Google, Bing reps speak out on today's 'copying search results' claims

Earlier today I posted about the Search Engine Land article that outed Bing as allegedly copying Google's search engine results.

Now, representatives from Google have spoken out on the topic. Most notably, Google Fellow Amit Singhal, who wrote the blog entry "Microsoft's Bing uses Google search results--and denies it," posted to The Official Google Blog here.

Singhal's claims echo those noted by Danny Sullivan in the Search Engine Land article, namely that Google, sensing Bing might be copying some of its results, planted false, unrelated search results for obscure search phrases to see if Bing's results would follow suit. Only weeks later many did, pushing Singhal to note: "However you define copying, the bottom line is, these Bing results came directly from Google."

Bing has said little about the claim, initially dodging the question with an overtly politically correct answer, then a more contrite one: "We do not copy Google’s results," as noted in a ZD Net article by Mary Jo Foley.

Bing Corporate Vice President Harry Shum later added some comments in a Bing Community Search Blog entry:

"We use over 1,000 different signals and features in our ranking algorithm. A small piece of that is clickstream data we get from some of our customers, who opt-in to sharing anonymous data as they navigate the web in order to help us improve the experience for all users.

To be clear, we learn from all of our customers. What we saw in today’s story was a spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers in tail query ranking. It was a creative tactic by a competitor, and we’ll take it as a back-handed compliment. But it doesn’t accurately portray how we use opt-in customer data as one of many inputs to help improve our user experience."

So who's right? It's tough to deny Google's evidence and, for those paying attention, Bing certainly has a PR issue on its hands, as exploited by Singhal himself:

"So to all the users out there looking for the most authentic, relevant search results, we encourage you to come directly to Google. And to those who have asked what we want out of all this, the answer is simple: we'd like for this practice to stop."

hiybbprqag. mbzrxpgjys...Google accuses Bing of cheating

hiybbprqag. mbzrxpgjys.

These are search phrases, planted by Google, designed to see if Bing would copy its search results. Neither phrase showed results on Google or Bing prior to the plant. Google adjusted its code to show a manual ranking for the phrases, and found that Bing's results followed suit soon after, as noted in a ground-breaking Search Engine Land article this morning:

"For the first time in its history, Google crafted one-time code that would allow it to manually rank a page for a certain term (code that will soon be removed, as described further below). It then created about 100 of what it calls “synthetic” searches, queries that few people, if anyone, would ever enter into Google...

This all happened in December. When the experiment was ready, about 20 Google engineers were told to run the test queries from laptops at home, using Internet Explorer, with Suggested Sites and the Bing Toolbar both enabled. They were also told to click on the top results. They started on December 17. By December 31, some of the results started appearing on Bing."

Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan did an excellent job on the research and article, which you can find here. As noted in the article, Google has accused Bing of cheating by copying its results, and takes offense to the move. Bing has yet to deny the claim, offering instead a response that would make a politician proud.

It will be interesting to hear Bing's response to the accusations and if/how this will affect Bing's results going forward.

Coldwell Banker Riviera releases New Jersey real estate and community page

Coldwell Banker Riviera Realty, Inc. has a new Web page that might help its New Jersey real estate customers more easily find information on the markets they have interest in.

The new New Jersey Communities page offers information on dozens of Ocean County NJ real estate markets Coldwell Banker Riviera Realty services, including Barnegat, Bayville, Beachwood, Berkeley, Brick, Colts Neck, Forked River, Freehold, Howell, Jackson, Lakewood, Manahawkin, Manchester, Millstone, Plumsted, Point Pleasant, Point Pleasant Beach, Toms River, Upper Freehold and Wall, New Jersey.

Each New Jersey community is highlighted with information on the community, a link to a community page with more information on the market and a link to a page to search NJ homes for sale in the market.

