Getting Your Website listed in DMOZ
What the heck is DMOZ???
It is a human edited directory of websites from every category imaginable from all across the web. For a long time, search engines have placed a high importance on any links coming from this directory. Since it is managed by humans, it has a very high success rate when it comes to filtering spam websites, and thus any links coming from it are considered very valuable.
The downside to DMOZ is obvious... how in the world can a small group of people expect to be able to manually catalogue all or most of the sites on the internet? It is a daunting task. During busy times, a submission can take as long as 3-6 months before it is considered for listing. One of the frustrating problems with DMOZ is the infrastructure. The site crashes often, or is so slow that it is unusable. Also, once your site is reviewed, and listed/denied... There is no system to contact the submitter. This becomes very frustrating after waiting 5+ months for your site to show up, and waiting in anticipation to see if you were accepted. I mean, how hard is it to set up an automated email??
There are other problems... Getting listed can be tough because if they don't like you, you will be blacklisted forever, and won't be able to be listed. Their reviewers tend to be finicky in my experience, and if they don't like your website for some reason, you will be blacklisted. I happen to be one of the editors (it isn't hard to become one,
just apply), and I've seen how some of the other editors act sometimes on personal preference instead of acting appropriately within their category.
BTW, I didn't mean to bash DMOZ in any way (it is a noble cause), but it is good to be aware of the problems, and be careful about your submissions.
Tips:
- Never submit your site more than once. This will drop you to the bottom of the list or get your URL blacklisted. If you don't hear anything for 6 months, go to the forum and ask one of the devs about your URL. They will be able to look it up for you to check status. (But for goodness sake, be nice to them, and don't pester them about a submission you made only 2 weeks ago.)
- Write accurate non-promotional titles and descriptions. Nothing flashy, just a basic description of your site. Remember, no one will probably find your website through looking on the directory... your primary purpose is to get the link.
- Do some extra research to make sure that you submit your site to the proper category. This will help smooth along the process.
- If you notice that the best category for your site does not have a reviewer, and it has less than 30 links, you are eligible to apply to be a reviewer or "editor". This is a great way to get your site listed... just do it yourself! Just make sure that you disclose that you are the owner of a website that will fit in that category, and be upfront about your purpose.
Bottomline: You want your site listed on DMOZ. Just be careful. Follow the above tips.
Teri Isner Reaches 100k Points on Active Rain - A Real Estate Industry Benchmark
If you are active in the online real estate community these days, you have probably heard of a networking community called
Active Rain. It is a wonderful group of real estate professionals from around the country that meet online and network together through blogging on the Active Rain website. Still in the early stages, it is primarily used for agent to agent networking and referrals, but in the future, if it grows the way the founders want it to, it will evolve into a great place for the consumer to find real estate professionals around the country.
The viral growth of AR within the real estate community is outstanding... In only a few short months, the membership has grown to over 8,000. Part of the reason is the ingenious point system that the creators of AR have implemented from the beginning. Each member is awarded points for certain tasks completed on the site. Some tasks are as simple as adding more of a description to your profile page, or adding your picture.
In a brilliant move by AR, each member that is referred to the network by another member receives 25 free points, and 10% of that members points thereafter. This alone has been a huge reason for the exponential viral growth within the AR community. Besides referrals, the two primary ways to score points on AR are through blogging, and commenting on blogs. Without a doubt, this has been the number one reason AR is valuable to the real estate community.
I
viewed an interview of
Matt Heaton and
Caleb Mardini (2 of the founders of AR) that really opened my eyes to one of the primary goals of AR... and that is teaching real estate agents how to market themselves through blogging, with a point reward system. Each point earned within the AR community has a deeper purpose behind it: teaching the member how to blog effectively, and learn healthy online networking habits.
Points are scored for posting up to 10 posts per week to your blog: a very healthy pace for any real estate professional to shoot for. And each member can be awarded points for commenting on up to 10 blog posts per day belonging to other members... again promoting the networking aspect of blogging... Put together, all of these practices are a must for any web savvy real estate professional, and the point system is just a great way to teach people how to best use their time online effectively.
This is obviously not the only reason AR exists, but as one of it's primary functions, I thought it would be an important topic to blog about. The timing also happens to be appropriate because a benchmark has been reached within the AR community. And to
fullfill my promise, I wanted to write a special post to congratulate the member that was the first to reach 100,000 points...
Teri Isner
I first noticed Teri as a very active blogger on the AR network over a month ago. She was consistently posting 3+ posts per day, and was rated as the #1 Active Rain member for number of points.
