Drew Meyers
Seattle, WA
- 49 comments
- 4 likes given
- 24 likes received
Travel, Microfinance, Real Estate Enthusiast, Blogger, Social Entrepreneurship, WordPress. Doer. Oh Hey World.
I love this concept, and would love to see it happen in more cities. and if anyone can pull it off, it's mr jon sterling!
@SkinCEO until consumers stop voting with their pocketbooks and try to do it themselves. which i don't see happening anytime soon given the complexity of a real estate transaction.
I spent 6 1/2 years in real estate industry, 4 1/2 of them with zillow.
Yea, you are totally onto something here. Hadn't thought of it that way before, but living with doubt and questioning things everyday is the norm for me these days.
Sounds like a great addition to the TechStars program; hope we will be joining the 1st program he oversees in NYC
Totally with you on this. I've seen this happen by many people. Social media has the potential to do a lot of great things, and has, but it can and will be abused by many unfortunately.
Is there some way to call out the scumbags with user voting or something?
Sorry?
Those of us who work our ass off & create love, which I can tell you do, should be happy.
Truthfully, what I think it all boils down to is this...
You either give a shit or you don't. There's no middle ground. If you give a shit...people will love you because it's such a rare quality.
That said, their master plan was pure genius. You're right, it's hard to go somewhere else now.
@onewavedesigns @bobwilson @BrianRayl @bdmanson Of course there are selfish motives involved. Very seldom do companies, or individuals for that matter, do anything for unselfish reasons. Why would Z/T spend so much money calculating the data they do, and let anyone use it and get nothing in return? Doesn't make any sense.
Would your clients consistently write fantastic blog posts that take 4 hours each, post them on someone else's website -- and all they get for that is a "Written by Susie Smith" in small text at the bottom (no link, photo, bio etc)? Doubtful...
@bobwilson I'm not going to get into a debate around what specific links are included. That's a decision Zillow and Trulia will have to make.
@bdmanson I'm in your camp of thinking online is a serious investment, and one I would make if I were an agent. But there is certainly more than one way to run a real estate business. Some agents just want a professional looking presence so that when people go look them up they don't look like someone with a website from the dark ages, but have no desire to spend the time or money it would take for a real online marketing effort.
Tell me this. Do you genuinely believe if the average agent removes a zillow widget from their website, it will help them? How is that going to help their business? Yes, it may help agents/brokers who really really understand SEO...but I don't see how it'll help the average agent. They aren't even close to ranking well now, and one less widget on their website isn't going to change that.
@BrianRayl The difference in that scenario is that the website owner (zillow) doesn't vouch for each and every piece of content that is inputted onto the site. There is a lot of spammers/marketers that abused early dofollow links Zillow did provide. I know first hand, as I spent countless nights and weekends from 2006-2010 cleaning the site up from crap that spammers posted.
In the widget scenario, the website owner is choosing to put that widget on the site on their own accord. It's not a case where there is potential for a 3rd party to abuse their site but putting links/functionality. Therefore, there is no logical case to be made to no-follow something you as the webmaster chooses to put on your own site.
That's my 2 cents.
@bdmanson Look, I applaud you for the public awareness effort. It's smart business. You and I both know you know more about seo than 95% of people in the industry, probably 98%. As a result, you stand to gain way more than most because many people don't have the faintest idea what they should be doing to compete on the SEO front.
Your awareness campaign strategy is smart for someone in your shoes, just as Zillow's widget strategy was (still is) smart for someone in their shoes.
Just be honest about the motives behind your efforts.
@bdmanson@bobwilson@BrianRayl Jeff, can we also agree that it's in your best interests if fewer agents link to Z/T/R all over the country?
You and I both know that if fewer agents all over the country (and specifically in hawaii) link to zillow/trulia, you have a better chance to outrank them for your keywords.
@bdmanson Yes, I'll agree that many agents don't understand the SEO issue. That said, anyone actually trying to outrank Z/T/R certainly understands this issue and is not using these widgets. Everyone actually using these widgets doesn't stand a chance to rank -- with or without the widgets.
@bdmanson @hempler I'm not against educating agents - far from it. That's what I did for a big chunk of my job there.
@bobwilson @hempler clearly you don't know what is required to put zestimates on 100 million (or whatever the current number is) properties. I happen to know what it cost to get the property data it took to do the first 42 (?) million at launch in 2006. I (and Zillow) is under NDA not to disclose those figures......but it was certainly NOT even remotely close to free.
@bobwilson @BrianRayl @tcar I actually don't agree with you on this. Why is requiring a "do follow" link gaming the system? Zillow has to ensure they aren't putting millions of dollars building data sets anyone can use completely free of charge, branding, and links. Do you honestly believe people should be able to use Zillow data/widgets and either remove the link altogether or make it "no-follow"?
"ZTR gets a link on EVERY SINGLE PAGE OF YOUR WEBSITE back to them (hundreds if not thousands of backlinks per WP site) "
Not sure why you blame ZTR for that. Blame the person putting the widget on their site in the wrong spot.
@bdmanson @BrianRayl @tcar @bobwilson ex-zillow employee with friends there - yes. I'm actually not a shareholder anymore though - I sold all my stock to fund the development of Oh Hey World - so I have no financial incentive in this.
That said, let me be clear - I wouldn't be plastering widgets from Zillow or anyone else on my website if I was an agent. I don't recommend agents/brokers do it. What I'm saying is the trade-off being made -- content/functionality for free in exchange for a link -- is really clear. If agents don't like the trade-off, don't use the widgets. No one is making them put the widgets on their sites.