Real Estate Blog - ACTIVERAIN LOSING GAS? BY WHAT MEASUREMENT?

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ACTIVERAIN LOSING GAS? BY WHAT MEASUREMENT?

ACTIVERAIN HAS MUCHO MOJO!

Inspired by a post by Robert Swetz about ActiveRain losing gas, I thought a comparison of other real estate related web sites was in order.

WHY ARE YOU AN ACTIVERAIN MEMBER? Your motivation for membership may influence your opinion about the present day status of ActiveRain on the Interent.
ACTIVE MEMBER - You probably realize the value of regular posting to ActiveRain.
ACTIVE MEMBER BUT ONLY POST TO MEMBERS ONLY - Perhaps blogging is a vehicle for personal expression.
ACTIVE MEMBER BUT POST PRIMARILY TO LOCALISM - Use ActiveRain for business generation and don't really care about the personal expression.
MEMBER BUT NOT ACTIVE - You may not realize the benefit of Active Membership. Invited by a member but not really interested in blogging.

When I read a post about ActiveRain losing gas, or as often expressed, losing Google juice, I always want to ask, compared to what? I'm not sure that ActiveRain is

losing gas,
losing rank, or
losing status as a premier real estate realted blog.

COMPARED TO OTHER REAL ESTATE WEB SITES, two measurements that I use to determine Interent synerby are pages indexed by Google and Google backlinks. Pages indexed by Google represents opportunities for a Google return in a consumer search. Number of backlinks represents the popularity of a site, used by Google for page rank. Compare the following:

Pages Indexed
ActiveRain.com	951,000
Realtor.com	2,950,000
Inman.com	36,000
Housevalues.com	309
Zillow.com	2,380,000
Homagain	2,140,000
Realtor.org	37,300
Trulia.com	4,300,000

Backlinks
ActiveRain.com	1,670
Realtor.com	4,130
Inman.com	1,930
Housevalues.com	59
Zillow.com	3,860
Homegain.com	1,060
Realtor.org	2,900
Trulia.com	3,190

With a membership of 151,552, as of this a.m., ActiveRain has 951,000 pages indexed. If you are posting regularly to ActiveRain PUPLIC pages, Google is going to crawl your post.

EXAMPLE: My post SELLING A HOME IS A VOLUNTARY DECISION - OR, IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO TO THE CLOSING TABLE was posted on July 2, 2009 @ 6:58 a.m. It was indexed by Google on July 2, 2009 @ 12:51 GMT. This is the result I see regularly. My Localism posts, all PUBLIC are indexed within minutes of publication.

THAT IS GOOGLE JUICE! I do not believe that ActiveRain is losing gas.

*This number does not represent the total Google backlinks, only major ones are reported.

Posted by Lenn Harley, Real Estate Broker, Maryland & Virginia on 07/05/2009 08:15 AM

Comments (127)

ActiveRain and Google in the Online Marketing Channel

activerain

Post is included in group: The Ninety-ninth Percentile
Post is included in group: Club Chaos
Post is included in group: AR Twitter Users

127 Comments on ACTIVERAIN LOSING GAS? BY WHAT MEASUREMENT?

JUL

Lenn, I keep following the stats on ActiveRain and I agree with you and not with VB. The average number of new members seems to be holding steady at around 116 since the conversion and the average number of posts is around 1500. What can I say, the numbers do not lie...

Your building consultant for life in Nashville, TN

You always have the technical knowledge to get to the heart of the matter with clarity. I envy you that skill.

Me? I just know that it only takes a few minutes after I post on ActiveRain for my Google alert to send me that wonderful message : We found it!

Also, I sometimes answer questions at Trulia voices. I have never had a Google alert from that source.

I think VB is referring more towards the slowdown of comments on his many posts, rather than the content of articles on ActiveRain (which is still, unless I'm mistaken, a real estate network). Many users, both new and those of us who have been here a while, learned the value of posting relevant real estate articles and topics of interest to our local consumers. We like the phone to ring and the email inquiries that come in because of what we write.

VB also brought up something else: The membership fee.

Each time I have a chance to chat with a new member about it I stress to them that if they write articles of interest to draw in the consumer that the fee X one year will most certainly pay for itself in just one valid lead. I certainly have gotten a return on my investment and I can point new members to many many others here who have also reaped the rewards.

Wow, I really rattled on here. Thanks Lenn for giving us the figures on what I've been seeing on a day to day basis but didn't know how to break down.

