Real Estate Technology

I am by no means an expert at SEO. I have done a lot of reading, all 5 of my sites rank really well for their targeted keywords. I wasn’t able to do this overnight or by employing some secret-sauce or short cuts or tricks. Anything that I picked up by frequenting SEO forums and reading articles by experts was tried and tested as I attempted to rank my sites.

I do get asked on a fairly regular basis on how to rank in Google and how I did it. My simple answer is: Content is still the king and build those links. During many conversations with other real estate agents I have realized that there are many Google myths rampant, at least amongst my fellow real estate agents. The aim of this post is to clarify what I consider to be the top 5 Google myths. Please do keep in mind that these are just my opinions, formed through my personal experience and supported by widely available evidence on the Internet.

1. Google Sandbox

This is a big one and I don’t think there is a clear cut answer to this. Some believe that new sites that try and rank for a highly competitive keyword are the ones that are sent to the Google Sandbox. Some claim that all new sites spend time in the Sandbox. Some claim that Sandbox is now history.

Out of the 5 sites (hey that’s a pretty decent number for a real estate agent) that I have launched since last summer, I only experienced what some may call Sandbox on one site. The site immediately started ranking well (on page 1) for it’s most important keyword. After about a week, the site completely dropped off the map, couldn’t be found on the first 25 pages for that exact keyword. However, within a week the site was back on page 1 and has held the number 2 position for the past 2 months. If this site was in the Sandbox for that one week, it came out without me doing a thing. No new content was added and no links were pointing to it. I don’t believe it was in the Sandbox, merely flagged for whatever reason for a review. The other four sites never ever experienced anything that could be called the Sandbox, and they all target some very competitive keywords. I really doubt that the Sandbox exists now, and why would Google want to penalize a site for just being new?

2. Google and Flash

It used to be that Google had trouble indexing sites done completely in flash. And this led people to conclude that Flash is bad for SEO.

This is not true. A mere use of Flash will not hurt your SEO rankings. While Google may have trouble indexing a site completely done in Flash, it is getting better at indexing such sites. I use a Flash header on one of my sites and have had absolutely no issues ranking in Google. Tasteful use of Flash can add that extra element to your site that sets it apart from the competition, in the eyes of the user. While it may not help with Google, Google is not going to contact you about a listing a user is.

3. Submitting my site to Google will help me rank faster

Some believe that if they submit their site to Google, it is guaranteed to be indexed much sooner and will start to rank sooner.

This has to be one of the most useless tools offered by Google. I have never submitted a site, or pinged Google when a new page is created, and yet at times my content will get crawled and start ranking within minutes. This is especially true for blogs. If you launch a new site, point some links to it and it will get crawled - and enjoy some link juice. Submitting your site to Google to be be indexed is one of the most useless activities you could engage in.

4. Buying links will get me penalized

This myth resulted when sites that depended heavily on paid links completely disappeared. Most people equated this to some sort of a penalty.

If Google was to penalize a site for buying links, what is stopping your competitor from buying some links and pointing them to YOUR site? That’s a surefire way of getting you penalized and would be ripe for manipulation. What Google did was simply to discredit those links, the sites lost the link juice, and stopped ranking. Paid links still work, but when done cleverly and in moderation. Do not just depend on paid links for ranking.

5. I need thousands of links to rank on the first page

Most people see that the sites that dominate a keyword have thousands of links pointing to them. So they must get thousands of links if they want to rank better than that particular site(s).

This is not true. It is the quality of links, not the quantity that counts. And if the other site has been around for a while (like when paid links were huge) it will have a lot of links but not all of them are helping it rank. I have a site that ranks number 2 for a highly competitive keyword, is less than 4 months old and has less than 50 links pointing to it. This site is beating out sites that that thousands of links pointing to them. Concentrate on unique and quality content so that others will want to link to you and eventually you will gain in the SERPs. A link building campaign aimed at gaining quality and relevant links will also help.

So there you have it, a clarification on what I consider to be top 5 Google myths. Again, this is my experience and is based on what has worked for me. It is always important to do your research when investing your time and money in launching a new site.