Why would Eric Bramlett post something like this? Or this? The debate rolls on as to Trulia Widgets and their use as a linkbaiting scheme. They are writing these things because they matter. But it has been said that they don’t matter, that Trulia would still be climbing in the search engines **cough**Google**cough** anyway. So I have undertaken to research a bit more deeply. (Authors Note: In ALL of what I say here, please understand that (on an SEO level), I ADMIRE what Trulia has pulled off here. They have found the soft underbelly and have used it to their advantage. Props to you.)
Here is a very brief overview of my findings: (NOTE: I have more which will continue to come out as time goes on…)
Let’s look at the city of Nashville. And at the term Nashville real estate. Trulia has recently popped up onto the first page (#7 in my datacenter). How did they get there?
The page on Trulia’s site that is #7 on Google is trulia(.)com/TN/nashville/. If you look at Yahoo Site Explorer, you can see that there are 3,800 plus links to Trulia (but all links are not created equal). There are only 108 of those links that are coming to Trulia from outside of Trulia.com. Let’s take a look at two of those links, shall we?
On MOST Trulia widgets there are often three links back to Trulia. Here’s an example. Here’s another. Scroll down on each page to see the Trulia Widgets and find the links. Where do they go? What ANCHOR TEXT do they use?
Typically one links goes to the local site (to compete against the very REALTOR whose site it is on, another link goes to Trulia’s home page and a third goes to their widget page. Hmmm…and if we look at the bottom of the latter two of those pages, where is Trulia pointing all of THAT link love from ALL OVER THE COUNTRY?
It appears that Trulia is pretty interested in San Fran, San Jose, Phoenix, San Diego..etc etc…Those are some fairly competitive areas, so they funnel some extra strength there from widgets all over the country. Jay Thompson and Kris Berg–my friends, are you hearing me on this? Both of you have Truliamazing widgets on your sites last I checked…and you guys are getting TARGETED in my opinion…fair warning.
Notice that one of those sites cited above were the Number One Expert sites that Bramlett mentioned? Is it becoming clearer that having these widgets on your site helps Trulia outrank you? IT SHOULD BE! In my opinion Number One experts should be asking their website company why they are facilitating the rise of Trulia and what the PURPOSE of that was and is. At the VERY LEAST they could no follow the links and return the favor, but no…they insist on giving search engine positioning away.
And check out example #2! You folks at Trulia want to tell me that this one is for ANYTHING more than pure links? There is ZERO aesthetic purpose for this one that I can see. Here’s a quick screen shot.
Find THAT one on the front page of allisonhometeam.com. Yep it is all the way down at the bottom, where no one goes anyway. And it is on the home page of their site…
OK, you say that is all great, Eric. But how does that prove that the widgets are helping them rise?? Well…I actually looked at quite a few cities where Trulia was on page 2 or three of the search engines. Low and behold those were the cities where the bloggers and real estate sites had (by and large) resisted the urge to put the Trulia widgets up. (surprise, surprise.). Truliamazing.
More on that coming soon.
Let’s start by calling on Number One Expert to start taking theirs down or no following them. And let’s start INFORMING REALTORS of the true cost of the widgets and other links to Trulia. If REALTORS understand the cost and decide to do it anyway, I am cool with that. I just don’t want them to do it just because they were / are uninformed.
Teri Lussier says:
Eric-
I know this has to be time consuming to pull this research and write these posts, but I couldn’t agree with you more:
>If REALTORS understand the cost and decide to do it anyway, I am cool with that. I just don’t want them to do it just because they were / are uninformed.
Thanks for educating us!
May 12, 2008 — 4:12 am
Cheryl Johnson says:
The lesson for me is … If I built my own cute little widget, and encouraged folks to add ~my~ widget to their blogs or websites …. I could probably build some pretty good traction, too … Hmmmm.
May 12, 2008 — 4:49 am
Eric Blackwell says:
@Teri- you are more than welcome. 😉 This is about 20% of it. More on the way. Consulting and teaching the basic principles of SEO self defense has become needed in these competitive times to help protect our industry. See, if T! does it, then another, and so forth.
@Cheryl- Yes! Sometimes the best defense is good offense.
Best to all.
Eric
May 12, 2008 — 5:06 am
Malok says:
Enlightening research, Eric. Hopefully this will stand as a wake up call for persons using the Trulia widgets. Persons using them in their original format ARE shooting themselves in the foot in the long run.
May 12, 2008 — 5:33 am
Jay Thompson says:
“Jay Thompson and Kris Berg–my friends, are you hearing me on this? Both of you have Truliamazing widgets on your sites last I checked…”
Eric – apparently you need to stop by more often! 😉 I put up a lot of little widgets, gizmos and experiments. Most wind up in the trashcan, where the trulia widget now lies.
