Real Estate SEO Adviser

Avoiding Google Penalties - Not Rocket Science

It is ridiculous, and even a bit sad, that you can conduct a Google search for the phrase real estate website +google penalty … only to find more than a million web pages discussing the topic.

It’s ridiculous, because optimizing a real estate website without being penalized by search engines is a simple matter.

And it’s sad, because somewhere within those thousands of discussions there are some real estate agents who did not intend to do anything wrong — but merely followed the advice of a person who was either (A) an idiot, (B) an over-aggressive search engine geek, or (C) a dangerous combination of the two.

The truth is, you really have to try hard and go out of your way to get a search engine penalty in the first place, whether it’s a Google penalty or from some other search engine. (Most penalties come from Google, by the way.) All of the major search engines tell you in plain English what to avoid.

Still, there are those who think that search engine manipulation and search engine optimization are one and the same. These people will be forever plagued by search engine penalties, especially from Google.

Two Types of Real Estate SEO
Within the context of this article, there are two primary ways to go about real estate search engine optimization — proper optimization or manipulation. Obviously, you are free to use whichever path you want. But I feel obligated to explain the difference.

Proper Optimization
The first type of real estate SEO — and in my mind, the only type of SEO — is what I teach in my new e-book, Top Ten Agent. Proper optimization is built around research, quality content, effective networking and publishing, and other techniques that will bring search engine visibility for many years to come.

Search Engine Manipulation
The second form of real estate SEO — one that I advise you to avoid — relies on tricking the search engines. These techniques are often used by SEO companies who can’t succeed any other way, so they rely on manipulative (and dangerous) tactics that are disservice to their clients.

As far as real estate websites go, the most popular example is to participate in massive, nationwide link-exchange programs (sound familiar). This is a feeble attempt to trick search engine robots into thinking a real estate website is larger and more popular than it really is. Google, for one, has begun to penalize such websites on a wholesale basis. Here’s the fallout from that.

• If you practice the first type of search engine optimization (proper optimization), your real estate website will be more effective, your rankings will last longer, and you will not have to fear search engine penalties.
• If you practice search engine manipulation, you may have success in the short term. I’ll grant you that much. But you will always have to wonder when the algorithm “ax” is going to fall and drop your site into the basement. The only question is … can you afford to start all over from scratch?