Coldwell Banker Riviera Realty is a real estate brokerage with eight offices and nearly 200 real estate agents throughout Ocean County and Monmouth County, New Jersey. Coldwell Banker Riviera Realty real estate agents specialize in Bayville homes for sale, Brick homes for sale, Berkeley homes for sale, Point Pleasant homes for sale, Toms River homes for sale, Wall homes for sale and more.

Coldwell Banker Riviera Realty, Inc. is a paying real estate website and SEO customer of Delta Media Group.

Google Instant: What it is, trends it will change and how it will affect the real estate industry

If you use Google regularly, you might have noticed a change this week. Google launched "Google Instant," which it calls "a new search enhancement that shows results as you type" (read Google's official blog entry on Google Instant).

Now, for the first time, Google is delivering search results as a visitor types out their query. Google said the change won't affect search results and my tests verified that, showing no apparent adjustments to Google's algorithm (sample search keywords I tested Tuesday show about the same results today).

But even without changes in search results, the release of Google Instant will certainly spark questions among users--the most likely of which is how the implementation of Google Instant will alter search patterns.


Google Instant was created to develop instant results. In order for it to work correctly, Google Instant attempts to predict your search phrase, thus providing results for the predicted phrase. Not the right phrase? Google Instant offers additional suggested phrases below. Scanning through them shows the search results of each. Still can't find what you're looking for? Keep typing and "Google" your phrase as you normally would.

While this may certainly save a few seconds from a visitor's search (Google claims Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search), it may also affect how visitors search.

How will Google Instant change search trends?

Perhaps the most important question is how Google Instant will change the way people search.

Previously, those using search engines typed in a phrase, looked at their results, and if they didn't see what they were looking for they typed in another phrase and trouble-shot again. Now, those results are served up instantaneously while the searcher is typing them. Therefore, searchers can begin by searching very broad phrases and continue narrowing them as Google's results are populating. This gives me reason to believe two major search trends might change.

First, visitors will likely type in more long-tail phrases because they'll see while typing that the short-tail variation of their search is not bringing the results they're looking for.

Second, I can see search moving forward in reverse. Google visitors are typically more inclined to search by region first, then by keywords. In the case of real estate, using the city/state/region in front of the term "real estate" or "homes for sale" tends to produce more searches in any market than phrasing it the other way around. In August, Google had 60,500 searches for "Akron homes for sale" and another 33,100 searches for "Akron real estate." It only received 2,900 searches for "homes for sale in Akron" and 1,000 searches for "real estate in Akron," however.


With Google instant, the key is finding your search as quickly as possible. As visitors become used to using Google Instant, they may begin searching by primary keyword first and region second; IE: they may type in "real estate," then, having not found what they're looking for, continue with "in Akron," add the state if they still don't see results, and eventually create a long-tail search phrase that they might not have typed had they not been privy to Google's results while typing the phrase.

So I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot more "real estate in Akron, Ohio in Firestone Park" searches than "Firestone Park real estate" searches as users adjust to Google Instant.

How is Google Instant affecting real estate websites?

Looking at the accounts of all real estate websites Delta Media Group facilitates SEO for, we're seeing very little, if any change in overall website traffic since Google Instant went live September 8. For most websites, there was a slight bump in traffic (though it's too early to tell if that resulted from the Google Instant go-live). In a handful of websites, there was a slight traffic decline from similar days over the past two months, and in the remainder of websites there appeared to be no change in traffic.

To analyze results more closely, we also looked at search engine traffic direct from Google. Of the 18 sites we analyzed, half of them saw traffic increases, a few saw slight decreases and the remainder saw no true change. All in all, it appears that Google Instant may have produced a slight bump in our websites' search engine traffic, though it's far too early to truly say that.

Conclusions on Google Instant

Google Instant is an innovative new service that appears to do exactly what it claims: save you time searching. While some searchers will likely adapt to and thrive with it, others will opt to use Google's traditional search instead (an option Google provides to the right of its search bar after a search has been conducted).

