Using Eric Bramlett’s green ribbon and a little bit of PHP, I have built a small widget to keep track of the accumulating body of weblog posts on Trulia.com policy of adding the “nofollow” tag to links back to its listing partners. Shown below is an image of the widget; you can see the real thing in the sidebar.
You can read the articles linked in the widget for clarification, but the issue in its essence is this: Trulia is using the listings you give it to enhance its own search engine performance on long tail search keywords even at is not sharing any search engine authority with you on the link back to your listing. Another way of saying the same thing: You’re buying Trulia.com dinner and it is scarfing down your dessert while you’re away from the table.
If you’ve written a post on this topic, let me know and I’ll add your link to the widget.
If you care about this issue, you should echo this widget. It’s easy to do. The widget itself is not complicated, and I built it to be shared. It’s designed to work flexibly in your sidebar without clashing with your look and feel. In other words, it should take on the characteristics of your Cascading Style Sheet, not mine. If you want to echo this widget, it’s dread simple. Copy this line of code:
<?php
include ("https://bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/TruliaTracking.php");
?>
and paste it on a line of its own in your “sidebar.php” file for your currently active theme. FTP that into the appropriate folder on your file server and you’re done. (Note: These instructions presume WordPress and an FTP connection. If you know how to deploy this code in another blogging platform, or if you know how to edit theme files from within WordPress, speak up in the comments.)
Will BloodhoundBlog get Google “juice” for doing this? Yes, but we don’t need it. Instead, I’m using my code and my hot-rod file server to host this widget for anyone who wants to echo it.
Will the posts linked in the widget get Google “juice” for being there. Big time. Riding on BloodhoundBlog’s sidebar is worth a huge number of backlinks. That number will jump by big increments for every sidebar this widget lands on.
But: Neither of those things matter. What matters is helping Trulia.com understand our concerns with its “nofollow” policy. This is the Web 2.0 world in action: The disintermediation of the powerful and the empowerment of the individual. It’s just a tiny little PHP widget, but it will make a very big noise…
Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing, technology
Eric Blackwell says:
Great job, Greg. The widget is now up on Eric on Search…
Thanks much.
I am happy to add to the juice…
Best;
Eric
May 14, 2008 — 3:15 pm
Jay Thompson says:
For those shy about editing their sidebar.php file, another option is to install this plugin. It will install a “widget” that you can cut/paste Greg’s php code into and then drag to where ever / whatever sidebar you like (assuming your WP theme is widget enabled — which most are).
May 14, 2008 — 4:21 pm
Greg Swann says:
Cool. Thanks!
May 14, 2008 — 4:31 pm
Eric Bramlett says:
Sweet plugin, Jay. I was having issues w/ my sidebar.php file (actually called left.php on my theme) so this looks like a great solution.
May 14, 2008 — 5:48 pm
Kevin Boer says:
Uh, isn’t this piece of badge-bait rather similar to the Trulia ones, ie. one of the very issues at hand? You dismiss the “Google juice” BHB will get out of this because you “don’t need it,” but I suspect that if “hi-this-is-Rudy-from-Trulia” had tried the same argument, he would have been, ah, dismissed. In your defense, you are being completely upfront about said Google juice.
I tried my own piece of badge-bait but it never took off — I guess it was too over the top. 🙁
At any rate, I’m enough of a link-seeker that I’m happy to jump on board by contributing two of my articles on the subject. If there’s Google juice being poured out, I’m happy to drink some as well.
Full disclosure: I was a consultant to Trulia about a year ago for a one-off project.
May 14, 2008 — 6:46 pm
Jay says:
So if I put this trulia amazing widget up in my sidebar I’ll be linking out to about 14 different webpages, right? I’m dying to do it…even pulled up the local realtors using number1expert so I might contact them individually on this. But I am leery of adding so many outbound links to my main landing page. If my concerns are unfounded please explain and I’ll be glad to read with open eyes.
I’m mad as hell about the whole thing though….
j
May 14, 2008 — 6:51 pm
Greg Swann says:
> But I am leery of adding so many outbound links to my main landing page. If my concerns are unfounded please explain and I’ll be glad to read with open eyes.
We’re around 600 outbound links right now. I can’t speak for your situation, but perhaps Eric or Eric can offer some insight.
May 14, 2008 — 7:39 pm
Ryan Ward says:
I cannot add it to my main blog, but, I did add it to where I could on another blog.
I am getting this error:
Warning: include() [function.include]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration
If anyone else gets this error, you need to contact your web hosting company and ask them to enable the allow_url_fopen option
I even tried to add the code to a new php file and call that file from my sidebar to no avail.