Hi Lenn This is very interesting, I was surprised to see how Zillow is gaining on realtor.com. I am not surprised at AR stats, and the real surprise is Realtor.com. I heard they lost ground...not so. Thanks

Lenn, I am here mostly to educate myself from Brokers like yourself who have tons of experience that don't mind sharing with the rest of us. I mostly post to members only for now. I do post on Localism and I sponsor our town. I do dominate those post and people have read articles that I have posted and said they enjoyed them.

I told everyone in my office a few months ago to please just post one blog and you will not have to pay for a member ship. Well, now all I hear is, I wish I listened to you. At another office I was talking to an agent and he is furious that Active Rain charges now and even call to argue why it should be free.

I don't know how to get all these stats most of you seem to come up with but I do know Active Rain works and very well I might add. It's taken me a while to learn how to blog but I am getting there. I enjoy reading other folks blogs as well and thats where I get the education from.

Michael. The number of PUBLIC posts vs. MEMBERS ONLY posts is what I would like to see. But, it doesn't matter. The value is there, paid in $$$ or paid in contribution to the network.

Kris. I'm sure I look at different stats than do other members. I'm focused on Google juice to my posts and that is just fine.

June. I always find almost any stats interesting. Indeed, the Google synergy of Zillow is awesome. Realtor.com has always been disfunctional despite the HUGE market advantage of the brand.

June. One of the reasons I believed that membership growth would slow when AR went to paid membership is because I know how reluctant real estate agents can be to spend money for what they don't understand and most don't understand the Interent.

Lenn, thanks for the stats, very interesting. Do you know what they are for Trulia? Good info as always.

I don't know that ActiveRain is losing gas. It works if you work it...

ood info. I am not sure about all the stats but I do know that I get results!

Lenn, I believe there is no better way to launch a new or poor performing website than to activerain blog it. Google takes months before you get performance on a new site (now more than ever I have noticed) and blogs have such an immediate impact. It's the shooting star versus the slowly starting locomotive. They work in harmony...

What is important to me is that I receive prospect calls from ActiveRain posts. Success is in the pocketbook.

Gabe. Just added.

Maureen. I agree 100%.

Gary. That's the message. Good for you.

Frank and Jodi. I don't agree with the time it takes to get a web site going. I believe that depends on how you plan. That said, the blogs and especially the ActiveRain blog to have an immediate impact.

Roy. Good for you. Isn't that why many are here??

Agreed, as I told Bob Stewart this weekend, my paid outside blog AnnArborUndressed, my outside Ann Arbor blog is now getting indexed very quickly and coming up on the searches higher than the members only blogs here.

I know the programers have been working hard to get that to happen, giving the power to that blog instead of this one.

IMO any platform will work IF you work it consistently.

Lenn...

I love seeing those numbers. Everyone needs to just pay attention. Obviously, some missed Brad's post about the 4th of July. He and Jonathan suggested Members put up posts about the holiday. The Members that did were quick to come back to Brad's post and let us all know Google had indexed their posts within hours. If The Members are not being indexed by Google their doing a HE :)

Oh...Wait...HE = Human Error :)

TLW...ROAR!

Lenn - Thanks for the mention and information and feature! How did you do that so quick dear? I just hope in the next few years that Activerain isn't a network from the past!

Vegas Bob

Once again, thanks for the plug!

Lenn,

I'm with you. Posting to AR gets my stuff crawled on Google fast. I've had questions and comments from the public from AR from posts published sometimes months back. This is good stuff, well designed and not going anywhere but up!

I just put up a post comparing traffic on ActiveRain to some other RE sites. AR's got gas... I did not read Robert's post but I think there are some things that coincided with some changes in ActiveRain that may make it feel like the gas is gone but I think it is more just that it is redirected for those who are making use of Localism and outside blogs to talk to the general public rather than posting peer to peer content.

I don't pay for an outside blog, and so for me personally, yes Active Rain has lost gas. Used to be that my active rain posts would beat out my trulia and other posts -- now not so much. When I post, I never get google alerts like I used to either. Active Rain is still a great place to learn and share, and don't get me wrong - I love it. But, you also now get what you pay for!

Missy. Agreed. The outside blogs are reliable producers in Google SERP for important keywords phrases. There are so many ways that ActiveRain pages benifit from Google juice, I could make a list.

TLW. Indeed. A good title will get a Google craw for the keyword phrases in minutes. I rely on it.

Robert Darling, I don't believe it will. ActiveRain is still on the upward direction. However, even if it's only holding it's own, we, the members can benifit through the ActiveRain synergy with out own pages.

