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Warning: Trulia Deleted Realtor Reviews from Profile

By
Real Estate Agent with Elizabeth Anne Weintraub, Broker DRE #00697006

I stopped by Trulia earlier this week to enter a few sold sales and noticed that my profile has been merged with Zillow. As a result of that merger, Trulia has accidentally wiped out all of my reviews. I had more than 90 reviews from my clients posted on Trulia, and now they are gone.

My hard-earned reviews have vanished from my profile!

Trulia has published that it will not merge your Zillow reviews into Trulia, which makes sense because they would not want duplicate content and there's probably some liability, but I'm not asking them to merge my Zillow reviews. I am asking them to reinstate the 90 reviews I worked so hard to get on Trulia, which they wiped out of my account.

Has Trulia deleted your reviews?

I can't seem to get anybody to respond to me. I've written to Trulia and to Zillow and no response.

Any idea of who else I can ask?

Posted by

elizabeth weintraub

 

 

Weintraub and Wallace Realtors

 

 

Elizabeth Weintraub reviews

 

 

 

Elizabeth Weintraub is co-partner of Weintraub & Wallace Team of Top Producing Realtors, an author, home buying expert at The Balance, a Land Park resident, and a veteran real estate agent who specializes in older, classic homes in Land Park, Curtis Park, Midtown, Carmichael and East Sacramento, as well as tract homes in Elk Grove, Natomas, Roseville and Lincoln. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Put our combined 80 years of real estate experience to work for you. Broker-Associate at RE/MAX Gold. DRE License # 00697006.

Photo: Unless otherwise noted in this blog, the photo is copyrighted by Big Stock Photo and used with permission.The views expressed herein are Weintraub's personal views and do not reflect the views of RE/MAX Gold. Disclaimer: If this post contains a listing, information is deemed reliable as of the date it was written. After that date, the listing may be sold, listed by another brokerage, canceled, pending or taken temporarily off the market, and the price could change without notice; it could blow up, explode or vanish. To find out the present status of any listing, please go to elizabethweintraub.com.

Comments (63)

Terry McCarley
Coastal Real Estate - Cape Coral FL - Cape Coral, FL
REALTOR, SRES, CDPE - Cape Coral, FL

I guess I'm headed over to Zillow and Trulia to check my reviews!  Thanks for sharing!

Oct 10, 2015 02:41 AM
John Petrone
ERA Nalbandian - Saddle Brook, NJ
SFR

Couple of my reviews still there (older ones) - A couple most recent reviews are gone from both Z & T.

 

Also, many of the homes I've sold... the pictures of the homes have been replaced with a generic black house avatar..

Oct 10, 2015 03:25 AM
John Petrone
ERA Nalbandian - Saddle Brook, NJ
SFR

I'll try for help from the library-content@zillow.com email that Diane supplied in this thread.. Thanks Diane

Oct 10, 2015 03:31 AM
Gene Riemenschneider
Home Point Real Estate - Brentwood, CA
Turning Houses into Homes

Wow I hope you have a copy of them somewhere.  Thanks for the information.

Oct 10, 2015 03:52 AM
Andrea Bedard
Thompson Company, REALTORS® 240.593.2860 - Silver Spring, MD
Fluent in Real Estate & German, M.A. ABR ASP CIPS

I lost half of my reviews Elizabeth and emailed Trulia & Zillow (apparently those are still separate ) customer "service" reps. It's pointless. It took forever to receive a response, I actually had to tweet before someone bothered.

I got a loooong explanation why reviews were deleted, the majority of mine did not fit ANY of these reasons (2 were posted by fellow REALTORS - one of the no-nos).

I even provided an example of a review that was deleted to point out that it does not fit any of their reasons. Pointless. When I requested that they add those reviews back, I got a "sorry, can't do".

I am p***** off.

Seeing how their "reasons" do NOT apply to my deleted reviews, I can't help but think that there is something else behind all of this! Perhaps Zulia is playing favorites.. you know, if you pay $$$ every month, you get to keep your reviews. I am not a paying member but when I look at (paying) competitors in my neck of the woods, those seem to (still) have a large number reviews.

