Zillow.com announces that it offers a "co-branding" link strategy for users:
What is it?
If you place a Zillow URL on your Web site or blog with special coding, and it's clicked, your photo, contact info and link to your Web site appear at the top of each Zillow page they see.
You can see when you click the link that a "banner ad" hovers with the user as he/she navigates the Zillow site, reminding him/her of the origination. At any time during the navigation of Zillow, the user can instantly click back to your home page.
Why Use it?
- Co-branding boosts your visibility among the visitors you send from your Web site to Zillow.com.
- Your contact information follows visitors throughout their session on Zillow.
- Simply add the parameter "scrnnm=zillowscreenname" to the end of any URL that links to Zillow.com, and substitute your Zillow account screen name for "zillowscreenname." If you don't know your screen name, you can find it by clicking on My Zillow.
- If you have spaces in your screen name, replace them with dashes when appending this code to your links.
For example:
- Zillow screen name: Joe Smith
- Co-Branding code: ?scrnnm=Joe-Smith
- For example, to link to the Zillow home page: http://www.zillow.com/?scrnnm=Joe-Smith
There really is no down side to using this new feature. If you plan to link to Zillow, add the code to ensure that a reader will keep you "top of mind". While Zillow already has a tremendous amount of traffic, it is nice to see a realty.bot that treats its professional partners like partners.
Unlike SOME realty.bots dressed up as "friends".
ADDED BONUS: Listen to this 8 minute interview with Zillow's Drew Meyers about the "co-branding" policy
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