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An SEO Cage Match between Trulia and Zillow? (or at least a spirited discussion...)

My guess is that when Teresa Boardman posted this message to Twitter:

“O.K. if an agent could only use one, which should they use? Zillow or Trulia?”

She had very little idea (or did she?) what an inspired discussion would commence. As it is with Twitter, both David Gibbons, Community Director of Zillow and Rudy Bachraty, Social Media Guru of Trulia were listening, and what transpired over the next hour or so was a spirited discussion on SOME of the merits of Zillow and Twitter.

Now, this discussion fell quite short of discussing the ENTIRE difference and benefits of the two between the two sites and concentrated mostly on the Search benefits of both. Having a passion for SEO, this is what caught my attention and this is what THIS post will concentrate on.

Here is the discussion, best as I could assemble it...without any additional interjection..I also included a video of the discussion as well, provided by Jeff Turner... Check it out and come on back!!

Now, that you have read the tweetalogue, (just made that up) you probably understand why this is of interest to me... SEO. Within this spirited discussion, there where QUITE a few statements concerning the SEO of both sites.

I would like to first create a series of questions from these statements and hopefully provoke a discussion on the benefits of both.

1) Do temporary inbound links, help your website... (and why dont BOTH companies just mark the property "SOLD" and let the link live, and grow old and VALUABLE."

2) Do links from profile pages help your website and how can you best MAXIMIZE this feature. (Proper Anchor Text, Multiple links, Deep Links, etc)

3) Do links that do NOT have favorable anchor text matter. In other words, If the anchor text is an address, and not a keyword you are trying to rank for.

4) Is the address search, a valuable search. I believe David when he states that he has a few million searches a month by address. But WHO AND WHY is someone searching by address and this really a home buyer?

5) How valuable is the long tail in Real Estate. I see analytics all the time showing the QUANTITY of long tail page views, but is a searcher searching "Restaurants in Laguna Beach" or "Laguna Beach Architecture" really a valuable page view? (Bloggers get involved here...)

6) And a little "pet peeve" non-SEO question. I have always taught that Realtors should create listing pages for their websites, because the MLS descriptions should be written to help OTHER REALTORS sell the house. Realtors should be able to edit ANY outward facing listing page to appeal to the consumer. I am under the impression, that neither Trulia or ZIllow allow this. Am I correct, and how come?

I absolutely have my opinions on ALL these questions... and will back them up with analytics. Lets hear your answers and opinions...

Posted by Jim Marks on 04/15/2009 01:24 PM

Comments (44)

SEO for Real Estate Web Sites in the ActiveRain Channel

trulia, zillow, seo

Post is included in group: Rainmaking - Internet Marketing Strategies

44 Comments on An SEO Cage Match between Trulia and Zillow? (or at least a spirited discussion...)

APR

Jim...

This should prove to be an excellent discussion. I'm parking and letting the Big Dogs and Cats do their thing :)

TLW...ROAR!

WOW -- 20 minutes and counting on this "cage" fight . . .

Reminds me of the "What if we posed/posted a question, and no one showed up?"

TWO comments . . . in 20 minutes. And one is fence sitting, waiting for the battle to begin, and the other is a snide remark.

I guess that'll tell you something . . . it's not even discussion, let alone spirited. I'm sure there's a system malfunction somewhere, and posts aren't getting logged in. Yeah, that's the ticket

Carla,

"I guess that'll tell you someting"

I am sure it does, but what? I was absolutely riveted by the discussion of the SEO benefits of these sites... Most Realtors are posting to both, right? Wouldnt you like to know how to maximize your efforts?

Am I THAT much of a geek? LOL!!

Hi Jim - I followed the links thru and the results surprised me: That Zillow was that far ahead of Trulia. I am on both but favor Trulia as having much higher quality discussions/agent content. And I have always considered the Zillow Zestimate to be, well, junk. But apparently, the consumer does not.

Fence Sitting...

Hardly. Waiting to read and learn from the responses is more like it :)

TLW...ROAR!