But the most important issue is how Google Instant will impact search trends. Search engine rankings are only as significant as the amount of people searching for the phrases you're ranked on. We'll keep a close eye on the trends we're seeing at Delta Media Group, and our SEO department will be working to best improve traffic and rankings from those trends.

Yahoo! now showing Bing's search results

Yahoo! began displaying Bing's search results over the last two weeks, marking the official kick-off of a relationship a year in the making.

Yahoo! search results will now vary from those you might be used to seeing, and a "Powered by Bing™" indicator has been added to the bottom of Yahoo search results pages, showing that those search results have now come from Microsoft.

Yahoo! and Bing teamed up last year to take on Google, which still had more than 65 percent of the search engine market share in July, according to comScore (Chitika Research showed even more impressive Google market share numbers).

Yahoo! had a 17.1 percent share in July, while Bing had an 11 percent share. Even if Yahoo! and Bing each keep their percentage shares with the merger, combined they will only hold 43 percent of Google's market share.

Bing was launched May 28, 2009 as noted in Microsoft's press release, with a rumored marketing budget between $80 and $100 million. Just over 15 months in, Bing has grown its market share from 8 percent in May 2009 to 11 percent in July 2010.

Despite the .2 monthly percentage point increase, Bing has failed to surpass Yahoo!, and Google has even gained market share since Bing's launch (from 64 percent in April 2009 to 66 percent in June 2010).

Bing should continue to gain some ground, as it just launched a new app for Verizon Android phones. But the question is, will those 17 percent of searchers previously using Yahoo! now switch over to Google as their primary search engine, or continue using Yahoo! to search since it's convenient when logged into their E-mail accounts, checking out news, playing games and utilizing Yahoo!'s other features?

In the meantime this story also has relevance to those real estate companies looking to improve their search engine optimization. Yahoo!'s algorithm was much different than Bing's, and Google's certainly is. Suddenly, those websites that ranked high on Yahoo! may not be showing up quite as high anymore.

Delta Media Group will post more on its SEO clients and Yahoo!/Bing rankings soon. Make sure to check out blog.deltagroup.com for more info.

Google adjusts algorithm to show more results from a single domain

Google recently adjusted its ranking algorithm, allowing it to display more results from the same website if it appears a searcher is trying to find information from that domain.

Detailed in Google's Webmaster Central Blog entry August 20, the change is of particular importance for real estate brokerages and agents looking to fully develop content and landing pages for the services they provide and markets they service.

Real estate website owners obviously want to provide their visitors with robust market and listing info for all markets and listings in them. They also want to be known as having the "go-to" website in their respective markets. The algorithmic adjustments make it easier for those websites to now display multiple results when visitors use Google to search markets on a real estate website.


In the example above, I searched "prudentialhomesale.com real estate markets," since Prudential Homesale has several listed on its website. As you can see, Google's top six results include four from PrudentialHomesale.com and a press release on StreetInsider.com and PRWeb.com that Delta Media Group published about PrudentialHomesale.com's real estate market landing pages. Before Google adjusted its algorithm, this search would have only returned two results from PrudentialHomesale.com.

Previously, Google's algorithm only allowed for up to two search results per domain. While this kept things fair for other domains to get SEO rankings, it unfairly prevented searchers to see more than two search results from a particular domain, even if that searcher appeared to be using Google to search the page results throughout that domain.

"We’re always reassessing our ranking and user interface, making hundreds of changes each year. We expect today’s improvement will help users find deeper results from a single site, while still providing diversity on the results page," Software engineer Samarth Keshava noted in the Google Webmaster Central Blog.

Check back to dripmarketingblog.com for more info on search engine optimization techniques, social media practices and other online marketing applications in real estate.

Prudential Homesale Services Group is a paying real estate website and SEO customer of Delta Media Group.

Who REALLY killed the real estate blog? (and is it even dead?)