Margaret. I just looked at your web page. The Google backlinks are showing one entry:

Joe Oscilia-Licensed Contractor-Oregon (Creative Concepts and ...Cached - Similar

ActiveRain real estate profile for Joe Oscilia-Licensed Contractor-Oregon (Creative Concepts and Contracting) a Builder-Contractor in Salem, OR.
activerain.com/ultimatehandyman -

I rest my case!

Lenn - Thanks for the encouragement and it is a wonderful place to be, you are a bank of information!

Maureen. YOU ARE SPOT ON!

I have always, always had a bifurcated ActiveRain blog. I don't give a fig if Google even knows my AR posts directed to AR members even exists.

However, my Localism posts are well indexed and do exactly what they are intended to do.

Bob. From your lips to . . . . . .

Lenn - you hit the nail on the head, it is the public posting that generates the activities and the google juice. I don't think that it has lost gas.

Good morning Lenn! This was very insightful and something we are very interested in. Being just AR babies and also in the technical world, you answered several questions. One basic question we have is how do you get google alerts and what is a google backlink??? We hope you had a great July 4th!

All but one of my posts have been public. If you can't say it in public, don't say it. I had to change one of my political type posts when the crazies got a hold of it.

As usual, you are right. Thanks

Lenn...

Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing this post. A lot of us "old-timers" don't hang around here for sentimental reasons, we are here because we get RESULTS!

My post about the Peachtree City Fireworks brought call after call about the event. That is Internet POWER! I became an expert by writing a simple post.

I think that you said it best before:

"It's magic!"

Thanks for the info, Lenn. I have a question, though. What type of information should go into a Localism post? I would like to share info about great local hot spots, eateries, schools, where to get your family pictures framed, etc....stuff that I would be interested in hearing about if I was looking to buy in my area. But most of my info here would just be my opinion. Is that OK? Legit?

And once again thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise.

My content shows up almost immediately on Google for either ActiveRain or Localism or the Outside blog I have posted it to...

NOW

I had my topics / categories all snarled up so I hid them on my Outside blogs until Brad wrote the Raindexing post in early June. Made a difference.... most of my posts are public and the majority are written to consumers and Google finds them fine.

Lenn,

A couple of things I've discovered doing my blog; when I get an idea for a post, just a small kernal of information, I start researching it and soon I'm pretty knowledgeable on the subject. The other thing is the techinical information I pick up from people such as yourself. The technical stuff is endless, and most of it is over my head. Thanks for posting on my new group.

I'm not sure how those numbers compare to the numbers of last year but they look really strong. That being said, I do think that AR has a lot of room to grow, which is a good thing.

Lenn - Very good post indeed ! I agree with you and the fact is, the stats do not lie ! Yes, maybe the growth of new subscribers has slowed due to their change of the business model but the fact remains in regards to the number of unique visitors Active Rain gets each month in addition to the incredible Google juice that we all receive from our indiviudal content. I am not an expert but I know consumers are finding us so that makes us quite happy indeed : ). And confirms that things are working well !

Robert. My pleasure.

Mike. ActiveRain has advised over and over that the MEMBERS ONLY posts are not crawled by Google. I know that some have said that their's are, but I've tested it many times and mine are not. I rarely post to MEMBERS ONLY.

Al and Peggy. I don't use Google alerts. I have log files that tell me who is visiting. I don't need to get an alert everytime one of my keywords is used. Google backlinks are show the sites that have a link to your site.

Terry. Good for you. My political posts are public too.

Richard. Right you are! We are here for a reason and it's because it works in the manner in which it is intended.

Tanya. Write about local merchants, local services. My post about the Loudoun County Landfill got me several contacts from consumers. Who would have thought it??

Maureen. You have many wonderful posts for consumers. That's my goal too. Of course, being the political animal I am. . . . . . .

Terry. Indeed. You become the expert and then become KNOWN AS THE EXPERT.

Lenn,

Although I'm not yet getting my Outside Blog juiced, the impact in just 3 months of my public AR and Localism posts has been awesome! Add all I've learned here from fellow members - my gas tank is full.

Lenn, wonderful post...I wish I was more technical and could find all the stats you do....I love it! I believe in AR too!

Lenn,

I'm pretty pragmatic about things like this. Active Rain is effective now and it's up to us to make sure we take full advantage of that for our own businesses. Two years from now something else might come along that's better, but that's for then. I'll leave it up to the Active Rain folks to make sure they continue to progress. I'm content to ride their coattails.

Rich

Lenn,

The numbers don't lie and it is good to see that we are still enjoying an ever increasing number of new members on a daily basis. Thank you for the post.

