Cesar’s Going Solo
OK, I know I said I wasn’t going to blog much about work, but I wasn’t able to to get the new site done before I went on vacation, so I wanted to take a quick moment to let everyone in the SEO world know that Begining August 1st, Cesar Serna will no longer be a full time employee with 3 Dog Media. Cesar’s been with us for over 18 months. And in that time, he went from being a “.net” only guy, to a well rounded programmer who spent most of his time working on our WordPress platform. (We tricked him into working for us by letting him thing we had .net clients)
Finally Doing Some Serious House Cleaning
It’s been so long since I’ve blogged, I barely remember how. But I was finally able to find some time this week to get started on some long-overdue house cleaning on this blog. The main change (other than cleaning up the look a bit) involves moving a lot of old content, and restructuring things a bit.
For me, free time to blog doesn’t come around that often. And when it does, the last thing on my mind is blogging about SEO/SEM. I know there are al ot of people who wish this blog would stay focused on SEO, but to be perfectly honest, there just isn’t that much interesting stuff to write about on a regualr basis. So the solution for me is to move all the core SEO stuff to a new company blog that we will be launching around the first of next month, and convert this blog into more of a personal journal where I can post about whatever I feel like yammering about.
My real first attempt at non-search related blogging should happen this week. I’m about to walk out the door on a much needed vacation. I’m heading to Jamaica, so I’m sure I’ll find all kinds of interesting things to write about. 
DoFollow Plugin Updated for 2.5
I’ve been getting several emails asking when/if we were going to update our dofollow plugin for WP 2.5. Dax just got it finished. You can download it here.
PropertyTown Acquisition
I’m thrilled to finally be able to announce that we have completed a merger/acquisition deal involving National Relocation and PropertyTown. As is the case with these types of deals, I can’t disclose specific numbers, but I can provide the basic components of the deal:
National Relocation will pay WebGuerrilla, LLC (our parent company) a combination of cash, and a substantial equity stake in exchange for an exclusive license to use any current custom WordPress related tools we own, as well as any new tools we may develop in the future in the real estate space. National Relocation will also take ownership of the PropertyTown domain name, and any brand related items.
We will continue to handle feature development, but will also be getting involved with National Relocation’s team to work on integrating our system with their infrastructure. I’ll be putting Dax and Cesar on a plane to Hawaii in a couple of weeks so they can spend a week with the National Relocation team getting things rolling.
This deal is a perfect fit for us, because it allows us to focus our efforts solely on development. It also provides the tools and support we need to make larger scale broker level deals, as well as access to related markets like rental properties, and mortgage services.
That’s about all I can talk about at this point. We don’t have a hard date to roll out the new service, but our tentative goal is to be ready to re-launch in early June. When we do that, it will contain a ton of new features, including fully integrated IDX, and lead management tools, and a bunch of new competitive/market analysis tools.
Real Estate Contest Part 2
My original post on the Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World contest generated quite a few comments. A good chunk of them were a couple of individuals talking smack at each other, but there were a few others that are worth discussing.
Towards the end of the comments, Paul posted the following:
Well I did notice that you are ranking number 2 for this contest. So does that mean you are in the fight to be the best real estate agent in the world?
And my response was:
If by “in the fight” you mean am I actively participating in the contest, then the answer is no. The only effort I’ve expended is writing this post. Where it ends up will be determined solely by the level of authority this site has. I can’t imagine that it will hold up in the long run because I haven’t recruited an army of friends to go out and drop anchor text on every spammy do follow blog on the web.
But the fact that this page is doing so well without all the effort being put into the other pages is actually a valuable lesson for most agents. Unfortunately, very few will get it.
After that comment, Eric Bramlett (the contest creator) responded with:
Come on, man…this is some great linkbait. You’re naturally garnering links all over the place by taking the contrary position. If there’s a lesson to be learned here, it’s “write linkbait, not spam.” I’m sure your blog carries weight on its own, but you’re ranking b/c people are linking.
Come on Eric. Suggesting that my post is somehow winning the “link war” is just ridiculous.
As I write this, Yahoo is showing 869 links to my post (excluding pages on this site). The vast majority of those links came from my post appearing in the Bloodhound Blog’s Long List. That list is distributed to other sites via a php based (server side) widget. My post was written on the 13th, and found its way into the Long List on the 14th. (I didn’t submit it, nor did I ask anyone to submit it for me).
Because the widget shows only a set amount of the most current posts, the links eventually disappear. (In my case, that has already happened.)
Now, for the sake of argument, let’s say that distribution in the BHB Long List was in fact solely responsible for my post hitting #3. 869 links sure sounds like a lot, but it’s not really when you take a closer look. The total number of links reported is due to the fact that the widget creates site wide links on all the sites that use it. But the total number of unique domains that show up in my backlinks is actually very small. That’s important, because we don’t want any agents reading this to walk away thinking that a high volume of links coming from a single domain is treated the same way as the same number of links coming from unique sites, because that simply isn’t true.