Greg’s Long List Widget does much the same, and exactly what Cheryl suggests. Yes, it sends out a lot of “link love” but Greg was smart enough to put a few links back to BHB on it. When I used to make the Long List I’d constantly see links to my site coming in from all sorts of “obscure” places. Those links scroll off the long lists, but the links back here keep on keeping on. Smart….
Off-subject, but cool: How about Google Alerts? Led me straight to this post… It fascinates me that Google can pick up “Jay Thompson” in this post and send me an email basically saying, “Hey, someone may be talking about you”.
GAs are little whiz-bang bytes of technology no one should be without!
May 12, 2008 — 6:31 am
Jay Thompson says:
Man being “gray-listed” sucks. Having every comment go into moderation kinda kills the flow of the conversation. But such is life I suppose…
May 12, 2008 — 6:33 am
Eric Bramlett says:
It’s all about transparency, right? As long as Realtors understand the implications of using Trulia widgets, then I’m fine w/ anyone using them.
I’m completely dumbfounded by Number2Expert. As we discussed earlier, it’s ridiculous for Number2Expert to market themselves as a company serious about search engine placement, and to include these widgets on their client sites. At least slap a nofollow on them!
May 12, 2008 — 6:41 am
Eric Blackwell says:
@Jay- I intend to stop by more often! Been heck of busy! (grin)Google alerts rock…they work on competitors’ sites as well…(hint…hint…)(grin) I love ’em and use ’em.
I wonder if Number1Expert is using them. or maybe Number 1 expert. or maybe Number1 Expert … 😉
May 12, 2008 — 6:59 am
Cheryl Johnson says:
>>Greg’s Long List Widget does much the same, and exactly what Cheryl suggests.
Yes … I was indeed thinking about Greg’s Long List Widget … I do hope he spends some time talking about Widget Construction at BHBU.
May 12, 2008 — 7:13 am
Eric Blackwell says:
@Cheryl–Good subject IMO as well. Have not seen the full 411 agenda wise…but that would be good to have on it.
May 12, 2008 — 7:23 am
Greg Swann says:
> Man being “gray-listed” sucks. Having every comment go into moderation kinda kills the flow of the conversation. But such is life I suppose…
Stop spitting on the carpet.
> Greg’s Long List Widget does much the same, and exactly what Cheryl suggests. Yes, it sends out a lot of “link love” but Greg was smart enough to put a few links back to BHB on it. When I used to make the Long List I’d constantly see links to my site coming in from all sorts of “obscure” places. Those links scroll off the long lists, but the links back here keep on keeping on. Smart….
This is a poor analysis. The links from the Long List widget come back to specific landing pages, one on BloodhoundBlog, two on the Long List’s blog, both for house-keeping purposes. Many of the weblogs I control echo the Long List. I know of these four outside blogs: Blog Fiesta, RealtyBizCoach, Real Estate Journal and Classic Homes of Tacoma. Those are all quite a bit lower than us on the food chain, and I expect they’re all already linking to us. Our main landing page — the one that benefits most from inbound links — is on the blogroll for two of the four. I’m sure we’re getting some benefit from the links in the widget, but it’s nothing compared to the benefits we’re throwing off.
That is, we’re right in the tu quoque zone: BHB is no better than Trulia because both have widgets that link back to the mother-ship. The difference is that Trulia’s widgets benefit only Trulia. By contrast, the weblog posts we link to in the Long List get a huge boost because the widget is echoed. If the RE.net were truly interested in delivering benefits to “the community,” the best thing each individual weblog could do would be to echo the Long List. I’m barely maintaining it right now, because I’m coming and going, but in normal times it gives a big boost to the featured weblogs.
At the risk of being maligned as being egotistical for telling the unexpurgated truth, we are by far the best source of links in the RE.net — in quantity and quality — both in terms of Page Rank and by not nofollowing comment links. Moreover, we link down quite a bit more than we link up, so, even proportionately, we are doing much more than any other real estate weblog to help other, smaller real estate weblogs. I absolutely refuse to apologize for being the best, but I am truly sick to death of being attacked for being the best.
These are the relevant numbers from April 30, from a comment to Galen’s flagship post:
> I heard someone mention “leaking pagerank” above. Pagerank leak is actually an older concept that doesn’t ring true. Linking out doesn’t lower your own site’s pagerank (BHB is proof of this – it’s a dofollow, PR6 blog.)
