Real Estate Marketing Blog

Comment spam on real estate blogs

Well the real estate marketing pros are finding that blogging is a good thing.

Now the attempt to manipualte the search engines are following right behind.

Almost humorous, are the attempts lately to comment spam this particular blog. What is blog spam?

At the bottom of every post is an invitation for you to comment on the post, ask for advice or just say you agree or disagree. And this is very welcome as far as I am concerned.

Traditionally, blogs give you the opportunity to comment. And the opportunity to link back to your site. Remember, links are a good thing right? Wrong. Not all of them.

There is a right and wrong way to comment. And a right and wrong way to link. And because of the recent barrage of spammy linking attempts, typepad (my host) and others have instituted a Google initiated (the other engines followed), link blocker.

Inside of my links and many other sites are the rel="nofollow" attribute. This makes the link not counted by an engine. Thus, page rank and any other link equity is not passed onto the linked to site.

The only, other value is potential traffic, which just isn't worth the efforts.

So what is the value? Well you can track back for one, and create a nice themed conversation with my readers and yours.

Even comments by themselves are great and can add readership to both our blogs.

I often will visit a blog that is mentioned in my comments and post on their site with very valuable commentary.

Unfortunately, many will attempt to get a free ride by saying something of zero value, just to get page rank or link equity. But, I suspect most highly visited bloggers, like me, will delete rubbish almost within hours. Comments about real estate that have nothing to do with the blog post, do not add to our conversation does it?

So I say if you are going to comment on blogs, add to the conversation and you can actually add to your authority of your market as a "thought leader". This in the end will bring you more quality traffic than any Google, MSN, and Yahoo engine can ever bring you.

Internet Marketing News

• Paid Local Search Advertising
  The paid local search advertising market will nearly triple to $907 million in 2006, according to research firm Borrell Associates. In its annual study of the local online ad market, the company also found that spending on local search will far outpace spending on local online display ads. Local search advertising is expected to reach $4.07 billion by 2010, accounting for nearly half of all local online advertising.
• Competitive Pracices in Real Estate
  Using the excuse that consumers paid $61 billion in real estate brokerage fees in 2004 and that the Internet has failed to lower those fees, U.S. Rep. Mike Oxley asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office to look into the competitive practices of the real estate industry.

• Red States Best For Bloated Websites
  If you have a heavy website with lots of graphics and graphics, you are punishing your viewers that are on dialup. And if your area voted for Bush then more than likely they are on dialup.

  Yep, according to its updated broadband report, Leichtman Research Group found that at the beginning of 2005, broadband penetration of households in the U.S. stood at close to 29  percent nationwide, and that disparities in penetration are largely related to variations in household income across the states, which are strikingly similar to the state-by-state splits in the 2004 presidential election, The Center for Media Research reports.