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Search Engines Are Censoring Your Real Estate Results

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Real Estate Agent with 1313 14th St NW DC 20005 Licensed in DC & VA

Informative content on Washington DC real estate is remarkably difficult to find. If you're looking for something other than cookie-cutter, cliché explainers and 'top 5 reasons for...' pages, or gimmicky YouTube videos, you'll be hard pressed to find it. 

Why? 

Because search engines and AI portals liken the prompt 'real estate' to 'listings' and 'listing services', of any kind, as long as they're national--even if you've specified a local modifier. 

Google trained local experts to promote themselves as "local", then buried them under pages of results from national sites they blessed as "authorities". They are typically owned by corporations and large news outlets. Search engines, and now AI, prioritize results for huge listing aggregators like Zillow and Redfin--or listing services, like Houzeo, Realtor.com and Homes.com when what you're really looking for is a little local advice on home search practices. They promote generic articles from big media publications that have zero firsthand knowledge of real estate and aren't even in a related industry.

A real estate search should begin with an assessment of your needs, your local market, financing options, agency representation, and information on local real estate practices. But search engines and AI are censoring results and pushing "authorities" that aren't really authorities at all--making your local research more difficult.

Besides promoting irrelevant corporate sites, online search vehicles may feature brokerages and agents who pay for advertising on their platform ahead of others.
AI then promotes them thanks to their online prominence generated by that search engine advertising and promotion. Featured agents and brokerages also get top-ranked results from expensive, SEO-centric websites that are designed, written and managed by companies that exist to sell agents and brokerages a Google-friendly online presence. They accomplish that. But their content is often cookie-cutter promotion of little value to consumers. Online agent ranking sites are typically owned by third-party listing aggregators, or non-industry companies that charge agents to be included on their 'recommended' lists, unbeknownst to consumers.

Seeing a pattern here?

Keep reading...

Posted by

Susan Isaacs, Realtor

The Isaacs Team LLC

Partnering With DOMO

Compass

1313 14th Street NW DC 20005

Find us at:

realestateinthedistrict.com

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