I wish it was that easy. AR is a vehicle but you still have to drive it . . collectively we all are in the same game together. your input and my input does help us in the end.

It is simply amazing what Trulia has done in just a few years. .and we better get ready to face a new set of companies that will invest the money to push themselves to the front as well

After all, tehre is only ten spaces up front. . .

AR depends on us more than they depend on money, we shoud keep doing our part by giving content and more content.

I continue to get calls and leads from my posts on Active Rain...and I have been too busy to really blog lately, mostly commenting and researching to make sales happen...it's working for me based on work done over the past two years...still~!!! Also, I'm making some changes based on some inspiration that came from http://www.realestateleesburg.com/. Just reading your bio gave a me a scathingly brilliant idea that I have been trying to hatch for months.

AR losing it's mojo? Not for me!!! Thanks for the hard data, but I'm living the successful reality.

It works, you need to blog here, you get super results when you do. It's that simple but seeing under the search engine hood is helpful to drive the point home.

Lenn.. You reap what you sow. The numbers are there and state this. I like blogging whether it be public or members only.... being diversified. With this, last year produced three clients for me from this website... No complaints here.

Thanks for such a great post.

valerie osterhoudt

Lenn, I am with you with the statistics you provided, Active Rain still has momentum.

Lenn, very well put. Active Rain is not losing gas... it's individual members that do occasionally. I know I do for various reasons but I keep coming back because AR works for me!

Lenn,

Great computation of the statistics..thanks for taking the time to make a clear, concise point. AR does have MUCHO MOJO!!!

Lenn, Thanks for the great information. I only started blogging in October and everything everyone said about leads coming in at about 6 months is true. I get e-mails, text messages and have had more "raw" leads than ever before. And I attribute it all to AR and my website! It's been hard to keep up and I am really excited to see how my year shapes up.

Lenn, thanks for the statistics...I will be passing this on to agents in my office...as I can not get them moving on AR. As for myself, I would be LOST without AR.

Six months into blogging very regularly and adding localism and my outside blog, I am getting business from my blogging efforts on AR. I cannot complain about the Google Juice! I have Google Alerts and every day my blog shows up in my mail box under one of the search terms! I will just be happy when realtor.com is no longer the dominate site for real estate and from your post...they are being gained on!!!

Jeani

I have noticed that my google alerts come slower and less in number than 6 months ago.

That said, AR works for me! I get calls, referrals, and I post both members only + localism. They serve 2 different markets and if you use them differently, that's the way to work this!

If you leave this medium idle, then yes you are losing gas, but as long as you plan your trip, drive the site and refill it, then that fuel is being well used and I can tell you my destination is my Google and my clients and I'm certainly reaching them. I just need to keep my fuel tank full, but I am certainly not going to let this sit idle and waste the gas that it has!

Lenn, this is a well written post and I usually find the people that say this are the ones that aren't using it but once a month.

Todd Clark - www.LivingBeaverton.com

Good article. Glad to find out Active Rain is worthwihile effort.

Your Queen Creek AZ Real Estate Specialist

Lenn, Great stats and analysis as always. Personally, I am on ActiveRain because of the friendships and the incredible information and insight that is shared about real estate on a daily basis. If I have a problem, like my last closing, I can share about it and get 180 excellent comments, many from lenders. This is an incredible resource and one that I have no intention of ignoring or taking for granted!

My juice on Google, Clusty and Bing is all tasting pretty sweet these days, and it has to be Active Rain. Great analysis.

Lenn - I often check Yahoo to get a better idea of the number of backlinks to my own site, since Google seems not to display all of the actual links pointing to a page. With that in mind, I checked Yahoo just now for AR:

2,550,937 backlinks and 2,847,905 pages indexed

I don't know why Google shows such a big disparity on this stuff.

Nice summary!

I am sooooo re-blogging this to the outside blogs. Awesome conversation and post. I am not at my desk so I can't stick a butterfly on it but it is featured in Club Chaos. :-)

Christopher and Stephanie. Google is doing it's job. AR is doing it's job. We members just need to take control and do our job, for ourselves.

irene. ActiveRain will work for your individual web sites with or without the outside blogs. They are extra traffic. Mine show up in Google SERP at a surprising rate.

Kristin. If we do nothing but learn from each other, AR works. I've met some good referral partners on AR.

Richard. Indeed. AR staff work hard to introduce more synergy into the site. We still have to do our part for ourselves.

Don. Glad you enjoyed it.

Fernando. I do believe that, in order to get the basimum benefit from ActiveRain, we must "work it".