Later I was able to run over to her 2 websites:
Orlando Real Estate Listings &
Orlando Real Estate I especially liked the first because it uses a custom made monopoly board as a navigation tool on the site, and was very original with extremely good content. It seemed fitting that the number one AR member would have such a cool website. I was also very impressed to see that she had her very own monthly
real estate podcast, which is something you don't see very often on a real estate agent's website. She also had a very good
Orlando Real Estate Blog that, as far as I can tell, is completely separate from her AR blog.
I don't know Teri personally, but her online presence is very attractive. I just want to offer one more congratulations to her for being the first member to reach 100,000 points. I look forward to many more of her posts on the AR network, and will watch her career with anticipation...
I am also really looking forward to the future growth of Active Rain. Here's hoping the Network will continue to flourish and be a great place for real estate professionals and consumers alike.
Experiment: Provide Free Access to MLS Listings for Colorado
ColoradoListings.netJust wanted to write a quick post about a website we have called ColoradoListings.net. It is an experiment in providing free MLS listings for a particular region with no obligation. There are too many sites out there that make you complete a boring and lengthy application just to view a few MLS listings.
We don't do that. We provide everything for free. You don't have to enter any personal information, not even a name or email. View all of the
MLS Real Estate listings for Denver and most of Colorado. You can even sign up to receive email when a particular property comes on the market that fits your criteria. But you won't ever receive any solicitation emails from us. Just good up to date info on live listings.
Let us know what you think...
Married Couples Now in the Minority of U.S. Homes
I found this
New York Times article compliments of
The Real Estate Bloggers. According to recent census data, in 2005, married couples living together under one roof were eclipsed by non-married couples.
Here is an excerpt from the NYT article:
"The American Community Survey, released this month by the Census Bureau, found that 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nation’s 111.1 million households in 2005 were made up of married couples — with and without children — just shy of a majority and down from more than 52 percent five years earlier.
'It’s the legacy of the boomers that have finally caused this tipping point,' Dr. Frey said. 'Certainly later generations have followed in boomer footsteps, with high levels of living together before marriage, and more flexible lifestyles. But the boomers were the trailblazers, once again, rebelling against a norm their parents epitomized.
'This would seem to close the book on the Ozzie and Harriet era that characterized much of the last century,' he said."
While the Real Estate Bloggers focused more on the advantages of being able to target market to non-married couples. I'm more concerned about the moral fabric of our society. I was shocked when I read this article... it just goes to show where the average American home is headed in the 21st century: away from commitment in relationships. Marriage definitely
has it's benefits... aside from the obvious companionship and all the other wonderful things that God intended it to be.
Now how does this relate to our real estate blog you might ask? Well, I definitely agree that it is important to know the demographic of an area to be able to market efficiently. Services like
Neighboroo.com are a step in the right direction. But more importantly, I think we need to know the needs of our clients, and data like this can be very useful.
I was just personally saddened by these statistics... I believe that it shows a trend in our country that is moving in the wrongdirection.
Neighboroo.com - "Know Your Neighbor"
Just found a great little visual demographics tool compliments of the
Transparent Real Estate Blog.It isn't overly detailed, but it does give a pretty good indication on county and city wide statistics. Here are some of the things it will display:
Lifestyle
Politics
Crime
Elem School Rank
Air Quality
Home Price
Apt Rent
Cost of Living
Commute Time
Household Income
Tax Rates
Unemployment
Population Density
White
Hispanic
African American
Asian
American Indian
All of this is shown in a snazzy click and drag Google map.
Want to know if you live in a predominately Republican or Democrat neighborhood, or what the average commute time is for your county?
Now all they need is a way to integrate it into other websites. I'd pay to have a cool map like this on my sites... hint, hint.
The CREN Blog has a new URL!
Our Blog URL has moved! Please make a note of it. Our new permanent blog URL is now: www.Hismove.com/blog
We have also opened up the ablility to comment on posts. We'd love your participation!
Sincerely,
The CREN Staff
Google Launches New Blogger Friendly Search Service
Google has just launched a specialized Blog only search portal. http://blogsearch.google.com From what I can see it looks like a very cool way to search for blog content. So often blog content can get watered down and not rank well in the standard serps. It seems like Google is trying to change that. All of the search results come directly from blogs all over the internet.
There were some people that speculated that Google would only include results from it's Blogger.com blogs, but Google seems to be clear that they will include content from any Blog that has an Atom or RSS feed. Here is a quote:
"The goal of Blog Search is to include every blog that publishes a site feed (either RSS or Atom). It is not restricted to Blogger blogs, or blogs from any other service."
One cool feature I noticed right away was the ability to search for posts by time frame. So, if you wanted to lookup a specific news story that you know was posted in the last 12 hours, you can search for it and not have to worry about irrelevant results from posts made 2 years ago.
I look forward to seeing how this service will evolve. Google seems to have a winner here.