If you move on and look at the remaining links, you’ll see that many are either nofollow, or they use some anchor text other than “Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World.”
Now let’s take a look Eric Blackwell’s (The contest leader) backlinks. Yahoo is showing 3,240 backlinks.
Eric also has links from BHB’s Long List, but his are still active. In theory, those should go away by Monday. (But based on this post, plus a couple of private emails, I wouldn’t be surprised if it somehow found a way to stick around for a couple of months:)).
The rest of Eric’s links are a combination of various agent sites and pages on “free sites.” that are owned/created by the members of Eric’s “team.” Even if you take the BHB links out, he still ends up having far more links from unique domains, and virtually all of his links contain the exact phrase. With all that extra work you might expect a huge difference in rankings between the two pages, but there isn’t. His post is sitting a #1, and mine is currently #4.
So does that mean Eric is a bad person, or his SEO strategy is inherently evil? Of course not. Although I haven’t personally met Eric, everyone I know who knows him says he’s a standup guy. But the purpose of this contest is supposed to be teaching and learning, so I do think it’s valid to point out a couple of possible wrong conclusions a new agent watching from the sidelines may draw.
Strategy Viability – There isn’t really anything bad about Eric’s strategy as it applies to this contest. In fact, the “team” strategy is by far the most commonly use strategy in the history of SEO contests. But the problem is it just isn’t applicable to most real-world situations. I mean seriously, think about how far you would get trying to ask a bunch of people to invest significant time for free, in exchange for a link that they will get only after you have achieved a #1 ranking for your money phrase for two months. I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t work that way. And even if a newbie agent realized that the contest examples are extreme, there still isn’t any place for them to end up other than the conclusion that the best thing to do is swap links. And that’s not a place they need to be.
Building Authority – I think much of the examples in the contest do nothing but reinforce the common misconception within the real estate space that dropping keyword stuffed links on some of the most spam infested domains on the web, somehow contributes to building authority. That’s a complete load of crap. Building authority involves investing the time necessary to develop a strong content distribution network powered by other humans. Whether or not my original post was intended to be linkbait isn’t really the important point. The real takeaway is understanding that the success or failure of a piece of linkbait is directly related to the size, strength, and quality of your distribution network. And gaining links by pushing content through that distribution network never involves asking anyone for anything.
In the end, the question you really need to ask yourself is where do you want to be down the road? Someone who operates a site where link building consists of pressing the publish button, or someone who has to constantly be asking for a helping hand?
The Dofollow Plugin Has Been Updated
The DoFollow plugin found on the download page broke after a recent update. I finally got around to uploaded a new version.Let me know if there are any problems.
The Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World
No, this post isn’t a plug for my favorite real estate agent. This post is about yet another SEO Contest. “The Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World” contest is being sponsored by Real Estate Webmasters. Having recently been released from Google jail, everyone in REW land is pretty excited, so why not celebrate by having a contest?
Upfront, it sounds like a fun exercise, and the prize package is actually pretty sweet. (A free site with lifetime hosting). But in the big picture, I don’t think it’s such a great idea. Especially considering the level of scrutiny the real estate space has been under lately.
The thing that most contest participants don’t consider is the fact that everyone is watching. (Including search engine engineers). Once the contest starts, people get obsessed and start pulling out all the stops. Then, when everything is said and done, all those cool little tricks, and quite little places you use to power your own rankings, either vanish, or become so overrun with “real spammers” that they become totally useless.
During some of the more recent SEO contests, I saw complete networks of sites get torched because one guy was stupid enough to put links for his contest phrase on the same sites he was using to drive the rankings for his “money” sites.
So the question to ask your self is whether or not winning a prize worth 4-5k is worth the potential negative impact that the site that puts food on the table might receive?
If you are 100% sure there are absolutely no skeletons in your link closet then you might decide that the answer is yes. But that isn’t the case for a huge chunk of the real estate SEO world. Almost everyone has dabbled in things that are now considered taboo. And there is a small underground community of real estate agents who are really good at SEO, which means they push the envelope quite often. If you consider yourself a member of that community, the best decision you could make is to “just say no.”
The Lenky Related Link Plugin
I just installed the Lenky Related Link Plugin. Basically, it is supposed to work like Sphere, except the links are processed server side. (No JavaScript). I love the idea, but the plugin is brand new, so I’m not getting any related posts showing up. I’d love to take this thing for a solid test ride, so please consider installing it on your blog so that I can make the stupid images go away!
Real Estate Webmasters Banned by Google
I try very hard to stay away from the drama that constantly engulfs Morgan Carey and Real Estate Webmasters. But this one is worth commenting on because it’s such a great example of what not to do.