I’ll work on it, but, I don’t have access to enable the fopen option…
@Jay,
You will not hurt your own rankings linking out to other sites like this. I have been testing this directly on my website (and would not recommend it if I habdn’t tested it) by adding links out to brand new single property websites to get them more exposure from my homepage as well as numerous internal pages and it has not hurt me a bit – even linking to a brand new domain as the SPW’s are does not seem to make a difference. These are results from the last 30-40 days.
I’m sure Greg will chime in on this too.
May 14, 2008 — 7:57 pm
Greg Swann says:
> At any rate, I’m enough of a link-seeker that I’m happy to jump on board by contributing two of my articles on the subject.
You’re in.
> Uh, isn’t this piece of badge-bait rather similar to the Trulia ones, ie. one of the very issues at hand? You dismiss the “Google juice” BHB will get out of this because you “don’t need it,” but I suspect that if “hi-this-is-Rudy-from-Trulia” had tried the same argument, he would have been, ah, dismissed. In your defense, you are being completely upfront about said Google juice.
This is a defective analysis. Yes, we will gain PR from doing this, but the marginal PR we gain will be nothing compared the marginal PR that will be thrown off because we’re doing it. Trulia’s widget — and Zillow’s, et alia — benefit no one but their progenitors.
I went into this at tremendous length in a comment to one of Eric Blackwell’s posts. I wasn’t trying to jump Eric Bramlett’s train, but I brought the fight back to the kennel because I thought we could induce more weblogs to echo the widget. This will massively amplify the volume of each of our voices.
So it ends up being funny to me. Everyone is so busy trying to discredit P.T. Barnum that they never spare a thought for Jeanne d’Arc — or Spartacus. This is an amusing misperception.
May 14, 2008 — 8:06 pm
Kevin Boer says:
I think the more appropriate analogy than PT Barnum, Jeanne d’Arc, and Spartacus would be Patrice Lumumba, Nnamdi Azikwe, and Sir Seretse Khama. I can only imagine what that conversation would look like. 🙂
May 14, 2008 — 8:23 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I have been testing this directly on my website (and would not recommend it if I habdn’t tested it) by adding links out to brand new single property websites to get them more exposure from my homepage as well as numerous internal pages and it has not hurt me a bit – even linking to a brand new domain as the SPW’s are does not seem to make a difference.
We call this triangulation, and we’re very big on it. Our goal is to get a new SPW domain indexed within a few days of going live. Search isn’t terribly important to our selling strategy, but every little bit helps. Ideally, I will try to link from BloodhoundRealty.com, from DistinctivePhoenix.com and from the new SPW site, each one linking to the two others. Call it voodoo, but G seems to treat the links as being highly relevant, and I don’t have to depend on outside links to bring a new site out of the sandbox. If I can throw some juice from here without going off topic, I’ll do that, too.
May 14, 2008 — 9:02 pm
Sue says:
Shoot, I cannot seem to add the plug in that Jay provided…error on line 27. I get a little nervous messing too much when I don’t know what I’m doing cause the WP is on my site so I don’t want to make a mess of things.
May 14, 2008 — 10:14 pm
Sue says:
How do I know if I have an FTP connection…and what does that stand for? 😐
May 14, 2008 — 10:18 pm
Hi, I'm Rudy from Trulia.com says:
Hi all!
For some clarity on much of the misinformation and confusion going on here, please take the time to read our blog post – http://www.truliablog.com/2008/05/15/back-to-basics-trulia-was-built-to-help-improve-your-roi/
Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia.com
May 15, 2008 — 9:17 am
G. Dewald says:
I’ve added the widget to my article. For those who want to get the widget into a specific article:
This worked for me on WP2.5.x
1) Get this plugin to let you run PHP: http://bluesome.net/post/2005/08/18/50/
2) Install it following the exceptional instructions. WARNING: do not install this if you do not trust your WP-users.
3) Put the code in your individual post.
May 15, 2008 — 11:29 am
Eric Bramlett says:
>>>>If anyone else gets this error, you need to contact your web hosting company and ask them to enable the allow_url_fopen option
Ryan – thanks so much for this. You just saved me a TON of time.
May 15, 2008 — 12:53 pm
Rudy from Trulia says:
Hello!
For some clarity on much of the misinformation and confusion going on here and elsewhere, please take the time to read our blog post –
http://www.truliablog.com/2008/05/15/back-to-basics-trulia-was-built-to-help-improve-your-roi/
Regards,
Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia
May 15, 2008 — 5:23 pm
Mike Thoman says:
I don’t think you’ll get much traction, Rudy; I can’t hear your voice over the mob howling.
Greg, I think you got the essence of the issue incorrect in the post. It’s not that Trulia is using your (clients’) listings to outrank you in the search engines, it’s that the Trulia widget is providing juice to Trulia without reciprocating the favor. The listings wouldn’t be performing as well if it weren’t for all the juice. Of course, it takes both.
