For about the 20th time, I searched for another city/real estate term to find some information for one of my websites.  And for the 20th time, I find Yahoo's real estate pages in the top of the searches.  Usually not quite number one...perhaps that would be too obvious.  Or maybe it just hasn't happened yet on most of the cities.  But this upsets me to no end and I just decided to complain about it here.

Let me illustrate my point here, keeping in mind that the results on Google continuously jump around now.

San Francisco Real Estate - The number two result, http://realestate.yahoo.com/California/San_Francisco

Trulia is number one on that one, which is just as bad, but I'll leave that for another rant.  And before I move on, let me show you this blatant keyword spam at the bottom of the Yahoo page for this term:

San Francisco, California real estate - use Yahoo! Real Estate to find real estate in San Francisco or other California real estate. Use our home buyer tools to research all aspects of the San Francisco housing market including San Francisco neighborhood information, San Francisco home loans, and San Francisco schools. Whether looking for homes for sale in San Francisco or San Francisco apartments for rent, Yahoo! Real Estate can help. Our San Francisco real estate market snapshot gives you an overview of the housing market in San Francisco, CA - easily find San Francisco housing market prices, housing inventory statistics such as number of listings, median home price, home price trends, and monthly real estate market trends. Once you have a better sense for the San Francisco real estate market, search our San Francisco foreclosures, San Francisco new homes, San Francisco classifieds, San Francisco rentals, or all San Francisco homes for sale. Search Jobs in San Francisco.

None of us would be allowed to get away with that much keyword spam and not hit a filter and be kicked back to the third page or worse.  The two terms San Francisco real estate and SF Housing are on that one page 11 more times counting the title, description, and keyword tags.

Philadelphia Real Estate - Number 4.  Trulia is number 2.

Daytona Beach Real Estate - Number 2. Trulia is number 3.

Austin Texas Real Estate - Number 8.  Jump on the bandwagon, Jason!

Orlando FL Real Estate - Number 2. Trulia is number 4.

Miami FL Real Estate - NUMBER 1!!!  I don't know what happened to all those Miami Realtors that used to have such strong websites.

Las Vegas Real Estate - Number 2.  This is probably the biggest money maker of all for ads.

San Diego Real Estate - Number 2.  Trulia is number 1.

Cleveland OH Real Estate - Number 4.  Would you believe there is only ONE legitimate agency in the top 10? The rest are all the big players, Homes.com, Realtor.com and others.

Greensboro NC Real Estate - Number 3.  Even the smaller cities have been overtaken.

Norfolk VA Real Estate - Number 1!!!  Trulia is missing on this one, oddly.

Boston MA Real Estate - Number 1!!!  No Trulia in the top 10.

Fairfield CT Real Estate - Number 2.

I won't go on any further.  But I just think this is WRONG, and it's very unfair to every agency or individual agent, in that it seems to be impossible for most of them to get above Yahoo on GOOGLE'S results.

Whether this is because Yahoo and Google are soon to be sharing the click ads or what, it isn't right.  And yeah, they're on Myrtle Beach real estate, too...at number 4.  But that's not really the reason for my rant.  It's the complete takeover of every city that made me crazy.

 

 
Post is included in group: Addicted to Active Rain
Post is included in group: Blogging & SEO
Post is included in group: Realtors®

5 Comments on Google Allows Yahoo to Take Over Real Estate Searches

OCT
11
189,155 Points 11 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog Hit Router

hmmm, I have never paid much attention to yahoo on google. Right now I am number 3 - Yahoo is number 6 and everyone else on the google search is organic - as in local area agents and companies. No Truilia, no Homegain, No Zillow. I wonder how it all works.

2:02pm • #1

Thanks for replying, Jo. Most of the time in Myrtle Beach we don't show Trulia or Homes.com either.  I think it's because our area started with SEO so long ago that there are many strong sites that rank better than they do.  Maybe it's only in areas that don't have many highly optimized sites where they have taken over.

Or a more scary thought...maybe these big companies have made a list of the most valuable cities and they are having SEO people work on links and things for the specific ones first....

When I first saw it show up on our search, I did a spam report to Google and said to them, "Surely you don't want Yahoo ranking that highly???"   Of course I got no response, but they didn't stop it, either.  So they must be aware and accepting of it.

2:11pm • #2

Grrr...I just went back in and added a "nofollow" tag to the Yahoo link...:-(

2:16pm • #3
152,027 Points 4 Featured Posts Outside Blog

You can beat the big boys in the sub markets. Subdivisions, communities counties and the like. Besides, makes you look as though you specialize in those areas...

2:48pm • #4

Well, sure you can, but it's the principal of the thing.  Google putting Yahoo ahead of everyone else (just about) in the results?  It ain't fittin.  It just ain't fittin.

3:54pm • #5

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Jan Chilton - Real Estate Marketing and SEO

Myrtle Beach, SC

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Myrtle Beach Web Design

Address: 4434 Little River Inn Lane, Little River, SC, 29566

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