Late last night, members of REW’s forum started posting that they weren’t finding REW in Google searches. This morning my inbox was full of emails asking if I thought they were penalized. After conducting a few searches on their most popular terms, it appears that they have been tossed in the penalty box. Not only are they not showing up, there seems to be an across-the-board toolbar adjustment as well.
Morgan’s reaction was to write a very long post that outlines his penalty assessment process. While discussing REW blogs, he quotes from his TOS the section that clearly explains REW’s strict stance on behavior intended to manipulate SERPS:
"Search engines: REW blogs perform very well in search engines - this is due in no small part to the fact that our authors write high quality (Unique) content that does not violate any search engines guidelines and is often referenced from other sources on the web. Our rules against link spam and other forms of search engine spam or low quality advertising posts ensure that REW Blogs are able to maintain their authoritative status by providing our readership with the highest quality (Unique) content possible. It is also very important that these rules and regulations are strictly enforced so that search engines can trust that they are indexing and ranking high quality "Human" contributed, edited and moderated content. Link schemes: Any attempt to artificially inflate page rank or link popularity is not welcome here. Search engines frown upon this kind of behavior, and it does nothing for the user experience - when a link is placed in any section of REW Blogs (In a post, in the relevant reading section, in the related links of a post) it should be done so for the sole benefit of the user, and NOT to send yourself link juice / page rank."
He also goes on to say:
Just to be clear directory aside - Real Estate Webmasters does not participate in any kind of link exchange (Solicitation or otherwise) on our domain http://www.realestatewebmasters.com. We do not sell links from our domain http://www.realestatewebmasters.com, we don’t buy links, we don’t spam comments with our links - in fact - we are so damn busy building technology for our clients that we wouldn’t have the time to go out and try to get links even if we wanted to - it’s the old "The carpenter’s house is in the worst shape in the neighborhood
By the time you get to the end, you walk away thinking that the penalty is definitely undeserved. But here’s the flaw in Morgan’s post:
He is making the assumption that any penalty that might be imposed would be directly related to guideline violations involving the REW site. It would be great if that’s how it always worked, but that just isn’t the case. (If you don’t think that’s true, just ask Bob Massa). Occasionally, search engines do issue penalties for general behavior that shows an overall disregard for the sanctity of their guidelines. And when that behavior is a direct contradiction to their constant flow of pro-guideline public spin, the penalties can be quite severe.
Here’s an example: (from an email being sent out by REW staff)
My name is Nick May. I am a Link Manager for Real Estate Webmasters. I am emailing you today to introduce a new, free system we have developed, based on contextual-quality links. This system is designed to put more focus on a fewer amount of links, as they would be located on pages full of content, relative to the site. Instead of having links placed in directories, 5 links will be placed on an already established contextually relevant page. Our format will be a bit different than the format you use. Your links, on our pages, will appear as comments and we will be using your keywords as the commenter’s name. You add 5 of our clients to one of your content pages and in return, we will add your site to each of those client’s sites, on a content filled page. This is just an introductory email to let you know a little bit about it. This system is working for our clients and I have some examples to show you, if you’re interested. Email me back and I will fill you in with all the information you need. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you will take part in this excellent new program.
(Emphasis Mine)
OK, so last spring many of REW’s clients got in trouble for cross-linked directories. Now, six months later REW staff members are sending out dozens of these emails (and have been since last June) offering to create fake blog comments stuffed with your desired keywords in exchange for you putting back the links that used to be in the spam directories that caused all the trouble in the first place.
So how is it Morgan forgot to mention these emails in his public plea to Matt? Is this employee sending these emails without Morgan’s knowledge? (Maybe it’s the same employee that hacked into the PREN Forum?) Or maybe he thinks there’s no way Google would know about these emails? I have no idea for sure, but you at least have to give him some credit. It takes a lot of balls to stand up in public and declare to the world that your shit doesn’t stink, even when so many people know it does.
Looking for CSS Designers
I haven’t had any time to blog lately because I’ve been buried with work related to PropertyTown. We’ve been banging out a bunch of new features, and we’ve been swamped with inquires from agents interested in moving on to our system. All in all, the new year has been good. The only real problem is the fact that we don’t have enough manpower to handle the frontend design work.
We are in desperate need of freelance CSS designers who can crank out quality designs for our clients. Our system runs off of a single master theme, so there is no php work involved. We just need people who can take some static html and our master CSS file and turn it into something stunning. (ala http://csszengarden.com/)
We have several projects ready to go, and the number of inquiries we’re receiving is growing weekly, so we’re looking for people that are interested in a long-term working relationship.
If you are interested, please reply to (greg at 3dogmedia.com) with some samples of your CSS work, and I’ll follow up with you with more details.