| Its Not as
Easy to be "Number One"
If you are an experienced web Realtor,
you may have noticed that it is not as easy to maintain high search
engine placement as it used to be. Well, it is just going to get harder.
More and more Realtors are going on-line and a million pages are added
to the web each day. Just the sheer number of new pages makes it harder
to get found, but the main problem for individual Realtors, especially
in larger communities, is that search engines are changing how they
search.
In the past, the pages returned by
popular search engines contained the query word or phrase in the text or
meta-tags of the page. Certain criteria make a web page come up higher
in the search engine results. To make it simple, if the word appears
early on in the document (or higher on the web page) it returns a higher
result. Another example is if the word or phrase is repeated more than
once.
As the number of web pages continues to
swell, this method of searching is becoming more and more unreliable.
Responses to searches often have no bearing at all to the initial query
and many pages get ignored. Adding to the problem is that many web site
developers attempt to "spam" the indexes in various ways.
Real Estate Search
Examples
For example, a simple query like
"real estate" on Alta Vista produces a return of approximately
900,000 pages. For that reason, most people put in geographical
information when they are searching real estate. A response to
"Elizabethtown Kentucky real estate" generated 46,000 returns.
Only three of the top ten were actually related to real estate. The same
inquiry for "Hollywood California real estate" resulted where
only two of the top ten results were actually real estate related.
"Boise Idaho real estate," on the other hand, had a perfect
record. All of the top ten results were real estate related.
On Infoseek, the results were different,
but equally disappointing. Instead of returning local sites, the results
were mostly "directory" web sites. While many of the returns
were real estate related, they may not have pertained to the local
community.
The Changes
As a result, searches based solely on
text, keywords, or meta-tags are becoming obsolete. The web has simply
become too big and search engines are adapting to this changing reality.
They are adapting in three major ways and the adaptations are already
being put into place.
Search via Hyper-Links
One solution is that search engines are
turning to the organization of the web in order to deliver more accurate
search results. You see, the web is organized into many groups of
"cyber-communities," through hyper-links. Links are a text or
graphic on a web page that, when clicked on, send a web visitor to
another web site. The web sites are usually related in subject matter.
By analyzing a web’s links, search
engines can determine with greater reliability if a web site is actually
related to the search inquiry. This analysis is basically done in two
steps. First, the search engine does a traditional search for web pages
containing the query word or phrase. Then the search engine counts the
number of links to and from other web pages containing the same word or
phrase. The higher the number, the higher the "confidence
level" that the page or site fits the search request.
Infoseek has already added link
popularity into its search algorithms. Google does the same thing. IBM
has a search engine under development called "Clever" which
goes even further. Once it gets released, it will have the marketing
power of "Big Blue" behind it, and IBM is no longer a
slumbering giant.
Search by Choice
When a search engine returns results to a
query, many of the listed web sites have nothing to do with the initial
search. As a result, web surfers do not usually click on those results.
When they click on them mistakenly, they don’t spend much time on the
site, hitting the "back" button and returning to the search
page. Some popular search engines have begun to take this into account
in revising their search engine results. Sites that get clicked on move
higher in the search engine rankings and sites that web visitors spend
little or no time on move lower.
A company called "Direct Hit"
is measuring these results and some major search engines have contracted
with Direct Hit to add the feature to their search functions. Among them
are HotBot, AOL, Sherlock (from Apple), and LookSmart.
Search through
Directory
If that was not enough, directories are
becoming more and more popular. If you are familiar with Yahoo, you are
familiar with directories. Yahoo’s major emphasis has always been on
their directory and is probably the major reason for their success.
Infoseek and Lycos have added directories. Now Alta Vista and HotBot
have added the LookSmart directory to their web sites. The major reason
for the renewed success of directories is because web surfers are
becoming more and more disillusioned with search engine results.
Affect on Real Estate
It used to be that large generic real
estate web sites had a harder time pulling high results on search
engines. Local sites had an edge because web surfers usually search for
real estate geographically. You may have already noticed that
"directory" sites have begun creeping higher and higher into
your local search engine results. Look for this trend to continue as
link popularity grows in importance as search engine criteria.
If your Realtor web site comes up in the
first three pages of a local real estate search, you are doing fine. If
it does not, you need to take action.
The solution for Realtors, as this trend
continues, is to get listed with as many directories as possible. The
major ones such as Yahoo and LookSmart are very important, but so are
sites such as IRED and others. To get you started, there is a list of
fifty sites that link to Realtors located at http://www.realestateabc.com/propages/linksites.htm.
by Terry Light
(If you want to find out how many links
go to your web site, check http://linkstoyou.com/CheckLinks.htm.
. The count may or may not be reliable, but if will give you an idea.
There are lots of sites that link to Realtors listed on the page
"50 sites that link to Realtors on www.realestateabc.com
in the ProPages section of the web site)
Related Reading:
Infoseek changes: . http://searchenginewatch.internet.com/sereport/9903-relevancy.html
Lost in CyberSpace: http://www.forbes.com/tool/html/99/feb/0219/feat.htm
Counting Clicks and Looking at Links:
http://searchenginewatch.internet.com/sereport/9808-clicks.html
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