Lessons Learned from the Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World Contest
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 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.”
SEO Vanity Contest Winner
I know I’m way behind announcing the winner, but I didn’t think of the fact that I’d have to provide some explanation for each answer. (I should have never done 50)
Anyway, the grand prize winner was Kris Farmer from RazorGator. Kris has been a regular listener of the extremely irregular Rockstar show, and also has been present at a few of the episodes that inspired some of the plates. That combination gave him just enough edge out Rebecca Kelley and Laura Lippay for the number one spot.
So without further ado, here are all the answers:
Today’s Rockstar Show – SEO Vanity Contest Hints
Todd and I just finished recording today’s SEO Rockstar show. (We had planned on doing a live show, but we are both heading out today to attend MSN’s Searchifcation event).
The show will be broadcast today at 4:00 pm PST. At the end of the show, we spent some time giving out some good hints for some of the tougher plates from my SEO Vanity Contest. So if you are one of the people who decided not to submit answers because you didn’t think you knew enough of them, you might want to give the show a listen.
The SEO Vanity Contest - Win 2 free passes to PubCon!
I’m not sure how it is in other states, but in California vanity license plates are huge. Just spend one afternoon driving through SoCal and you’ll know what I mean. You almost always end up spending the time you are stuck in traffic trying to decipher the clever custom license plate on the car in front of you.
Both Barbara and I have vanity plates on our cars, and both are Internet related. But I’ve never really like Barbara’s. At first glance it’s kinda cute, but it’s also very dorky. So, last Friday, I decided I was going to buy her a new one.
One of the cool features of the California DMV’s website is the fact that you can type in what you want and it will not only tell you whether or not the plate is available, it will also generate an example of what the actual plate will look like. I’m not sure why I was so fascinated with the tool, but I ended up spending the rest of the afternoon trying to come up with an unregistered plate for all of my friends. (And even some other people I can’t stand).
After the master list was created, I realized I had wasted a shitload of time on it, so I thought that the best thing to do would be to turn it into a contest. After all, I just moved my blog from a 10 year old domain to a brand new domain so I need some new links.
The goal of the contest is to identify as many of the potential plate owners as possible. Each correct answer is worth 1 point, and the bonus plate at the end is worth 5.
The lucky winner (which we’ll announce on September 28th) will win two free PubCon passes, plus an all expense paid night out on the strip with yours truly. (we’re going to party Rockstar style)
Click Here to view the plates and submit your answers
