As many of you know, page rank is a statistic assigned by the Google search engine and is intended to represent the importance of a certain page. However, there is a lot of controversy surrounding this statistic. For one, it seems to have an unknown bearing on SERP (search engine results page) rankings. For example, searching for Aurora Real Estate in Google brings up a site with a PR of 0 as the #4 organic result. Granted, this is from a site with high traffic rank, and probably high trust rank (two statistics that I’ll probably discuss later), but still….

 The Google algorithm remains a mystery for most of us and the way Page Rank fits into the SERPs is even more unknown. However, many webmasters still see page rank as a valuable tool. Page rank is a desierable factor when requesing reciprocal link exchanges - many sites want a certain page rank in order to consider a trade. While it’s possible for a large corporate website to get a high ranking based upon traffic and trust and zero page rank, it’s fair to estimate that it’s going to be important for the little guys - me and you - to get a fair page rank in order to compete. If the Google algorithm is a combination of factors, having a low page rank might be fine if you’re in the top 1,000 sites for traffic, but if you’re not, you need a combination of factors to help bring your site to the top of the SERPs.

In my last post about directories, I realize that I might have portrayed a very negative opinoin about directories. That’s really not my intention. Some directories actually have a great value - for example, the Internation Real Estate Digest directory passes a nice page rank of 4 or the Yahoo Directory which is fairly authoratative and powers many secondary search engines. My main concern is the plethora of new entry directories with absolutely no page rank - most pages sit un-indexed and your listing will likely never be seen by anyone, especially not the search engines. There is actually a directory code that you can use to easily build your own directory attached to your own web site. In this situation - as more and more useless directories pop up, the value of actually being in a directory diminishes. If you are going to list your site in a directory - especially if you are paying for the listing - carefully consider the value that particular directory will add to your listing before you click.

A lot of discussion has been made about link building. Reciprocal links have had their heyday but are now somewhat discounted by the search engines due to the popularity of link farms and link building software. The new fad is one-way links. Perhaps the best source of these one-way links are directories - basically huge lists of websites. However, there are now so many directories out there that directories have now become the new links pages. Some of these directories charge a fee for inclusion. For example: Metrobix, InYahoo, InGoogle, Geodale, Surfbot, Bivlo, Botseeker, Indextogo, Intoguide, Junglesnoop, Kazlist, Linkrelief, Surfcomet, Trafficlink and Ylink.

Early in my website development when I was struggling to get pages indexed, I paid for inclusion in these and other directories. But, how useful is that inclusion. Take the above examples - most have no pagerank, most are probably not even indexed in the major search engines. So why would you pay to be included in a directory that no search engine knows about?

I’m not saying that directories are useless. There are many out there that will do a webmaster a lot of good - the Yahoo Directory for instance. Another is the Open Directory Project. Before you pay for submission in these or other directories, make sure the directory is worth it. How can you tell? Well, hopefully the directory itself has some sort of page rank. Your link should also be on a page written in HTML - not java code. If you have doubts - choose “View - Source” and see if you can find your link as text within the code. Finally, make sure your directory entry can be found by the search engines. Hopefully the directory is indexed already. If not, you might want to re-think paying much for inclusion.

Lately, I’ve been very active in the Active Rain Real Estate Network - if you haven’t registered, Active Rain is a community of Real Estate professionals - agents, loan officers, home inspectors, etc. It’s growing daily and currently has over 14,000 members. Active Rain is absolutely free to join and offers several activities members can participate in to interact with other real estate professionals around the country.

Perhaps one of the most popular aspects of Active Rain is that members are ranked based upon a point system. Members gain additional points for interacting with community members - posting blogs, commenting on blogs, participating in forums and also participating in Localism.com - a website focused on local real estate niches. If you gain enough points, you can become a featured agent in your city, county, state or even the country.

Blogs are especially popular on Active Rain - you can find information on a variety of subjects related to your business or the real estate community. If you’ve never done your own blog, the interface is easy to use and you are also provided a free blog as part of your membership. If you’re looking for a great way to interact with your fellow real estate professionals, check out Active Rain - I’ll see you there.

Today marks the launch of my new real estate technology blog. I’m a REALTOR. I’ve found that over the past month or two, my business development has led me more and more towards new technology. Most of this technology is online in nature - web sites, blogs, podcasts, SEO, PPC, etc. During the research and development of my own web sites and online presence, I thought it would be helpful to highlight some of the information, tips and advice I’ve been getting. Hence, the creation of this blog.

The most difficult thing for me was how to beign this blog. Should I start talking about basic online concepts like a domain name, website and HTML for readers that don’t know anything about them, or should I just start. Eventually I decided to just start. This might make it difficult for a complete novice to follow, but the information is out there - don’t think of this blog as a complete resource for everything tech with real estate. I would enjoin you to get out there and continue doing your own research on tech trends in our business. If you turn up some interesting new ideas, pass them along or leave a comment on my blog.

Above all, I hope you enjoy and find this blog both fun and informative.