Yes, Jim.. You ARE that much of a geek. (that's a good thing)

SEO will always be a hot topic here and in the world of marketing / brand awareness in our business. If an agent sells a property and is able to leave a footprint for future exposure on the web, I doubt you will get a complaint from said agent. Inbound links appeal to most of us and the "discussions" between Rudy and David are always fun to watch. Long tail, short tail, do follow, don't follow might be over many peoples heads but the fact is, exposing a property to as many eyeballs as possible can't hurt. The obvious goal in exposing a listing would be to represent your client in the best light possible and to sell their home for as much as the market will handle. Entering properties on Z and on T with proper anchor text would appear to be beneficial to the client, if the listing agent benefits going forward I am pretty sure they would enjoy the current and the potential future exposure to the market.

I often wonder why Rudy and David appear to dance around some of these questions in relation to how much "juice" they can or will give. The honest answers to your 6 questions should be something that benefits the agent and the sites (Zillow, Trulia etc) they are providing valuable content to.

I'm glad to see you creating these discussions at Active Rain as you obviously know a LOT about SEO. I guess I'll park here next to TLW and see what happens...

Wow, and yes you are a geek and I wish I were! My mind is boggled over some of this stuff but I'm sure I'll keep learning from you geeks. And that's a very good thing!

Anna Banana, Phoenix,AZ

1) A guess all links are good, to a property and yes both should mark them sold. I have seen and been called by clients from both Zillow and Trulia where they find a home I have not sent them or they have found on my current ID site. So they should at least mark them sold.

2)Deep Links definately work, profile links to your websites and blogs work but is best if you use the Anchor text and not just say my blog, my web-site. ie....note linkedin where you can change it for better SEO.

3)Why isn't a address a favorable anchor text, I would think it would be. I post on every listing and have the address in the Title and Title Tag and mention it a few more times. It is usually on Google in a matter of hours.

4)Yes long tail is valuable as most folks search by sentences. Can't say it is immediate business, but calls come in. ie...an animal shelter in Manchester found my post and contacted me. Relationship building. Since my 8000.00 tax credit is the most searched term the last month, obviously that lends to immediate business and more real estate specific.

5)No Trulia and Zillow do not allow you change anything that I am aware of, it has to be changed on the page it syndicated from.When we do VFlyers, or RealEstate Shows we can enhance or change the remarks. When you say listing page for our listings, you do mean one page with all of them right?

Ok, that's my 2 cents....please correct if wrong.

I have found TRULIA to be more beneficial to me., personally, than zillow. That said, I use both.

Next to AR I Trulia pushes more traffic my way. I think Zillow is harder navigate so I just don't go there as often. I'm just getting my feet wet with SEO so I hope there's much smarter people than I to keep this going.

Thanks for all the feedback, let me give some of my own!!

1) Do temporary inbound links, help your website... (and why don't BOTH companies just mark the property "SOLD" and let the link live, and grow old and VALUABLE."

Two part question... 1) Absolutely, as long as the link is a "follow-link" which Zillow listing pages are, (Trulias aren't) and it is up long enough for Google to index it.. The fact that it is temporary means it will only give limited value, as a link from Google gets more valuable with age... (and you thought only wine got better, huh?) With that said, if you are an active agent and constantly have new listings, your expiring links will be replaced by new links! 2) No idea why Zillow doesnt just change the pages to "sold" and let the links live.. I am going to try to coax David Gibbons over here to comment...

2) Do links from profile pages help your website and how can you best MAXIMIZE this feature. (Proper Anchor Text, Multiple links, Deep Links, etc)

I am simply going to quote Missy on this... she is dead right!! Deep Links definately work, profile links to your websites and blogs work but is best if you use (YOUR KEYWORDS AS) Anchor text and not just say my blog, my web-site. ie....note linkedin where you can change it for better SEO.

3)Do links that do NOT have favorable anchor text matter. In other words, If the anchor text is an address, and not a keyword you are trying to rank for.