I thought the idea of leaking page rank sounded particularly specious, but I didn’t care enough to fight about it. Right now, the top of the blog, the main landing page, is delivering 961 links. Of those, 372 are links back into the blog — overhead, house-keeping and deep-linking — but, of the 589 outside links, 140 are especially robust, since they’re in the Long List bot, which is echoed on multiple sites, including several of our other weblogs. We have just short of 22,000 comments with ~0% comment spam, so it’s plausible that we’re throwing off more than 20,000 dofollow links in comments.
There’s more that we do. The potentially canonical list of real estate weblogs is 360 links deep. The Long List weblog is over 1,000 permanent PR4 links. I don’t think of this in SEO terms, but if we’re leaking Page Rank, I don’t see how.
Here’s how some other RE.net blogs stack up:
*134 outbound links are to my Republic columns
**4Realz displays 100 posts per page, typically composed
of 3 inbound links and one or more outbound links
If I cared about gaming the SEO game, rather than doing what I can to turn real estate representation into a real business, I would do exactly what 4Realz and TFoREM do: I would direct all or most of my linking “up” — to sites with a Page Rank higher than BloodhoundBlog’s. I would kiss up to media sites — Inman, in notable particular — rather than telling them to kiss my ass. I would try to comment on A-list weblogs in the hope of getting links back. We are what we are because we deliver the goods. We have outgrown all of the would-be experts because we deliver the goods. We are not ever going to do anything except deliver the goods. But when it comes to the linking party in the RE.net, everybody brings something, but BloodhoundBlog always brings the kegs. I will be damned before I will be denounced for doing good.
PS: You’ve made the Long List eleven times since I started keeping a permanent count. I don’t care about anything except the quality of the writing.
May 12, 2008 — 8:22 am
Todd Carpenter says:
Let me tell you why I echo the long list widget, but not the Trulia widget. Because the BHB widget is a benefit to MY readers, and the Trulia widget is not.
follow/nofollow and page rank linking and only linking to site based on their PageRank is all just mumbo jumbo to me. Not because I don’t understand it, just because I know it’s really not that important.
I respect what you’re saying Erik, but I also think SEO strategery needs to be tempered with your reader’s experience.
May 12, 2008 — 11:33 am
Eric Bramlett says:
The bottom line is that widgets aren’t bad…the concept of widgets rocks, and there are some awesome widgets out there.
It’s also not bad to link out, and to link out to creators of widgets. Linking is what ties the internet together.
It’s not even necessarily bad to link to your competitors. I have great relationships w/ many of my competitors, and we link back and forth quite a bit.
Greg created a really cool widget that’s worth using, and he more than deserves credit links for it.
However, it can be bad to link out to a competitor when that relationship is one-sided, or when that competitor has the type of resources that Trulia does. Trulia is on a fast track to take over the SERPs, and the widget users are helping them. It’s definitely the smart move to take down your Trulia widgets & badges.
May 12, 2008 — 12:00 pm
Eric Blackwell says:
@Todd–
Spot on with the point about the readers experience. I would enter into evidence the “widget” above that I pulled from the Nashville real estate page listings…the green one. Somebody PLEASE make the case for me that that widget brings value to the reader (grin). It doesn’t.
The other example that I used was SPECIFICALLY a website design company (Number 1 expert)slapping another webmaster’s widget up there on 11,000 unsuspecting REALTORS’ sites whilst not explaining the consequences and whilst claiming to get their folks to the top of the search engines.
As I said, I am totally cool with people putting widgets on their blogs. Your use of Greg’s is a great example. Widgets are not the problem here. The indiscriminate use of widgets on other people’s (REALTORS) sites by a web design firm was what this dog was barking about. Again, i don’t mind the use of widgets at all. I just don’t want someone UNKNOWINGLY to use them without understanding what they do.
I would not put them on my site because they are inaccurate and do not tell the complete story. (Something that doesn’t apply and doesn’t equate to Greg’s widget in any sense of the word.)
Bottom line: If you want to know what is bringing a significant measure of Trulia’s search engine success, it is the widgets and badges.
I did not make this news. I am merely reporting it.
May 12, 2008 — 12:32 pm
Charles in Las Vegas says:
Ah but they do give you a link back from a profile page buried in their site….of course it doesn’t compare to a home page link in return. Trulia has done a great job of using their competition (realtors) to help them in the serps. Sadly, most agents have no idea that Trulia is in the game for Trulia.
May 13, 2008 — 1:00 am
Carolyn Gjerde-Tu says:
Just reading through the posts and responses should be an eye opener for people just starting their website or blog. I hope this information will stop people from putting the widget on their site or may cause others to take it off their site.
May 13, 2008 — 12:53 pm
Todd Carpenter says:
Eric, I think we are basically on the same page. I warned re agents to be cautious in using these tools nearly a year ago.
I just think the business of passing along link love to be overblown.