For years you've heard about the importance of social media.

"You have to blog!"

"You have to be on Facebook!"

"You have to get a Twitter account!"

"You need a profile on ActiveRain/Trulia/LinkedIn/insertstartuprealestatesocialnetworkingsitehere!"

And now, you hear the opposite.

"Agents killed the real estate blog," a recent story on Inman News proclaimed in its headline.

After years of real estate conferences being driven solely on the self-proclaimed prophesies that you, by attending, will learn the best way to improve your business and profits from social media and blogging practices, now you're being told that you killed that industry.

The worst part of it is it's true. Kind of...

Real estate agents have been told what they need to do to improve their social media footprint repeatedly in one-hour conference sessions that amount to about 35 minutes of real speaking after introductions, questions, bad jokes, inadvertent sales tactics, etc. But they might not have really been told the importance of how they need to do it.

Blogging sounds great when someone is explaining to you at a conference you or your company probably paid too much money to attend how much it will improve your business. But then you attend the post-seminar luncheon. You chat with some old friends. You sit in the other hour-long afternoon seminars that also consist of 35 minutes of true engagement where you are told of all the other important things your real estate brokerage has to do to make money, possibly (depending on the conference) by a representative of a company that sells a product helping you do just that and also just so happens to have sponsored that conference.

Then you attend the cocktail hours (also sponsored by a company). You sit in on the next day's worth of seminars, where you see a repeated theme. You take diligent notes, but even those begin to fade away along with the energy and vibrancy you walked into the conference with. You hurry to catch your flight. You return home just in time to crash for the weekend while the notes and seminars and tips and tricks and talking points and sales tactics and all the other "have tos" begin to melt into one big mess that you try and push away by Monday morning so you can get back to your energetic, vibrant self.

You return to the office. You remember a few key points. You re-read your notes, wondering why you took some of them. You see the stars you drew next to the key points.

We have to blog!"

"We have to be on Facebook!"

"We have to get a Twitter account!"

"We need a profile on ActiveRain/Trulia/LinkedIn/insertstartuprealestatesocialnetworkingsitehere!"

You start hashing away at accomplishing those things without remembering why you have to do all of them, and how, exactly, they translate to business.

Soon enough, you've started blogging. You have a Facebook and Twitter account. You set up all your social networking profiles. And you start filling those blogs/updates/profiles with, well, filler because you don't know how else to use them.

And now you killed the real estate blog.

Well, the real estate blog is more than alive. But -- let's be perfectly honest -- it's terribly misused by several, several agents. So is Facebook. So is Twitter. So are all the other social networks.

But, you know what? They're also terribly misused by a majority of the population. It's just that it matters when they're misused by the real estate industry because members of the real estate industry have a vested interest in prospering from their use.

Like networking at a community event, social networking takes time to perfect. Like writing essays and term papers, blogging takes time to get a grasp on your writing style, flow and subject matter.

Social media incorporation comes more naturally to those Generation Yers who were raised using it, and presents a learning curve to those Baby Boomers and late Gen Xers who make up a majority of the real estate industry. IE: adapting an effective social media strategy requires more time and practice than a one-hour session at a session-loaded real estate conference.

If you don't get it now, don't give up. And certainly don't take the blame for its failure. Instead, stop blogging about only listings. Stop Facebooking to sell. Stop tweeting only price changes.

Start thinking about social media as you would any media, and social networking as you would business networking. Use social media to spread interesting stories of interesting places, businesses, restaurants and events in the community. Use social networking to build rapport with people; to spark interesting conversation and provide info for their region, not to sell homes or advertise your business.

Keep practicing and honing your techniques. Blog about any items of interest in the community. Seriously. Open this morning's newspaper, find an interesting story that applies to your market and blog about it.