This is a tad tricky? Missy, again you are correct... If the anchor text, or title or post slug is an address, than the page COULD rank for that address, rather quickly.. Why? cuz there is NO Competition... If I write the words "Dead Green Hobit Shoes with Smell Feet" in this post (especially as a title or <H1> it also will rank... because, like an address, it is pretty obscure and both, noone else is using the phrase and no one is doing SEO for the term... WITH THAT SAID, I wonder who searches for an address? Really, honest question... why would a home shopper search for 123 main st, Poughkeepsie, ny 90063? Are they sitting in front of the house? Did they see the house elsewhere? I have no doubt that people DO search by address, but who are they, why are they doing it, and what is the conversion rate of this type of serach... (I love answering questions with questions, sorry)

Here goes... I think generally, the long tail is a less valuable search than a short tail search, because the conversion rate is lower.. CLEARLY, the percentage of people ready to buy a new home that are searching Laguna Beach Christmas Parade, is lower than the people searching Laguna Beach Homes for Sale... Here is the cool part, though... 1) Long Tail SEO is Free... it is basically a by product of building out the valuable content Active Rainers are known for.. and 2) Long Tail BECOMES short tail.. in other words, if my blog is about Poughkeepsie Real Estate, and I write a blog post about a small neighborhood, called JimMarks Estates... and someone SEARCHES for that neighborhood and finds my post. That is a short tail result, even though the Return on Investment of doing SEO on Jim Marks Estates would NEVER pay... (I know this stuff is a bit esoteric..sorry)

This was a question? I have no answer... again, lets see if we can get someone up close and personal to give us some answers.... no promises...

Give me your thoughts!! (or questions?)

I'm shocked at the address search, other than perhaps people in the know about the listing, but I'm not sure how valuable that is.

I thought long-tail was about finding a niche, not trying to be everywhere, so in my opinion, that is always a good thing.

I'm not aware (other than realtor.com listing enhancement) on editing mls descriptions. I don't know if that would need local MLS approval or not, probably not, but not sure.

When Zillow once put a listing of mine in a correct zip code entered into a wrong city with no way to correct it, I lost total faith in this site, and no one ever responded from Zillow.

This entire discussion is totally hilarious!

Both Zillow and Trulia are only interested in the SEO positioning of thier respective company sites, as every Realtor should be about their own. If everybody put the energy into building thier own sites and building the SEO on them and put less energy into building Z & T's sites they would all be in a much better position.

Most outgoing links on both Z & T sites have the almighty no follow tags, contributions are unrewarded. Not very friendly Z & T!

Both companies vie for front page positioning on all Realtor sites via widgets and other crapiola which tells Google that the site considers Z & T's sites to be VERY important, more so than theirs.

Everything is done to build the Z & T sites and to empower them to float above the Realtor sites in their own markets.

So stupid!

EMPOWER YOURSELF!!!

In response to Laurie Manny~ You are so right- we should be empowering Ourselves! I never really thought about it, but Z and T love it that we use them for our listings because that is what make s them so much better. Consumers want to see the houses for sale on the internet!

I really find your blog interesting. I have been thinking about this for awhile and designed a website with all of your thoughts in mind. I am an agent and thought about what I would want most in a website. When my wife and I bought our first home she talked about how frustrating the process was (I was an agent at the time). She wanted to know why when we would go to look at homes we didn't know of all of the for sale by owners (not listed in the MLS). We talked about everything we wanted in a site for a consumer and for an agent and decided to built a site. We just launched last week and we are only in Maryland but we address most of your thoughts. Agents can post on the site as well as fsbo, auction companies and builders. There is also a link to the MLS. As an agent I wanted a site for agents, where they could promote themselves on several levels. We made broker co op a mandatory field to be filled in for all posters. We link to agent websites, you can post photos and a video on the site as well. In addition we talked about our ideal site and we put on mortgage brokers and contractors. We want a site where people continue to go. I would love to hear your thoughts on our site as we are still designing details and I am interested in what you think. www.relify.com

Thanks,

Stuart Berman

www.relify.com

Top o' da mindshare to ya!

for #5...

