Proof You Can Buy Your Way to No. 1 on Google & Yahoo
By Matt McGee on Jul 22, 2008 in Google, Yahoo
If you do real estate in Richland, WA — and I just happen to know someone who does — you could buy your way to the top of both Google and Yahoo. Today. For a killer search term.
Have a look at the SERPs for the phrase [richland real estate]: on Google … and on Yahoo:
The same site ranks at number one on both search engines, and also happens to rank at number three on MSN Live Search. I’m not going to link to it, but here’s a screenshot of what it is: A domain for sale owned by a real estate web site vendor.
I don’t know, G and Y … I know real estate is a spam-filled crapfest, and real estate SEO is a joke, but isn’t it pretty obvious this doesn’t belong anywhere in the SERPs, much less at the top? I’m biased, but maybe instead you could reward the folks who are creating actual real estate content that has value to readers? Just sayin’ is all…….
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12 Comment(s)
By TheMadHat on Jul 22, 2008 | Reply
Ranking an exact match keyword domain in any market isn’t really that hard. That person is just making his domain property all the more valuable.
By Matt McGee on Jul 22, 2008 | Reply
By MiriamEllis on Jul 22, 2008 | Reply
Wow, how’s that for not returning relevant results? Good spot, Matt. I wonder what they’re charging for the domain.
Miriam
By David Mihm on Jul 22, 2008 | Reply
There are TONS of sites just like this one that rank for Bay Area real estate searches, where I have several clients. It’s sad, considering that there is plenty of good, local RE content out there, like Cari’s blog.
By Scott Fish on Jul 22, 2008 | Reply
All the more reason to buy up your city.com or cityrealestate.com!
By Allan Schmidt on Jul 23, 2008 | Reply
I don’t get it?
It seems to me that they are actually using relevant keywords, title and domain name which are normally used for ranking.
Yes, it is for sale but the owners are doing what all of us are so what’s the big deal?
By Marios Alexandrou on Jul 23, 2008 | Reply
It’s been easy to buy top rankings in Yahoo for years. They even have an official program for it - Yahoo Search Submit Pro.
By paul on Jul 23, 2008 | Reply
Matt,
If you can tell Google what rules to use to detect that this page does not belong, I’m sure they’ll oblige. The fact is, there is nothing to differentiate this page from a ‘deserving’ page - apart from the short para that gives it away. Unfortunately, Google would need to actually *understand* the meaning of words to use that little red flag. Maybe they’re working on it
By Nick Stamoulis on Jul 23, 2008 | Reply
Wow..interesting and sad at the same time. What a waste of time for searchers who are genuinely looking for good content.
By Matt McGee on Jul 23, 2008 | Reply
The company that owns the web site isn’t a real estate agent or brokerage, it’s a vendor of web site for real estate agents.
This site has no value to the end consumer who is looking to buy a home, sell a home, or find a real estate agent.
By Allan Schmidt on Jul 23, 2008 | Reply
Oh, I got that.
My point is that they rank well because they have used whatever trick SEOs should be using.
The only way that won’t work is if the seach engines do what paul says. This would require e doing the ranking manually or develope some sort of intelligent ranking algorithm.
As it is now, the people behind the fake site know what they’re doing. Good for them.
By marius on Jul 24, 2008 | Reply
I see everyday parked domains ranking higher than DMOZ, 6 years old relevant websites just because of the domain name..how cool is that?