I find it strange that Trulia is getting all this flak, but not Realtor.com or Yahoo.com…which, btw, I often see outranking Trulia in ‘hometown real estate’ type searches.
If I was a Realtor that didn’t know much about SEO, and didn’t have the budget to compensate for that lack of knowledge, I think I would WANT the Realtor.com’s and Trulia.com’s to rank best for the terms. At least that way, a REAL competitor wouldn’t rank in that spot, and with the Trulia’s rankings, those roads would still lead back to me.
The true injustice, if there is one, is the Realtor.com lack of linking/dofollow.
May 15, 2008 — 7:02 pm
Ryan Ward says:
I find it strange that Trulia is getting all this flak, but not Realtor.com or Yahoo.com…which, btw, I often see outranking Trulia in ‘hometown real estate’ type searches.
They have all of the data. This is a source that can be trusted by consumers to be more accurate.
May 15, 2008 — 7:08 pm
Cheryl Johnson says:
>>>(Note: These instructions presume WordPress and an FTP connection. If you know how to deploy this code in another blogging platform, or if you know how to edit theme files from within WordPress, speak up in the comments.)<<<<
Greg, I deployed it on NELALive, a TypePad site. TypePad won’t run the php, but the widget runs OK in an iframe although it doesn’t inherit the stylesheet font.
Here’s the code for anyone who wants to run “The Trulia Awareness” in an iframe. Note you can change the width and height attritubes.
<p align=”center”><iframe src=”https://bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/TruliaTracking.php” width=”160″ height=”300″ scrolling=”no” frameborder =”0″></iframe></p>
P.S. I can display this code thanks to Greg’s little tool here: https://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/?p=2433
If anyone has a better, simpler solution than iframes for non-php hosts, please speak up! Thanks!
May 15, 2008 — 7:18 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Greg, I deployed it on NELALive, a TypePad site.
Good on ya. Excellent solution.
May 15, 2008 — 7:28 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Greg, I think you got the essence of the issue incorrect in the post.
No, you’re conflating two issues. See Galen Ward’s post at the top of the widget.
May 15, 2008 — 7:36 pm
Mike Thoman says:
“They have all of the data. This is a source that can be trusted by consumers to be more accurate.”
So then the issue is NOT Trulia’s SEO or linkbaiting or linking practices; it’s that they can’t be trusted because they’re inaccurate.
What is it about Trulia that makes the data it is fed less accurate than if it’s on Yahoo Real Estate? Or do you mean less complete? FWIW, a listing I checked on Yahoo and Trulia had virtually the same information. Only Realtor.com has substantially more info (although it took me much longer to find the listing there than on Trulia).
So why is Yahoo off the hook again?
Would Realtors be willing to pay Trulia, as they do Realtor.com now, as long as Trulia had all the same info (if Trulia outranked Realtor.com, for instance)?
May 15, 2008 — 7:58 pm
Ryan Ward says:
Sorry I gave a short answer. I thought the other apsects have been pretty well hashed out at this point.
Yahoo gets a full data feed from Prudential. If a consumer goes there, they will get all of the listings in broker reciprocity, not just those volunteered to Trulia.
Since Trulia does not have all of the data, there heat maps are not accurate, their pricing widgets are innaccurate, etc…and they are portraying themselves to consumers as authoritative data. They are not.
All the while making themselves more relevant through search engine placement. This makes agents, brokers and large companies feel beholden to an aggregator that in no way gives the consumer the best possible source for information and learning-as-they-go as consumers want to do in todays world of disseminated information. As a professional in the industry, I think the consumer deserves better than what they get on Trulia.
This and there SEO practices are enough for me to have a sour taste in my mouth for them.
I am not speaking for anyone else.
May 15, 2008 — 8:07 pm
Mike Thoman says:
My apologies, Ryan. You said, ‘data’ and ‘accurate’ and I interpreted that to mean the actual listing data.
Does that mean that if Trulia had full MLS feeds, it would be ok?
Why do you have listings on REW, where I do not see a link back to your site?
I still don’t see why Realtor.com and Yahoo would get off the hook, but Trulia gets the hammer. Galen’s original post had nothing to do with the difference in listings between Trulia/Realtor.com/etc.
May 18, 2008 — 8:15 pm
Ryan Ward says:
Mike,
I’m not sure exactly what you are getting at, but, comparing the company that designed my website that has a forum where agents can go and learn (also offers links back to me – read “value for me”) that also offers a free blog that helps me rank better (read – “more value for me”) with a company that does nothing but aggregate data that is already online elsewhere is not an apples to apples comparison.
Trulia simply needs to rank higher than local agents with no unique insight or data to qualify as a place that I must add more marketing expense which of course gets passed on to consumers. I have been writing about this for well over a year on various blogs.