Worth noting. When I blog about an address on Den-Mod, I usually link higher than Trulia does. At least for a while. That’s without the help Trulia gets from the broker linking to them, and with me passing on do follow link love back to the agent.
In the grand scheme of things, it just doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me.
May 13, 2008 — 1:27 pm
Heather Rankin says:
Eric ~
>If REALTORS understand the cost and decide to do it anyway, I am cool with that. I just don’t want them to do it just because they were / are uninformed.>
Yes, I stuck a Trulia widget on my blog then ran across an article on BlueRoof360 re: the no follow from the end of April. I’ve been following along since and have been kind of blown away.
As a newbie it’s pretty distressing to find out what is going on in the underbelly. Not being much of a “cutsie” type person, I’ve stayed away from lots of widgets and clip art. What’s distressing is the one I did choose to use from Trulia actually ended up boosting them on *Google* above my own blog. Gads. Frustrating.
It now lies in the trash can. Looking forward to the rest of the research. Cheers!!
May 13, 2008 — 1:27 pm
JTB Summit says:
Great work Eric,
If great writers keep exposing competitors like Trulia for what they really are, Competitors, perhaps more people would wake up and realize what is happening right under their chins. Trulia is your biggest and most dangerous competitor.
May 13, 2008 — 2:01 pm
Eric Blackwell says:
@Carolyn–Hi there. Exactly. Thanks.
@Todd– Yes, I think we are. I think some of the other research may well convince you to be even a bit more cautious, but I think in general, we agree. I think I am probably on the “bigger” side of big deal and you are more on the “deal” side – hehe. Nice post BTW… had not seen it. (that I remember…) 😉
@Heather– Thanks. This post was for you and those like you who are doing a great job at getting started into the online real estate marketing world. BTW- I really like the photography on your blog. You live in an amazing and beautiful part of the world. Keep reading the bloodhound blog. There are some incredible people here (and friendly too!). Hope you are going to Unchained.
May 13, 2008 — 2:22 pm
Steve Castaneda says:
Eric,
Number1Expert is using them. It seems that all their templates (at least the ones I’ve seen) are using the widgets respective of the agent (Atlanta widget for Atlanta Number1Expert templates).
Did Trulia score some kind of affiliation deal with them or something?
May 13, 2008 — 2:55 pm
Eric Lewis says:
As I read this article and the comments I realize that while my site ranks well I am glad I haven’t added these “widgets” and that I am in smaller market that isn’t as directly targeted.
I couldn’t agree more that most Realtors don’t have a reasonable understanding when it comes to the internet, let alone the details that have been described here. Now that I think about it I’m not sure I do either.
May 13, 2008 — 3:59 pm
Ryan Martin says:
Eric ~ Great spot and research. Trulia is on the 2nd page for most of my market’s SERPs and I have yet to see their widget on any major player’s local website yet. Although, Windermere signed some deal with Trulia that now feeds them our listing data. I work for a Windermere and was pretty unhappy about the recent move 🙁
May 13, 2008 — 6:16 pm
Eric Blackwell says:
@Ryan; For the record…there are several of us doing the research now. Bramlett has been digging BIG TIME. Steve Castaneda (commented above you) has been digging. Hang on folks. More interesting stuff from them coming up. Both of them deserve major props.
May 13, 2008 — 6:44 pm
Ryan Martin says:
@Eric ~ OK BIG PROPS to Bramlett and Castaneda too! Also, I need to correct myself. Since my post yesterday, I noticed that Trulia slipped into that rotating 4th position for my “city real estate” search. I checked their external backlinks in Yahoo and found that that there are a lot of local agents using that widget on their website. Most of them were ironically RE/Max agents? Should I PM a list to you or Eric Badgley?
May 14, 2008 — 7:32 am
Eric Blackwell says:
Send it on over Ryan…thanks.
May 14, 2008 — 8:12 am
Sam Chapman says:
What Jim said… I have been surprised and disappointed at trulie climbing the Austin SERPs and had no idea why until now.
May 15, 2008 — 2:54 pm
Rick says:
Erick you are right on the money…it’s amazing how many people actually help out the “Author” of the widgets Much more than themselves when they use these on their sites!
There’s usually a Reason why something is FREE…
December 17, 2008 — 4:44 pm
Susan says:
>>Number1Expert is using them. It seems that all their templates (at least the ones I’ve seen) are using the widgets respective of the agent
Unfortunately, the agents, myself included who purchased the Number1Expert sites really had no clue..as would be expected. I don’t believe Number1Expert automatically uses these widgets anymore…I see this post dates back to May.
December 19, 2008 — 2:16 pm
Rick says:
Thanks for digging into this one…it smells like an old bone! I dumped N1Expert a long time ago.
December 31, 2008 — 5:46 pm