Lenn:Thank you so much for the time and effort put in to getting the numbers so all on AR or all who read can see. Obviously, AR is not losing gas. Because it is mainly built on a real estate platform, it is merely a sign of the times and the reality of many good (and bad) Realtors and associated industry individuals that have gone away because they went away from the business; thus, their blogging on this site discontinued. Thus, the odds are high that there would be a high turnover ratio with this site to correlate with that, to a degree, to the real estate industry.

Wait until the market truly turns upward and we will see a massive increase in membership to this site. As a business I am not so sure they would want to eliminate members who have gone by the wayside, as that may affect the value of the company, though, one would think that the value is on the pages indexed. I would love the site to be cleaned up so we would no who is in and who is not.

I was a bit embarrassed as a very good and very sharp blogger noted to me that I was sending my blog to two groups that no longer were in operation..... That was an area I never even thought about checking to see if an entire group had been discontinued. A sign of the times.

So we roll on.........

Dawn. A scathingly brilliant idea?? I can't wait.

Andrew. Indeed. Knowing how things work is very helpful.

Valerie. Good for you. When you can trace business to your efforts, you have no doubts.

Gary. Agreed. I think the proliferation of Members Only posts is a negative, but there are trade-offs.

Silvia. I never waber. ActiveRain has been integrated into my business plan since August 2006.

Dorie. Indeed. Sometimes you just have to peek under the sheets.

I don't know about anybody else, but I'm getting picked up everyday via AR. The latest example is a localism piece I did a few months back about the The Farmer's Market here in Allentown. We visited just yesterday and the gentleman who owns the place greeted us with a hug. He typed his name in whatever search engine was the soup du jour and found himself on a post that was written by yours truly on the first page of that search engine.

In my opinion, these are the seeds. If they haven't already, they WILL grow.

I'm going to second what Jason commented about above. Brian Tracy refers to it as the important but not urgent quadrant. Ultimately, we need to think long-term if we plan on staying in our business and prospering. According to Brian Tracy, the most important quadrant is the "important but not urgent" one. This is where we lay the groundwork for our business. Active Rain and other ways of outreach to the public are a necessity for alot of us and we have the feedback to prove it! Thanks again for the post.

The stats are very interesting. I find AR extremely useful as part of my online marketing.

I've been slowing down on AR a bit for the past few weeks, not because of lack of interest, but more because of lack of time. I've got a few blogs started for this week, and your stats prove that I HAVE to get them posted.

I'm sure there have been blogs about getting Google stats, backlinks, etc. Do you have links to them?

Thanks as always for the info!

Lenn: Great job with all the statistics. Active Rain is far from loosing gas. The rate of acceleration is unbelievable. This is the best platform I have found on the Internet. I plan to stick around for a L-O-N-G Time.

Rebecca. Leave them to their own devices. They are your competition.

Jeani. R.com has made many millions off the backs of agents for far too long. The very existence of that site is an industry disgrace.

Erica. Introduce some long tail terms into your blogs and web sites.

Todd. Nothing falls our of favor with Google faster than a neglected web site.

Edward and Celia. Glad you enjoyed it.

Diane. Indeed. Even without Localism, the community is a great resource.

Pat. Agreed. ActiveRain is pretty juicy.

Hello Lenn,

I started my company last month and could not get Google to pick it up. I joined AR and now Google picks it up 2nd when you enter in my company name. I think AR has great potential. Great post.

Jody Moore

Jason. I understand that. However, I play the numbers and Google gives me the traffic. Google only displays the top backlinks. As long as Google is the master that everyone else follows, that's where by money is.

C. Thanks as always.

Tim. There just aren't enough hours in the day to police these matters. I wish AR could police the advertisers that post to the membership when they should be paying for advertising. Monetizing AR has always been the big challenge.

Jason. An eloquent statement and very, very true. When I got my septic system inspection pursuant to country mandate, I blogged about the company I use and he was swampted with calls. He thinks I walk on water.

Paul. I agree. Outreach is what I do with Localisms. It works.

Christine. Good for you. Me too.

Linda. Get them posted. As for instructions, everything I know about Google I learned from the Google webmaster guidelines.

Roland. Me too. Me too. Now that I am no longer in #1 position, I can concentrate on more Localism posts. That's where the juice is.

Jody. It helps when you see the results.

Great stats Lenn. The reason I know AR still works is because I get business and deposit checks from it. That's all that matters to me.

Lenn--thanks for the advice, which is always welcome. I will work on that!

PS--do you have specific examples of blog posts or websites that provide instruction on how to do this best?