A Persistent Curly Curly Long Tail = "Hey I Keep Seeing You Everywhere."

I have to say most agents' websites are not very good. Z & T provide a platform for Q&A, competing ideas & not just self promotion. Of couse, they cost $$ too.

I like both sites and i think we are lucky that they are both available to us. With that said, i have had more feedback from Trulia but i think zillow is more user friendly

Laurie said...

Both Zillow and Trulia are only interested in the SEO positioning of their respective company sites, as every Realtor should be about their own. If everybody put the energy into building their own sites and building the SEO on them and put less energy into building Z & T's sites they would all be in a much better position.

Laurie, there are 15 MILLION results for the search, Long Beach Real Estate, If just one hundred of those Realtors hired a talented, professional SEO, what would that do to rest of the Realtors, Everyone looking out for themselves is a very WEB 1.0 way to consider Internet Marketing,

Successful Realtors need to leverage every single portal available to them. Don't syndicate your listings to Z and T. Syndicate them to Zillow, Trulia and the 60 other websites that are available to you for syndication... imagine, if you have 30 listings a year, syndicated only once to 60 sites... that is 1800 pages of content (and inbound links) pointing to you and your site in just one year... Laurie, that is almost 40% of your total meaningful links, (4,412) and with no effort? How is that bad? Some Realtors have nice old keyword rich domains and the budget for a professional SEO. But if you are new Realtor, you have little chance to rank well for short tail keywords. You need to find other (perhaps even better) ways to compete.

Zillow, Trulia, etc are not your competition and beating them is not your goal. Gaining Market Share within YOUR community is your goal. There is a TON of houses being sold in Long Beach (and everywhere else) and to my knowledge, neither Zillow nor Trulia has ever sold a house anywhere...,

Laurie, you then said,

Most outgoing links on both Z & T sites have the almighty no follow tags, contributions are unrewarded. Not very friendly Z & T!

Absolutely NOT the case. ALL listings on Zillow are FOLLOW-Links. (Trulia's are not) and BOTH Zillow and Trulias profile pages are FOLLOW Links... Remember, this is a profile page that lives on a VERY POWERFUL domain, allow multiple links, deep links or listing links, and of course are FOLLOW LINKS.

Next you said,

Both companies vie for front page positioning on all Realtor sites via widgets and other crapiola which tells Google that the site considers Z & T's sites to be VERY important, more so than theirs.

Zillow and Trulia use every tool in their arsenal to rank well. And then show YOUR listings with links to your websites back to you. How is this bad, again? If a searcher is looking for a property, and they find yours on Z or T, I dont see how that is bad? and if they are looking for a Realtor, they will jump right over Z and T to the next highest ranked Realtor Site. Again, this theme of competing for marketing, instead of market share is of diminishing value...

and lastly,

Everything is done to build the Z & T sites and to empower them to float above the Realtor sites in their own markets.

Zillow and Trulia can not compete with you in your market. Your market is built of communities and neighborhoods that Z and T know nothing about... If you think of individual communities and neighborhoods as your market, and use LOCAL KNOWLEDGE as your tool of choice, neither Zillow or Trulia has anything to compete against you... they can just simply market your product.... for you.

Use Z and T to help your visibility, your SEO, and your Lead generation. They do NOT sell homes, Realtors do.

I really can't much imagine why you would need more "Google Juice" than AR provides - when posts are properly optimized.

What am I missing?

LOL!! Lonn,

You are so right! But I think the old saying goes, "You can't be too rich, too good looking or have too much Google Juice..." or something like that...

I have always felt that Zillow's information was not as reliable or as relevant as Trulia, but I was very surprised when I clicked through on the links in the banter, to see that Zillow is gaining on Trulia in terms of traffic.

I have spent more time with Zillow than Trulia though I'm not certain which is more effective. I appreciate all of the knowledge shared. It sounds like Missy also reall knows her SEO.

