anchor text is important when it ties to a specific web page. Let's say that you have 100 listings where you can utilize the anchor text "mycity real estate". My opinion that is that it is much more beneficial to have 100 links pointing one page than 100 links pointing to 100 (listings) pages. To me, the latter smells of link spam. Again, you may have a different strategy for anchor text, I don't know.

The link text changes to incorporate some of the property description for the title and the description. It's much more involved than you would think, for example, the title is made up from the city, type of property, and several features of the property such as Ocean Front. I thought about your point "smells like link spam" but then what can be more relevant to a real estate site than listings.

Perhaps you are using this technique to try and bolster minor key phrases (i.e. ABC Community mycity, etc.) and not major KW's. In that case, these internal links may provide a small boost.My focus is on several key words besides real estate, like luxury, oceanfront, waterfront, investment properties, vacation homes and some minor Key words using the neighbohood names. MSN has done an excellent job of picking them up, but then I would expect them to do so as they are focused on content.

To top it off, how will the SE's interpret the dead pages (i.e. individual MLS listings that are no longer available)? Will they be 404 pages? Will you have permanent redirects? Man, that would be a lot of work to keep up with, even in a small market.What does happen when an SE hits a large number of 404's coming from one page? Frankly, I don't know. Maybe nothing detrimental happens. Maybe the SE's begin ignoring deeper links from that page. Have you found any research on the topic?

There are no dead pages, but if there were, I think the SEs would phase them out as they do for small newspapers that do not archieve their news stories. It's done automatically so the number of dead pages probably don't matter much.

The above is a good example of several advantages that an integrated custom IDX has over a commercial IDX feed or framed solution.

With SEs anything you do is a gamble, but if Google, Yahoo, and MSN are sincere when they say they want good content I plan on giving them good content. They wouldn't be telling fibs would they?

[Las Vegas Homes]

I dont think I could answer this any better than frobn did, so dido what he said :D

[STVP]

So when do we get started? :cool:

[Las Vegas Homes]

I already have a prgrammer who is working on this and it is just about done. The only problem right now is he is in China so it will be a few more weeks till it is done. Once I get some feedback and we can test this on a live site then I will come back and post some data.

[HHI Golf Guy]

I thought about your point "smells like link spam" but then what can be more relevant to a real estate site than listings.

Link spam is the over use of internal links and anchor text in an effort to inflate SE rankings. I assume you will be auto generating link text based upon the property description and certain field names. Unless you are also using a large pool of your own descriptors to add/replace info from these fields, there is a potential to generate many near duplicate descriptions. Perhaps adding the address information will help to dilute this potential problem, but from what I have seen it may not be enough.

With SEs anything you do is a gamble, but if Google, Yahoo, and MSN are sincere when they say they want good content I plan on giving them good content. They wouldn't be telling fibs would they?

IMHO, that is a big gamble, because you are not controlling the overall text content - it is provided by whatever info the sales assistant or agent wants to place in the description of each listing.

Once again, these are my own opinions regarding SEO and what I perceive as what the search engines consider relative content (which may be different from what web surfers consider relative content). Good luck on your experiment!

[frobn]

So when do we get started? :cool:

Good question.

How about now?

1. Send me your links and anchor text
2. Select the page(s) from http://broadwaykeys.com/search.html that you want your link(s) on
3. Tell me what page or selection of pages where you will place my link
*4. Agree to keep external links on the page under 20

You are welcome to join in if you have a quality site and pages and are willing to do the work necessary for quality linking. According to Google "TrustedPage" (from memory) -- the quality of links are directly proportional to the care taken in obtaining them.

Linking process.

I have set up several theme pages with text and can set up others. The pages originate from:
http://broadwaykeys.com/search.html which has a PR4.

Linking pages:

Ocean Condos & Homes
Vacation Homes & Condos
Waterfront Condos & Homes
Investment Properties
Country Living
Golf Course Homes & Condos

Suggest a different page for example "Desert Homes" let me know and send me some text to put on the page.

I will exchange links with similar pages on real estate related sites. Max number of links per page 20. Under 10 is preferable. Links will go between paragraphs or be incorporated in the text.

No - nos
1. No Frames
2. No state pages
3. No word "link" or derivitive in the url

I am looking for 50 to 75 quality links over a period of 6 months.