You just can’t make this stuff up:
Inman News is launching a new feature: Real Estate Product Reviews.
Would you like to be part of a team of real estate professionals that reviews and rates new real estate technologies, tools and services?
We want to hear from you.
I’ll just bet you do…
I loved this bit of reptilian reciprocity:
Imagine if the digital/virtual book (Vook) knew at what point you stopped reading, and then starting sending you Tweets from characters in the story up until that point, or giving you a tease of what’s coming up next. I can riff a bunch of ideas off this but my head is going to explode!
Amazingly enough, this harshly critical review of vacuous vaporware comes from a vacuous vaporware vendor who has suffered equally harsh treatment from Inman “News” — call it quid pro lizard.
Our whole world is out of joint by now, so much has the word “supportive” come to mean “promotional.” Drew Meyers is a sweet, sweet man, but this article is nothing but vendor-pimping. The vendor might well deserve the accolades, but, if so, why bury the lead? The post is not about SEO nor about a well-optimized web site. It’s about the vendor who built that attestedly well-optimized site. Hiding that fact reeks, in my opinion.
And it wouldn’t do to forget the best little PR3 weblog in Texas. Agent Shortbus is not a whore, and don’t you dare say it is! It’s more like a big-hearted, big-haired, round-heeled gal who just happens to like a Prime Rib before and a Blue Agave Margarita after. What’s so bad about that?!?
Diogenes might as well be Cassandra, I do understand that. But we are too much at risk of becoming entirely enmired in bullshit, to the extent that we can’t even smell it any longer. When Inman News, the high temple of the vendorslut religion, can pretend to do product reviews — that seems like a good time to tune into Radio Cassandra.
We have this thing, and maybe none but few of us have understood from the first how unusual it is for real estate professionals to live a life unconstrained by brokers and bosses, by the NAR, by the vendorslut mafia. The Web 2.0 world may be our Prague Spring, but never doubt that the brokers and the bosses want to take their power back.
It were well for you to take a moment and do a little census of names you know in the wired world of real estate. How many of those folks are not in bed with the NAR or Inman or the vendors? How many of them would not suffer a loss of prestige or income or notoriety if they should decide — against all odds, against all precedent, against all expectations — to take up the Lamp of Diogenes?
You are being sold back into slavery and you don’t even know it. Worse, I’m pretty sure you don’t want to hear it. So much the worse for you. So much the worse for all of us. So much the worse for consumers…
David G from Zillow.com says:
Greg,
Drew gave his readers 4 strong factual points to back up his argument. If you disagree with him, please tell us why? After the 2 years he’s invested in selflessly helping RE Pro’s via geekestateblog I believe that Drew deserves more respect or at least, the benefit of the doubt.
April 8, 2009 — 1:26 pm
Erion Shehaj says:
Mafia … Bosses … Vendorsluts.
This is getting very old very fast
April 8, 2009 — 1:40 pm
Greg Swann says:
> This is getting very old very fast
I love it! An unlimited amount of data at your fingertips, and yet you are forced by unfathomable circumstances to strike your poses here and here only. What a horrifying fate!
April 8, 2009 — 1:44 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Drew gave his readers 4 strong factual points to back up his argument. If you disagree with him, please tell us why?
I disagree with nothing except his approach.
The actual subject of the post is buried at the end:
This was obvious to me, and it was equally obvious to Jim Marks, who posted the first and, so far, only comment.
There is nothing special about the web site Drew cited in the post — other than that it was made by the vendor Drew was promoting — and the actual SEO benefit he cites consists of nothing other than plain old keyword spam:
If Drew really thinks Jim Marks is the last word in keyword-spamming web sites, that’s perfectly fine with me. But the way to celebrate good work by a vendor is like this — right out in the open, so that people know what it is that you’re doing.
If, as with all the defenders of Benn Rosales, you want to insist to me that Drew Meyers didn’t know what he was doing in that post — even though Jim Marks obviously understood perfectly — that’s fine. That would serve as further proof of the point I am making:
> I believe that Drew deserves more respect or at least, the benefit of the doubt.