APR

I would like to know how to maximize my efforts. This was interesting to say the least.

We all have and are entitled to our differing opinions -- that's what makes a discussion.

I tend to agree with Laurie that both Zillow and Trulia are in it for dominance of the search pages -- which they are starting more and more to be taking space up on page 1 and obviously pushing some of the regular real estate off. With that said I think it's also important to expose the property as much as possible on the Internet.

I made a stab at Zillow but I just couldn't take the Zestamater/Estimator. What a diabolical troublemaker that computer generated disease is to reality!! I opted to put Robin's listings on Trulia which I found more attractive and friendly for further listing exposure.

I agree from the little I have been told that niche marketing is great for the "long tail" search term. Ah so much to learn, so little time to learn it all and when you do it has changed!!

Sue

Thank you for the other Listing Websites for Syndication.

BTW, for all who claim, "Zillow and Trulia are in it for dominance of the search pages", remember that they are in it for the _money_, and they believe dominating the search pages is a means to that end. If in this world of "free" information they found a better monetization policy, well, they'd be on that in a heartbeat.

Jim--I hadn't thought about it much, but I agree it would be nice to be able to customize our listings on these sites. They'd probably charge us extra to do that.

I nominate you for post of the year. Does AR have an award like that? I have to go sell some real estate to pay the bills, but I will come back to this tonight. What an inspired post and thanks. I would contribute but I feel out of my league so listening is my best response.

Hi Jim,

Sorry to take so long to respond ...

1) Generalizing here but, "all followed links help your website" so yeah, that would include "temporary" links if there really is such a thing (I personally think you're buying a line if you buy this "listings are temporary content" thing. Most listings are current much longer than today's news is.)

2) Short answer: YES! Long answer: not all profiles are equally powerful and so participation on a site like Zillow where every contribution makes your profile stronger can allow you to build VERY authoritative profile pages. Going out on a limb here but I'm pretty confident that you can get your Zillow profile to PR3 or even PR4 with a fraction of the effort that it would take to achieve the same thing on your own domain. Now the important thing to do is invest your time in those sites that allows you to use the authority on your profile page to improve your site's ranking. On consumer real estate sites, you will not find a better opportunity for that than on Zillow.

3) Yep. Anchor text is VERY important but every followed link counts. Remember that GOOG is also looking at the context on the page the link comes from.

4) Zillow has home detail pages for both homes on the market and those not on the market. When an address is listed, it gets a LOT more action in Google than when it's not.

5) I find everyone has a different definition of "long tail" but if you think that that "real estate" and "homes for sale" are at the "short head" then, it's pretty much ALL long tail, starting with "Real Estate is Local." The nice thing about RE SEO is local pro's don'e have to compete for the "short head." Niche marketing has always been a core RE agent skill and it's an approach that works REALLY well in SEO.

6) Zillow does allow manual enhancements to listings but since many of our listings don't come directly from the MLS, my reco is typically to get it right upstream and automate syndication.

Let me know if that triggers more questions.

Just reading this makes me realize how much I have to learn. But as an American I can only say competition is good.

"I nominate you for post of the year."

Jim, you should make sure to submit this post to this week's CoRE.

"I made a stab at Zillow but I just couldn't take the Zestamater/Estimator. What a diabolical troublemaker that computer generated disease is to reality!!"

Robin & Sue-

Zestimates are a starting point to a conversation; not a replacement for a CMA or an appraisal by a local professional such as yourself. I'd recommend arming yourself with information (like our accuracy statistics in your area) and using it as a conversation starter to demonstrate your local market expertise to a buyer or seller.

Here is a comment thread worth reading that started with a post by Zillow COO talking about Keller Williams adding Zestimates to KW.com.

I use both, hate the Zestimate, the forums on both are overrun by trolls, the "free" widgets are just going to hurt your SEO. T & Z do not care about you, your success, or helping your website to rank higher. It is a necessary evil until I rank higher than they do for certain serach phrases.

