image courtesy of Bramus!

Numbers don't lie.

At the end of last week, I was a bit upset about the information going out about the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit through Twitter and various blogs, both real estate and news media related.  Two of the blog posts I wrote in reaction to the situation, both at RErockstar.com, garnered a bit of attention and created a bit of discussion, but I wanted to see just how much they mattered in a world full of real estate blogs and internet chatter.

"First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit NOT Extended Depsite What You May Have Heard." and "Real Estate Bloggers And Journalists – Are We All That Different?" dealt with the issue of misinformation about the First Time Home Tax Credit and its extension.  Although I knew I could never reach everyone who had heard false information, I had hoped I could at least reach my readers and a few others to be sure they were being guided in the right direction.

From Friday to Monday, I paid special attention to my numbers on Google Analytics.  What I saw was telling.  People are hungry for information, especially when what they're searching for is shrouded in mystery and confusion.  Based on keyword searches (and nothing else), here are the percentages of traffic by queries involving the words "tax credit" and "extended" (or "extension"):

Friday, October 30 - 31.9%

Saturday, October 31 - 39.8%

Sunday, November 1 - 35.8%

Monday, November 2 - 59.1%

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that people are hungry for knowledge on the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit and are out there searching for it.  Armed with that knowledge, I think both my post over at RErockstar.com about bloggers/journalists and the similar post I wrote here at ActiveRain, become slightly more important.  The consumer is out there searching, reading, and listening - even when we don't see them or hear from them in the comments.  We as an industry owe it to them to provide reliable information that they need and want.