Bryant. Absolutely. I get those phone calls and e-mails. Then a couple of months later, I get a referral check.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Erica. Search AR or Google for "long tail links". I'm no expert and I simply follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

I use a lot of long tail search terms because there's less competition for them in Google SERP. My web presence is so huge, I'm bound to attract someone with just about any term.

Erica. I believe Bryan Brady posted about this concept.

Thanks... Will check it out. I have heard the term and just want to know how to use it correctly to optimize my website.

Lenn,
I agree that AR has grown just in the short time I've been here. This is a great community with kind, knowledgeable caring folk who are always around to lend a caring hand. What I've learned here so far is priceless and the friendships speak for themselves. Thanks for joining Voice of Reason and including this post.
Sue

Lenn: I agree, by no means is Active Rain losing gas... I don't sell real estate, but I am in the family. Active Rain is consistently the #1 hit for me on Google, and any other search engine for that matter.

Lenn,

You seem to be the reigning Queen of AR.

You crack me up.

And you Rock!!

Suesan. The benifits are too many to name. This is a very giving community and it's unsurpassed for building business relationships and helping our Internet presence.

Rene' Anyone in Internet Marketing must realize the value.

Ralph. I'm not sure I understand what you mean, but thanks.

Thank you. I agree with your post. Losing gas compared to what. Active rain is valuable to all of us who use it. Thanks again. Bobbie

The quality of my leads are awesome from this site! No way is it losing gas! My post that get zero and the least comments are the ones that bring buyers, sellers and $$$ my way.

I pay 3x what new members pay for active rain related services. I think the people that are new, paying and here are exploring this site and using it for one part of what it is meant to be used = lead generation.

I love the different areas of this site to explore but found my best leads come when I am talking to the public (or fed it threw twitter or facebook!

Lenn -- I read this post yesterday -- could have sworn that I commented, but I see there is no comment from me --- weird --Anyway, great post -- you got my attention regarding posting to members only --- you are right, we should not be putting anything on our post that we don't want the public to see. Sometimes, the public probably won't be interested, but we should let them decide. Thanks.

Mama Liz's Signature

Wow so much more to learn. Like Erica I'm not sure how to find the googel alert stats and never heard of long tail links ....but I'm off to figure it out. I really appreciate your excellent posts.

Active Rain as been the BEST thing I've done for my business in 2009. I am astonded at the results thus far ,after only 6 months and not having a clue what I was doing. I just now feel like I'm starting to figure out what I now 'should' be doing!

Liz. You must be confusing this with another post, perhaps Robert Swetz's which inspired this one. I just posted this post a little after 8 o'clock today.

Lenn... as some have said, Active Rain works if you work it. I will also agree that it does have some great google juice. My outside site is now gaining ground, but that could be a combination of AR and what it has done for me and my name... and because if you write good content, you will be rewarded also. Some good points here. I need to go read the other post now.

jeff belonger

Anna. The "alerts" are subscription based app from Google. I don't use it. Many do.

Renee. You make a good point. There are a lot more features that folks can use to generate business. Just posting a MEMBERS ONLY post doesn't get the juice.

Bobbie. The key is "using it".

Jeff. That's the message, work it and work it with good content.

Good numbers - thanks for pulling those together - it is good to see things in black and white that way. It is pretty interesting for me, too, to see those Zillow numbers.

Courtney. I don't believe that Zillow gives agents the vehicle for direct leads of the quality that we get from AR.

Zillow does have the traffic, but it's designed to sell advertising, not necessarily enhance our business.

Lenn, how did you get so good at these on line matters?! It is definately beyond the classroom stuff. Very interesting. Thank you. Minette

Lenn,

AR is part of my business plan and it works. I don't see AR going anywhere but UP in the rankings. Spoke to Bob via email and I kow they are working very diligently to continue to create new venues for us to succeed with our businesses. It's a win - win situation if you use it...

Minette. I've been on the Internet longer than Google. I'm no expert but I know how to speak Google.

Karen. Indeed. And as the AR footprint becomes larger and larger, we will all benifit.

Great post. It is not losing gas for me! I love Active Rain and the attention it attracts.

I don't see it losing gas either. In my area it's actually gaining ground in the search engines and that's cool with me.

Lenn: You are a star. Thank you for your point of view. I have been wondering if my extra time should be spent here and I think you just turned the light on for me.

Hi Lenn -- sometimes you can get too techy on me, but when I received a note from John Q Public thanking me for the 4th of July venues I posted, that pretty much says it all.