Interesting TruZilla mini-debate, a/k/a Who is better at jumping agents in the SERPS? [I vote Trulia]

Zillow has done the better job of building their brand name recognition, in part, because they better understand mainstream media linkbaiting (Zindex Housing Reports, surveys, White House/celebrity valuations) but their ill-conceived zestimates continue to be an albatross, tarnishing their overall image. The solution is simple– kill the bird by allowing an owner to opt out of the zestimate when selling the home. It may seem counter-intuitive but this would help build homeowner trust . But methinks successful guys like R Barton have a hard time admitting they made a mistake by forcing the zestimate down owners' throats.

IMO Zillow is in a better position to win the hearts of homeowners, a powerful group no real estate website has gone after except the FSBO sites. Once Zillow figures out how to make the homeowner a partner (the opt out would go a long way), e.g matching pros with consumers –how about an appraisal for 100 bucks– they will be a force to be reckoned with. Trulia has a better looking website and UI. More importantly, they have a leg up on agent acceptance (tolerance) because of calculated glad-handing and high-fiving agents (the schmooze factor), who were threatened by Z's home valuation.

The nofollow is an issue and as an agent, I would resent it, knowing that the success of Trulia over my website in the SERPS (using MY content) will one day bite me in the ass, if not already, in me now being "forced" to buy a "featured" ad. That a sold house eliminates the nofollow issue is a red herring– who cares once the house is sold?– it's what's happening BEFORE the house is sold that matters and Trulia is siphoning the agents' juice. Bad kitty.

In the end, it's ROI that matters– does being on TruZilla sell houses better than being on your local MLS? I highly doubt it. At best, the value is incremental and success stories are anecdotal. Heck, millions of Q&A on TVoices and 5 folks get a deal. How lovely.

Just one fella's opinion.

Have you checked out the website www.websitegrader.com? It allows you to compare your website along with your competitors websites. Now I am not saying they are the end all on the matter, but it is interesting to see how your competition's websites are doing compared to yours. They also give you some recommendations on how to make your website better.

Jim,

Reading the discussion here gives you a wealth of knowledge about both Trulia and Zillow. Then you can make up your own mind about what to do.

Wow ! What a discussion here. I am not much of an expert in the SEO and PR and all that. I am smart enough to know it makes sense to have a presence on both sites. And participate in the forums. At the end of the day I also agree that Realtors should take advantage of every opportunity that makes sense.

Great post and topic of discussion. I haven't made up my mind between the two.

Rarely do I feel disdain toward a social network platform, but I must admit I CANNOT STAND ZILLOW! Trulia beats Zillow for so many reasons I can't name them all. Zillow is a "home seller's" worst nightmare (in my humble opinion). They misrepresent and miscalculate home values, because they group everything and everyone together. Trulia on the other hand is a well-thoughtout platform for sellers, buyers and Realtors.

APR

I've spent money on both sites. Trulia had a better click through rate and I definitely received more leads from them.

Laurie is right, promote yourselfand forget about Z & T. Dave Gibbons has always been a scrappy kind of guy and is always 'hither' when someone speaks the Zillow word. Always lurking listening to what people think of Zillow. They only care about their advertisers and their own bottom line. Just make sure you come first with your bottom line! Let's not even start about inaccuracies of information now!

APR

Well I am out of time but I found the post interesting and the comments even more interesting! Wish I could stay and read all of them! With that said I used Trulia (am a Trulia Pro and answer questions on Trulia Q&A) Have had good results there. I also blog on Trulia with good results. I am on Zillow and am a Zillow Expert but do not find it as user friendly so don't visit the site often.

APR

Goog blog post and discussion. It helped me see Z & T in a new light, and gave me some good ideas. thanks for posting this.

#6 - Realtors can't modify their comments because there would be too much conflicting info and no control - in our case, comments can only be changed at the source - the MLS where the listing originates.

NOV

My vote goes to Trulia over Zillo as well, but AR is still tops.

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