I believe we are so worried about being “nice” and “supportive” that we betray the very people who lend us their minds — and their trust.
April 8, 2009 — 2:01 pm
Erion Shehaj says:
Have a lot of respect for your genius Greg. And you are right, there’s a wealth of knowledge out there. But if it weren’t for posts by Geno, Jeff and Sean I doubt I would swing by your neck of the woods much. Posts like this are turning you into the Mark Levin of the RE.net
April 8, 2009 — 2:06 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Posts like this are turning you into the Mark Levin of the RE.net
Dang. Does this mean I’m not getting my bonus?
Good grief…
April 8, 2009 — 2:15 pm
Geordie Romer says:
I’m undecided about which post rubbed me the wrong way more. The GEB post about “seo” or this post.
BHB has proven over and over again that Mr. Swann has a sharp wit, sharp pen, and often uses both when he probably would best serve his own interests by staying mute. His tone and style are so abrasive that when a good argument or idea appears, it gets lost behind the vitriol.
However, just this once, I agree with his premise. The GEB post in question left me shaking my head. I would have much preferred a post that referred to multiple sites by multiple vendors and demonstrated how each of them tackled SEO issues. I would have loved to seen some examples of how not to build a site and I would have loved to see examples of multiple ways to skin a cat. It seemed like ad for Jim Marks.
I have had great interactions with both Mr. Meyers and Mr. Marks, but I think this post was disappointing both in its transparency and its educational value.
April 8, 2009 — 2:19 pm
Drew Meyers says:
The back story on this: Jim showed me the Laguna Beach website down at RE BarCamp LA last week and I could instantly tell this was an example of great SEO. If you don’t want to believe me, that’s fine, but I wrote the GEB post to show an example of an agent/broker site doing a good job of SEO — regardless of who built the site. The fact that it was a site built by Jim Marks was a very minor piece of the post, as it should have been.
Do I think Virtual Results is a good vendor to work with? Absolutely, and I could have easily written an entire post about them because I think they do create job building quality sites for their clients.
April 8, 2009 — 2:34 pm
Dave G says:
> consists of nothing other than plain old keyword spam
I love reading your posts Greg – but FYI – using keywords in the URL is not keyword spam…not even close. It is best practice.
I know you have stated that you do not know much of anything about SEO (and you do not want to)…but I don’t think it was necessary to prove it to everyone.
-=)
April 8, 2009 — 2:35 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Jim showed me the Laguna Beach website down at RE BarCamp LA last week
This is exactly the way I read the post: A vendor approached you for PR and you gave it to him. If you want to claim that you didn’t know you were being used for promotional purposes, I will happily concede the point. I’ve been warning people about this shit for coming on three years.
Please don’t make this worse by shooting out more smokes screens. It was obvious to me what had happened, the exact sequence of events. You can learn from this experience or not, but there is no one but you who can claim to have been fooled by it.
April 8, 2009 — 2:46 pm
Drew Meyers says:
Geordie-
I’ll admit I should/could have mentioned a few good examples and shown examples of bad SEO as well to give a better overall picture. But it wasn’t meant to be a complete overview of good and bad SEO; just a quick example of someone doing it well that others could learn something from.
April 8, 2009 — 2:56 pm
Greg Swann says:
And not to gild the lily, but:
Laguna Beach real estate — not in the top 50 on Google.com, even though it’s the title of the main page.
Newport Beach real estate — not in the top 50.
But: The content is not as spammy as I thought: On the landing page, “Laguna Beach” appears a mere 62 times, while “Newport Beach” comes in with only 41 mentions.
I see nothing of good SEO here. I’m thinking Jim Marks could have done himself a bigger favor by keeping his mouth shut.
April 8, 2009 — 3:02 pm
David G says:
Greg,
Have you not written about stuff that Drew and I have shown you?
Where you and I seem to differ is that I know it is possible for an author to “see” stuff and yet maintain their credibility. By not acknowledging that possibility, are you not also questioning your own credibility when you write about the stuff you’re shown?