Last year, he wrote, when he was new to the area he couldn't find anything. This year, thanks to my post, he did -- then I know Active Rain works! Because he must have found me on a very high search rank.

After spending one or two months exploring parts of ActiveRain, I finally signed up as a non-paying member less than two months ago. I have since spent considerable time reading posts, commenting on posts, writing a few posts and generally attempting to understand how ActiveRain can fit into my marketing. The more I use ActiveRain, the more useful I find it.

ActiveRain is not losing gas. The newer members (those who joined after mid-February 2009) will pay if they see the value for their business operations. I will be paying once certain non-ActiveRain criteria are met in the near future. I am finding that ActiveRain is generating a lot of GoogleJuice, even for non-paying members who are active.

My ActiveRain profile now ranks 5 in Google when you type in my name. The first four places are taken up by zoominfo, books.google.com (for a book written by an anthropologist with the same name), facebook and linkedin. I am not on those four sites at this time. My big competition are (1) the anthropologist who has numerous links in google and (2) Mark Swartz (note the different spelling of the first name) who was the CFO of Tyco and went to jail as part of one of the well known well publicized business scandals a few years ago and (3) various other people with the same name and/or variations of my name.

My name also is indexed at least 450 times by Google as a result of me commenting on numerous ActiveRain blog postings over the past two months. As a result, I appear on localism and numerous outside blogs of others. Although this won't necessarily drive business to me, it does help people see that I am active when they start to see me in many webpages.

Keep up the great work ActiveRain. Bob's original posting, Lenn's posting and another later posting on this have all been very interesting to read.

Seems that I should have written a posting myself.

I see nothing to indicate that AR is losing gas. Maybe some members not using it as much over the summer months but certainly not from a SEO perspective.

Lenn - Informative post as always. Question, though....re backlinks...how do you get other sites to link to your site?

If anything I have seen an increase from our Active Rain Blog. Nice to see the statistics bear me out. Thanks for the research.

However, do keep in mind that of those 151,000+ members, many have not been actively participating for a LONG time. And many of those that do, do so just to list properties (no problem with that). But in the two years that I have been using Active Rain, I do see things changing and I do not feel that they are necessarily for the good of the site. But it is a free site and we appreciate that it exists. But if at some point it loses its relevance people will allow their accounts to languish and will move on to other sites. Many of the long-time members that I used to see all the time are now gone. I miss the advice they had that only years of experience can foster. Oh well, most of this is out of our hands and at some point each of us will have to decide where to best invest our precious time.

Hi Lenn

I don't think active rain is losing it's gas, the rain has the juice.

Lou Ludwig

I got gas :)

Sally,

I like to call it "FUEL"! It's fuel that runs my business and lots of the reasons I love this site is the fuel they provide to me to succeed!

I just wish I was as healthy as ActiveRain Lenn. Your stats are a good reminder!

Hi Lenn... this is one of the many things I love about you... you come to any discussion armed with FACTS! REAL facts and hard numbers... not the statistical percentages that sometimes can be twisted. Thanks for doing such great research on this!

Interesting numbers, Lenn. I'm a little surprised that the number of AR pages indexed is only about six per member. To me that indicates a ton of inactive accounts.

I can't say that AR has lost gas, not a bit. I just posted the latest round of market reports for several local areas, and for the first time since I started posting them, at least three of them for areas outside of my hometown made it to the first page of Google (all #9). I was dancing in my seat about that! My Waterbury area blogs which are specific to neighborhoods all make it to the first spot on the first page of Google. Still waiting for those phone calls, but that will happen in time.

The million dollar question: WHY ARE YOU AN ACTIVERAIN MEMBER?

Because no where else on earth can I find Google Juice to my indexed google pages. Within 30 minutes after I post - now that's LOVE to me.

I could go on and on about the lifetime friendships and the Atta girl that I get on here, I could even say the personal kudos - you're doing awesome great emails are real reasons to keep me coming back, or how about my personal competitive personality (because of the point system).

In the end, (knock, knock - I finally get it) I here this enough from you and other seasoned real estate agents, it's about business. (You see, I do eventually learn, slow but I do!)

Hi Lenn! Where else would I have met the incredible Lenn Harley?! I second most comments above and would like to add that I only wish that we could get this message out to MANY of the newbies--alot of newbies stay around awhile and don't get immediate results and bag-it! Stick-to-it-ive-ness is what one needs to see the results; once you start getting results, they're easily measured.

GREAT post and great comments generated--I LOVE ACTIVE RAIN! :-)

Even if it were just the agent to agent interaction... there is tremendous value here... but I do get consumer interaction, so that is all the better.