Edit: just read all the comments and I'm with Nina Hollander. I had a lot more reviews on Trulia than on Zillow for that reason! And that may very well be THE answer. Zillow wants your clients email addresses.

I'll be asking my clients to post on .REALTOR instead.

Oct 10, 2015 04:09 AM
Elizabeth Weintraub Sacramento Broker

I'm so sorry, Andrea, I don't know what to advise. I can say that I endorsed both Trulia and Zillow, but gradually shifted to Zillow as that's where sellers go. Buyers go to Trulia. They also check Zillow but by and large, for my purposes, Zillow has been a better rate of return.

Oct 10, 2015 06:25 AM
Jay Thompson

We don't want your client email addresses, and every review is morederated against the same criteria, whether you're a paying advertisier or not. We aren't about to compromise the integrity of the entire review system by making it a "pay to play" feature.

Oct 12, 2015 04:00 AM
Kelly Turbeville
Keller Williams - Lake Forest, CA
Turning Real Estate Dreams into Reality

both my reviews and sold properties were lost with the merger from with Trulia and Zillow.  I contact Zillow weeks ago to no avail... just sent an email to content-library@zillow.com as suggested.

But disappointed Jay notes these can not be reinstated as they were noted as recommendations.   

Oct 10, 2015 04:58 AM
Elizabeth Weintraub Sacramento Broker

Maybe the merger created extra accounts for you on Zillow, Kelly? Did you check to see if you have another account? I'm not really sure how you would do that, but maybe a Zillow Rep can help you?

Oct 10, 2015 06:27 AM
Lottie Kendall
Compass - San Francisco, CA
Helping make your real estate dreams a reality

Thanks for the alert - and a nice shout-out to Jay Thompson for fixing things for you. Now, if he can only do that for everyone else who has had a similar problem.

Oct 10, 2015 05:46 AM
Elizabeth Weintraub Sacramento Broker

I had no idea how many other people were suffering from a similar problem until I posted this. It is a bit unfair, I suppose, to expect Jay Thompson to fix everybody's problem because I don't believe that is his job; but he should be able to tell everybody what to do.

Oct 10, 2015 06:28 AM
Chris Ann Cleland
Long and Foster Real Estate - Gainesville, VA
Associate Broker, Bristow, VA

Yikes!  I will have to go and check my Trulia profile now, which seems to look just like my Zillow profile nowadays.

Oct 10, 2015 11:34 AM
Inna Ivchenko
Barcode Properties - Encino, CA
Realtor® • GRI • HAFA • PSC Calabasas CA

No, but if you email their help rep, they might restore them. They still there in the memory...somewhere. Nothing really disappeared if it was ever posted online.

Oct 10, 2015 05:26 PM
Andrea Bedard

I tried that Inna, they will NOT restore. The best you can do is email them and get a copy of their deleted reviews... and ask your clients to post somewhere else in the future!

Oct 11, 2015 12:41 PM
Richard L. Sanderson
Richard L. Sanderson Consulting - Kalama, WA
helping improve local property tax systems

This is one of the difficulties or dangers of having your content reside on someone else's website. I just read recently that you should first post content to your own blog or website before distributing it elsewhere. Not only do you earn Google ranking this way but YOU are in charge of the content. The content you post or get posted to your profile on another website (including ActiveRain) is subject to change, especially over time and conditions. 

Oct 10, 2015 09:59 PM
The Derrick Team - Indy Metro Realtors
Carpenter Realtors - Avon, IN
Your Pet Friendly Realtors

Another reason I ignore these sites. They are run by people who don't care about us but use or information for their gain. If we ignore them maybe they'll go away....

Oct 12, 2015 02:07 AM
Jay Thompson

There are over 100,000 real estate agents advertising on Zillow Group sites. We care deeply about all of them, as well as the tens of thousands of agents using our sites that don't pay us a dime.

With 140,000,000 consumer visits monthly, and half a billion homes viewed monthly on Zillow mobile, we're not going away any time soon. 

Oct 12, 2015 03:55 AM
Aaron Robertson
Authority Property Management - Redding, CA
We Make Renting Simple.

I found this information useful. Thanks for posting. 

