Tue 21 Nov 2006
Purchasing eyeballs
Posted by Marlow Harris under Real Estate
[9] Comments
Matt Carter writes on Inman Blog “Practice What You Preach” about some real estate companies purchasing keywords of competitors on Google.
sellsius° has a post about the 2007 NAR amending its Code of Ethics that prohibits “deceptively using metatags, keywords or other devices/methods to direct, drive or divert Internet traffic or otherwise mislead consumers.” Most of the comments seem to poo-poo the misleading use of metatags, but I think the NAR’s amendment also applies to purchasing the keywords of competitors.
For instance, in Seattle, both Redfin and MLSonline is purchasing “Coldwell Banker Seattle” and “Windermere Seattle” search terms on Google, when neither are in any way associated with Coldwell Banker or Windermere Real Estate. House Values and Home Gain are purchasing the term “Redfin“. JustListed.com, RealEstate.com and Zip Realty are purchasing the phrase “Seattle Dream Homes” on Google. ( Note: I own the website www.SeattleDreamHomes.com). And there are almost 100 companies purchasing the term “Seattle Realtor“. The interesting thing is, many of the companies purchasing those words are not Realtors at all, but referral services and portal sites, in no way affiliated with the National Association of Realtors. So, of course, since they’re not Realtors, they can’t be censored for doing misleading promotion.
9 Responses to “ Purchasing eyeballs ”
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November 21st, 2006 at 9:08 am[...] – Curbed.com out of New York shows us a home that is listed for $4,800/sf and what they did to sell it – Marlow Harris discusses companies buying other companies names in Google Pay Per Click – Sellsius – the 2007 NAR Code of Ethics Prohibits Deceptive Meta Tags [...]
November 21st, 2006 at 6:25 am
Is your business name / phrase trademarked? Would that make any difference in terms of getting them to stop? (I don’t know, just posing the question)
As always though, makes a great case for blogging and earning your page rank. For myself I skip over paid search results at least 95% of the time.
November 21st, 2006 at 8:50 am
I always find it interesting to see websites fighting over terms that are highly competitive but with not that many people searching for that phrase.
Here are some numbers:
In the last 24 hours, 190 people searched for “seattle realtors” with 746 websites competing for that term.
In the last 24 hours, 72 people searched for “seattle realtor” with 12600 websites competing for that term.
In the last 24 hours, 198 people searched for “seattle real estate for sale” with 15500 websites competing for that term.
In the last 24 hours, 198 people searched for “seattle real estate for sale” with 15500 websites competing for that term.
In the last 24 hours, 157 people searched for “seattle real estate agent” with 13700 websites competing for that term.
That does NOT include the pay per click websites.
These are not terms I would be paying for or targeting in the search engines.. there are more effective terms that you don’t need to pay for that you can get your site coming up under… here is an example or two:
In the last 24 hours “prudential real estate agents seattle” was searched in Google 78 times with 1 website competing for that term.
In the last 24 hours “Real Estate home Listing Seattle WA” was searched in Google 73 times with 35 websites competing for that term.
November 21st, 2006 at 9:48 am
I’m often astounded at how people come to my website, often through the back door or riding that long tail. For instance, I come up #3 on Google for the search “www.Anna.Nicole” and get dozens of visitors that way. Unfortunately, few are shopping for a new home in Seattle
I DO, however, get a lot of buyers who find me by searching for “unusual Seattle homes for sale” or Artistic, Modern or Vintage homes for Sale in Seattle.
As a side note, I do wonder how many buyers and sellers Zip Realty, JustListed.com and Real Estate.com are siphoning away from my business by buying the search term “Seattle Dream Homes”. http://www.JustListed.com is a House Values company and http://www.RealEstate.com is owned by Lending Tree.
November 21st, 2006 at 9:52 am
I bet shortly you will be coming up under “prudential real estate agents seattle†just due to this post.
November 21st, 2006 at 10:08 am
Ha ha!
I’m also amazed about how much online real estate brokers are paying for these ads and PPC. Redfin recently noted that they’re paying $1000.00 a week for PPC on Google, and that’s just a fraction of their advertising costs.
A quick search of Google notes that the term “Real Estate in Seattle” is costing $7.35 per click. But “MLS Seattle real estate” is a staggering $19.32 per click. How can these firms keep racking up these costs?
November 21st, 2006 at 5:28 pm
Google makes it very clear that Adwords is advertising. There is no problem then with people buying pay-per-click for other terms if it generates clicks. It is no different than a Windermere ad showing up next to an article about Redfin in the Seattle Times. Its advertising, and the reader knows it.
No one searching for Windermere Seattle on Google is going to click on a pay-per-click for Redfin thinking its Windermere. If they do, then Redfin looses a pretty penny for not making good advertising decisions.
Another thing to think about is that Google is doing this in reverse through AdSense. I often have ads for various Seattle Real Estate Brokerages show up on my blog. I am clearly not these brokerages. My blog users recognize this though, because Google has posted “Ads by Google” right next to the ads.
Personally, I think pay-per-click is a waste of money… but thats just my opinion.
November 21st, 2006 at 5:29 pm
Yikes! $19.32 per click? You gotta be kidding!
And I thought $3.00 a click was too expensive.
I can only imagine how much “click fraud” is taking place…
November 26th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
It’s human nature for some people to learn the rules and find ways to use them to gain advantages. Immoral or genius?