JUL

Lenn

Thanks for posting. I, personally, was losing gas (and slowed down with my own posts)...but your post just filled up my tank.

Lenn,

Thank you for all the excellent data. I already knew that AR was the best in my mind. I will be honest in that I have been so busy I have not had the time I did this winter to blog. I have been trying to carve out time to at least try and maintain a presence on AR. I do miss blogging so have to dedicate more time to it.

I know of no other catalyst to the SEO as good as AR. I have tried them all and have always seen the results from AR. Lets give it more gas!

Hello again Lenn, I would like to say you really have a large group of followers and you plugging my post and others commenting helped get my post featured.

This was very unexpected for me and thanks again!

VB. My pleasure. Give folks a variety of views and we can inspire a conversation.

Laura. Me too. Which, of course, is why I focus on AR.

Larry. You're be nicely rewarded.

Pacita. Wonderful. I looki forward to your posts.

Lane. I get both, depending on the category.

Debe. I love it too. And, I must admit that it fits my work style very well. The posts keep me informed AND on my toes.

Loreena. The Google juice is what caught my interest in the beginning and it's stronger than ever.

William. Tthat's reason enough to devote the energy to Localisms for our market areas????

John N. Inactive members have always been here but they do keep the footprint large and their profiles are helpful for keyword count, if they have done their profile. Mmmmmmm.

Steve. "Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts." Sgt. Friday.

Paul. The reports of the demise of ActiveRain were premature.

Karen. Fuel indeed. AR fuels my web pages every day.

Sally. Me too.

Lou. Indeed, and we can give it more.

John. The folks who are inactive are not relevant. It is we who participate who reap the rewards.

Terry. Indeed. I am always pleased to see the Google traffic for AR.

Coleen. That has always been the most significant challenge.

Hi Lenn. Great post as usual. I just created a post earlier today about short sales in Port Richey and within an hour it popped up at Google with search terms for "short sale port richey." The GJ (Google Juice) is amazing. I think that I will continue to post in my AR blog lol Aloha, Lana

Lana. Good for you. The dang thing works. That's all I can say.

I haven't been indexed in ages.

Oh yeah, I don't write anymore.

Lenn, everyone has already said it but it's not losing gas - it has changed a bit but the membership keeps climbing, the members are still great and so is the content and Google LOVES us! Just closed my first AR deal a couple of weeks ago and it was a great one - works for me! :)

Sharon

JUL

Lana. Just keep working it and it will work for you.

Sharon. As long as Google loves us, I love ActiveRain.

Paul. But, when you do. . . . . .

Lenn,

Appreciate you making the case for AR with the stats. As long as the core of the bloggers we have now stay and provide quality content as they've been doing in the past, how can AR lose gas?

Esko. The synergy has good momentum. Cross your fingers.

JUL

Hi Lenn -- I think the platform will only grow over time as momentum is a hard thing to break once it starts.

Chris. Agreed. As long as the technical platform doesn't deteriorate we'll be fine.

JUL

Lenn, I love to read your posts. I always learn SOOO much but then am also left with questions. I don't blog nearly enough- somehow I get analysis paralysis and can't decide what to write about. When I DO write, I'm not sure where to post! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the interaction with the agents and reading eveyone's posts and comments but I tend to write for clients/potential clients so make sure I post to Localism. What exactly is and outside blog vs localism? How do you come up with new things to blog about? Los Angelels is HUGE and though I have narrowed down my areas to a 5 or 6 main once, don't know whether to blog about L.A. real estate in general, rotate blogs about the various communities or ??? Suggestions on what to write about and if I need and outside blog (whatever that is) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much for being a wealth of information to us all!

Jenny. You're thinking about it too much.

Go to your Profile page and look on the left hand sidebar and follow the link to OUTSIDE BLOGS.

Contact ActiveRain if you have problems. I did and they helped. I get a lot of Google juice from my ActiveRain Outside Blogs.

As for what to write about? Just take a local photo each day for a week and post about that community, town, city, a tour you had, a benefit of an area, etc. There is no end to what to write about. It just takes motivation and you either have it or not.

JUL

I am late to this party on your post, but may I say how impressed I am that you take the time to reply to so many of the commenters. And I agree with you, Active Rain is just getting warmed up. Imagine what it will be like when it gets out of puberty!

Joe, Joe, Joe.

You struck a nerve. When will it speed up. I'm getting too old for this dang thing and having to wait for every keystroke and upload.

Eeeekkkkkk.

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