April 8, 2009 — 3:16 pm
Greg Swann says:
David, if you have an objection to something I’ve said, please quote it.
By now it is obvious that what I had suspected was true all along was in fact the case: Drew wanted to help a “buddy” with some free PR. There is nothing in the web site used as the putative purpose of the post that calls out, “This is good SEO.” To the contrary, the site isn’t doing well in either of its two long-tail markets. This smells worse to me every time we stir the kettle. I’m thinking it’s time for y’all to quit while you’re behind.
April 8, 2009 — 3:29 pm
Erion Shehaj says:
Gild the lily we shall.
BloodhoundRealty is currently in page 7 for “Phoenix Real Estate”
April 8, 2009 — 3:29 pm
Jim Marks says:
“I’m thinking Jim Marks could have done himself a bigger favor by keeping his mouth shut.”
Greg,
This is a two week old redesign for an agent that I thought I did some pretty cool work on. I was kinda proud of it and showed it to Drew,as part of a MUCH broader conversation? I am happey Drew like it, but not sure why you are slamming me? I have never even met you, spoken to you, or made ANY CLAIMS to you ..about anything…ever..
April 8, 2009 — 3:39 pm
Greg Swann says:
> not sure why you are slamming me? I have never even met you, spoken to you, or made ANY CLAIMS to you ..about anything…ever..
We were introduced in Seattle, I believe, not that that matters. I am not slamming you. The point of all of this is to put real estate professionals on notice that Inman, the NAR and the vendor community as a whole are not to be trusted, and this incident has proved to be much more instructive, in that regard, than I had first supposed. To my knowledge, you have not done anything morally objectionable. By now, you’re just along for the ride. My apologies to you.
April 8, 2009 — 3:48 pm
Hawaii real estate guy says:
Aloha Greg,
I just finished commenting / criticizing Drew as nicely as I knew how to, but I see you’ve taken a much more straight forward approach here, which I appreciate.
Jim Marks, sorry, but your site optimization is spammy and will not compete in Google’s top 5 for its main keyword in its current state.
Greg, I want to contribute on your site. You speak the truth and that really appeals to me.
April 8, 2009 — 6:31 pm
jay seville says:
Hawaii real estate. I just googled as much and found you at #1. Amazing. Did you do that yourself–self trained SEO or professional input?
However your site could use some help. I highly recommend investing in a REW site like mine. Your SEO with a cutting edge IDX system would be amazing–you’d have to hire lots of agents on a team (of course you may already have several working with you). Expensive but extremely worth it. It will pay for itself 100x over. Oh well for what it’s worth.
I need your SEO skillz! I also wish I had some waves to ride here in N. VA.
April 9, 2009 — 6:11 pm
Hawaii real estate guy says:
I’d like to retract my statement from my previous comment about Jim Marks’ site being spammy. It was late last night and I did not look over the site thoroughly. Upon further review, the SEO of the site is actually very good. It’s only been 2 weeks since the new site went live and it already ranks #1 in MSN for its main keyword, Laguna Beach real estate. And I’m confident he will do very well in Google.
@Jay – You have a nice site. But I’m afraid (just like I did w/ Jim) you did not take a thorough look at my site. I think you’ll find, upon further investigations, that we have one of the cleanest real estate search interfaces around.
April 9, 2009 — 6:26 pm
jay seville says:
You know Hawaii, your site is so different that I’m probably wrong. You obviously know what you’re doing on the tech side and would not settle for mediocrity.
Do you get regularly people wanting to submit “a bid” on using your form? I love the study on selling agents and Srint employees. May I use that?
“If you ever doubted the value of real estate agents who work solely for home buyers (as opposed to traditional agents who report to sellers), consider this: A recent study by U.S. Sprint found that 232 relocating Sprint employees who hired buyer’s brokers paid an average of 91% of a home’s list price. People who use traditional agents typically pay about 96%.” – Money Magazine, “House Hunting? Save By Hiring Your Own Agent”, By Carla A. Fried
April 9, 2009 — 6:38 pm