Soon, you'll find that you're thinking through how to use social media instead of only why to use social media. Because, regardless of what you heard at that business conference, social media is not going to improve your business and make you more sales anytime soon. But, when used correctly, it will help you get your name out, help you earn more Web visitors, help you help people learn about the community they live in or might move to. And soon enough, those people will start realizing that your site/blog/social networking account is providing the information they are interested in, but aren't finding elsewhere online.

And I think we can agree that all those items will, in turn, help your professional brand...and stop killing the real estate blog.

Google's Wonder Wheel: A closer look

Ever heard of the Google Wonder Wheel? Ever used it?

If you have any vested interest in improving the search engine optimization of your website, you might want to at least know about Wonder Wheel. But I'll bet you don't.

Google's Wonder Wheel was mentioned in an Inman News article by Bernice Ross this morning as a "hot tech tip" to help improve your real estate website search engine optimization. It's nice that Wonder Wheel is finally getting a little bit of attention in the real estate world, albeit 16 months after its release.

For whatever reason, Wonder Wheel appears to be one of the few Google developments to enter the SEO arena without a whole lot of fanfare. Just Google "Google Wonder Wheel." The phrase shows 313,000 results, compared to "Google AdWords," which shows 9.8 million results, and "Google AdWords Keyword Tool," which shows 1.1 million results.

Part of this could be attributed to Wonder Wheel's simplicity. While it serves a purpose among SEO keyword research, it also tends to be direct, without much complexity. Essentially, it's a tool to show related terms that lead to search results. That's pretty much it. But it's designed in a user-friendly format, offering the ability to really dig deeper in related search terms than other tools allow for.

Seeing related search terms is nothing new. The functionality has long been a staple of Google's AdWords Keyword Tool, and other search engines offer similar capabilities. But Wonder Wheel makes it easy to see these search terms graphically, and click through to see second and third-tier related search terms, and more.

To use Wonder Wheel, search any phrase on Google, then click the 'More Search Tools' link in the left navigation. You'll see a link titled 'Wonder Wheel' under the 'Standard View' column. Upon clicking that, the graphical Wonder Wheel will display, bumping your search results to the right of the screen.

The Wonder Wheel shows the term you searched in the center and related terms branching out from it. Upon clicking the related terms, you can view their own 'Wonder Wheels.'

The Wonder Wheel can be a helpful tool to demonstrate related terms consumers are searching to find the search results of the term you are focused on. By improving the SEO of those related terms, you improve the chances that visitors will find you by searching the original or related terms.

While it's not the only tool available to help with this, it's graphical representation and easy interactivity make for a nice addition to your SEO tool belt.

Have you used Wonder Wheel? Please let us know your experience and success stories. Check back to dripmarketingblog.com for more social media, online marketing and SEO-related tools, tips and practices.

If you're looking to improve your real estate search engine optimization, Delta Media Group's new SEO department can help.

Existing home sales drop 27.2 percent in July

Existing home sales plunged by 27.2 percent in July, according to breaking news reports released moments ago.

The drop is the third straight monthly decline, bringing the seasonally adjusted annual rate of home sales to 3.83 million units. This is a drastic decrease from the 5.26 million unit rate in June.

CNNMoney.com has more on the July home sales drop, noting: "The sales pace of all homes -- single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops -- is at the lowest since NAR began tracking the figure in 1999. Sales of single-family homes, which account for a bulk of the transactions, are at the lowest level since May 1995."

Analysts point to the expiration of the homebuyer tax credit as reason for the sales decline. The tax credit required home purchases to be signed by April 30, and closed on by June 30. Congress later passed a bill extending the closing date to September 30, though only for buyers who had already signed to purchase the home by April 30. CNNMoney.com reported at the time that approximately 200,000 home purchasers would have missed out on the tax credit if not for the extension of the closing date.

Despite the home sales decrease, Delta Media Group has seen different trends for its Search Engine Optimization customers. We'll soon post more info on these trends at Delta Media Group's News Blog.