 

Authority Property Management

Real Estate Broker

Oct 12, 2015 06:55 AM
Dorte Engel
RE/MAX Leading Edge - Bowie, MD
ABC - Annapolis, Bowie, Crofton & rest of Maryland

Dear Elizabeth,

That must be very frustrating.

Oct 12, 2015 12:46 PM
Deleted Account
Fort Myers, FL

I had checked Trulia this week and I noticed all mine were gone too!  I think Zillow was 100% wrong for doing this.  When they were posted, they met Trulia's guidelines, so they should have been allowed to stay on Trulia.  To me, Zillow stabbed every Realtor in the back when they did this.

Oct 12, 2015 12:48 PM
Sam Shueh
(408) 425-1601 - San Jose, CA
mba, cdpe, reopro, pe

They actually cleaned up and merged some comments. I found duplicate profiles and probably lost a few reviews.  I think little of testimonials.  Only a small percentage of clients bother to post reviews. 

Oct 14, 2015 09:09 PM
Elizabeth Weintraub Sacramento Broker

You have to ask them to post a review, Sam. My clients are eager to do it once I explain how much it will help me.

Oct 15, 2015 09:14 AM
Gary L. Waters Broker Associate, Bucci Realty
Bucci Realty, Inc. - Melbourne, FL
Eighteen Years Experience in Brevard County

When they merged the profiles my rep told me the old Trulia reviews did not have star ratings so they could not be used.  I have been spending the past week trying to send email links to past clients begging for Zillow reviews!

Oct 15, 2015 05:18 AM
Jan Green - Scottsdale, AZ
Value Added Service, 602-620-2699 - Scottsdale, AZ
HomeSmart Elite Group, REALTOR®, EcoBroker, GREEN

Another part of the "they don't care about us" mentality.  They wiped out mine before and to contact sellers to repost- very embarassing. 

Oct 19, 2015 06:53 AM
Susan McLaughlin
Keller Williams Realty - East Monmouth - Red Bank, NJ
Monmouth County Real Estate

I noted with horror last week that my ACTIVE listings were GONE on Zillow after a seller complained!  I had to re-claim them, but do not know how long they were gone or why.  This is the second time this happened.  I have never gotten a satisfactory answer why one of my reviews was not accepted when it was legitimate.  I also noted several glowing reviews for a new agent who had never closed a transaction!  The reviews were from people who she had showed houses to, but not sold!  How is that a legitimate review?  I reported this to Zillow in one of my pleas for corrections, but nothing was done.   

Jan 05, 2016 03:20 AM
Jay Thompson
Zillow - Seattle, WA

Susan McLaughlin - Jay T. from Zillow Group here. Your listings are fed to us from KW. There were some sporadic issues with thier feed a couple of weeks ago, but they appear to have fixed those issues. You may want to double-check a and make sure the email address in the KW feed matches the email address of your Zillow profile (email address is how we "tie" a listing to the listing agent). If they match, and there aren't feed issues, then your listings will be "auto-claimed."

As to reviews, there are many reasons a review can be rejected. Some are "invisible" to the user/agent (things like IP address, use of a publis computer, etc.) So the content of a review may be fine, but how it's submitted can cause a rejection flag (all done to reduce spamming/gaming of the system). 

Regarding the new agent with reviews -- reviews don't have to be tied to a closed transaction. Agents often work hard to help someone and for a variety of reasons a transaction may not close. That doesn't diminish the work the agent did. Showing homes is "reviewable" because the client has worked with the agent and has had the opportunity to interact with them. HERE is an article that explains what can and can't be reviewed (and is a good story from an agent about the value of reviews from unclosed transactions). 

Jan 05, 2016 03:39 AM
Susan McLaughlin
Keller Williams Realty - East Monmouth - Red Bank, NJ
Monmouth County Real Estate

@Jay T. from Zillow Group.  Thank you for your response.  I wish someone from Zillow had replied to my repeated emails over a long period of time.    Since the review in question was submitted within a 6 unit condo complex that provides Internet service, I figured that was the issue.  Why after pointing this out in serveral emails was it not corrected?  I do think that allowing 100% of an agent's fabulous reviews from no sales is manipulating your system and the consumer.

Jan 05, 2016 04:01 AM