Pennsylvania real estate brokerage website generating significant interest

As part of its new real estate search engine optimization efforts, PrudentialHomesale.com received some major attention last week.

The Harrisburg, Lancaster, York and Reading-area real estate brokerage's press release detailed its new Pennsylvania real estate website, market search options and other new features.

A quick search shows the magnitude of the press release's outreach. The release has already been featured on several hundred websites, generating significant traffic and interest to the new PrudentialHomesale.com and its Harrisburg homes for sale, York homes for sale, Reading homes for sale and Lancaster homes for sale market pages.

View the Prudential Homesale Services Group press release in its entirety below.

PrudentialHomesale.com Improving Market Presence, Exposure, Search Engine Results

Prudential Homesale Services Group launches new real estate website with improved Harrisburg, York, Reading, Lancaster, PA presence

Lancaster, PA July 16, 2010

If you’re searching for homes in the Harrisburg, Reading, Lancaster or York areas of Pennsylvania, you might notice a new face in town.

Prudential Homesale Services Group launched a ground breaking new real estate website and lead management system, designed to provide home searchers the best user experience.

“Buyers and sellers today require a more robust user experience,” said Rod Messick, CFO at Prudential Homesale Services Group. “Buyers want to find listings quickly and easily, find market information, see the listing on a map, and receive a near-instant response from an agent when he or she decides to request more information on that listing.

“Sellers want to know their listing is getting the most exposure, through the website, mobile devices and search engines. They want to search for their listing by address and find it on your website with full details without digging through pages of search results.”

Though Prudential Homesale Services Group’s www.PrudentialHomesale.com officially launched nearly one year ago, the site has undergone several recent changes to help boost performance for home searchers and sellers.

Among those are new market landing pages for York, Reading, Lancaster, Harrisburg and surrounding markets, easy drill-down property search options, a calendar system showing new listings by date and more.

Perhaps the most significant change to the website, however, is its placement among search engines. Prudential Homesale Services Group listings are easy to find through search engines with first page placement when searching by address. Pair with that the improved search engine presence for market-based searches, and PrudentialHomesale.com has seen a spike in search engine activity. In fact, the website has had a 250 percent increase in search engine visitors in a recent three-month span.

“The search engine traffic has been great,” Messick said. “It’s nice knowing buyers not previously familiar with us are finding our website through search engines, and sellers are confident in their listings’ presence and exposure on search engines.”

Visit www.PrudentialHomesale.com to view the Prudential Homesale Services Group real estate website or to search for homes in York, Reading, Harrisburg, Lancaster and surrounding Pennsylvania areas.

About Prudential Homesale

Prudential Homesale offers customers a menu of services including realty, mortgage, settlement, insurance, warranty, relocation, builder/developer services, career services, and a complete customer care center. The only regional real estate company with headquarters in the area, Prudential Homesale offers its services to 11 contiguous south central and southeastern Pennsylvania counties. According to REALTrends, Prudential Homesale Services Group, Inc. is the #16th most successful real estate brokerage in the country in the combined delivery of home services: real estate sales, mortgage closings, title closings and home warranty sales. “We help people achieve their dreams” is the core purpose of its associates as they strive each day to help others achieve the American dream of homeownership.

Contact Prudential Homesale at 1-800-383-3535 or visit www.PrudentialHomesale.com for more information.

About Delta Media Group

Canton, Ohio-based Delta Media Group is a national real estate technology developer. Serving more than 32,000 broker and agent real estate professionals, Delta Media Group builds one of the most profitable tools for major brokers in the real estate industry. Delta Media Group has been in business since 1994 and works with independent and franchise brokerages across the country. Delta Media Group specializes in real estate Web sites, real estate lead management, mobile applications, IDX property search, and real estate search engine optimization (SEO). Visit www.DeltaGroup.com for more info.

Prudential Homesale Services Group is a paying real estate website and SEO customer of Delta Media Group.