They ultimately cost the consumer more if they succeed with no real added value.
Why on earth would we link to and support a company that seeks to do nothing but take my data and eventually force me to buy ads back from them?
May 19, 2008 — 5:16 am
Rudy from Trulia says:
Hi Ryan,
“Why on earth would we link to and support a company that seeks to do nothing but take my data and eventually force me to buy ads back from them?”
Hey Ryan –
Although I respect you and your opinions, this characterization is clearly inaccurate if not blatantly misleading. Trulia forces no one to do anything, especially buy ads as you suggest. In fact, you are free to use us or not. Many consumers on Trulia plan to buy/sell a home in the next year. It’s up to you if you want to engage those consumers or not.
P.S. Thank you Mike, you make some very valid points. I appreciate your clear perspective on this.
Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia
May 19, 2008 — 12:05 pm
Ryan Ward says:
Yet…my contention is that a website that aggregates someone else’s information and seeks to outrank the original content provider has nothing to offer the original content provider. In the end, the only thing that the original content provider can do to regain the placement is to pay for it. As Trulia is a provider that seeks to place featured (paid) content first already, I’m not so sure that my statement was really outside of a correct characterization.
How else could I get my content back to the top if you outrank me and I don’t feature it on your site? That would cost money. Seems like a reasonable characterization.
Two things happen when an aggregator takes control:
They get paid and listings cost more for sellers if they want better marketing. I’m not real sure how that helps sellers or the real estate industry.
We all need to make sure that as professioanals within the industry, we don’t let sites like Trulia win this battle…
May 19, 2008 — 12:21 pm
Rudy from Trulia says:
Hi Ryan!
No. Your characterization is wrong. We don’t force anyone to do anything. We provide traffic to our partners. Should you decide that you want to feature your listings, you can. It’s your choice.
As the fastest growing real estate website in the US, you can add your clients listings on Trulia for free. It’s great exposure for you, your business and your clients. Seems like good ROI to me.
Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia
P.S. I’m at the Bloodhound Unchained conference since yesterday and I’m having a great time. Greg and Brian have been gracious hosts. Ok, back to the conference 🙂
May 19, 2008 — 1:19 pm
Ryan Ward says:
It’s not about force – directly and that makes it more difficult for agents and brokers to really see. It’s comments like those above…we don’t “force” anyone to do anything.
That answer does not address my point at all. My point is valid and it is transparent.
May 19, 2008 — 1:43 pm
Rudy from Trulia says:
Ryan,
Re: “force” – these are your words:
“Why on earth would we link to and support a company that seeks to do nothing but take my data and eventually force me to buy ads back from them?”
Look, I know where you stand and you know where we do. As always, I appreciate the dialog. If you’re available, I’d love to speak with you on the phone. Are you open to this Ryan?
Thank You.
Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia
May 19, 2008 — 3:15 pm
Ryan Ward says:
This “force” definitely refers to the need to have the best marketing and if Trulia offers that, then I don’t think “force” is innapropriate. I would in fact be forced to pay for a featured spot if I was to maintain the highest level of marketing at the local level or risk losing business to someone else who is willing to pay up. I don’t think this is good for the consumer. That’s my beef – at least the biggest one 🙂
As I have said numerous times in numerous posts that I have written going back a year and a half. I admire the technology that you guys implemennt on your site. In fact, it’s the technology that threatens to make it more difficult to keep up with (that and the fact that the average agent doesn’t realize that they are inadvertently hurting themselves (read – hurting all agents)) when they link to Trulia. Agents typically don’t have the technology or the resources required for the gadgets that you guys can produce but we do have the reference source of information.
We are the ones who work our tails off to get the listings. We are the ones who put the blood, sweat, tears, money and time into getting the listings. The threat is that we will eventually need to put more money in to pay for even more exposure to a company that I don’t feel brings anything back to the table for me and my clients.
Repeatedly, I have said that third party sites are fine, but, when I look out on the horizon and see a website that absolutely cannot offer consumers ALL of the relevant information passing websites that do provide that information, I see the writing on the wall and that writing says “Agents will pay more to market listings”. It just so happens that I don’t think that it is necessary.
I also don’t think that websites that do not offer the consumer the most relevant search information should hold the spots in Google that are supposed to return those results.
I like you and I admire that time and time again you jump right into the fire in hostile environments. It definitely says a lot about your character. You can call me anytime – but, I’m going out to show houses this evening. From a lead from my website 🙂
May 19, 2008 — 3:37 pm
Ryan Ward says:
Oops…404.630.3187
May 19, 2008 — 3:38 pm
Rudy from Trulia says:
Thank you Ryan. I’ll call you tomorrow.
Best,
Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia
May 20, 2008 — 12:08 am
Brad Carroll - Dakno says:
Hi Greg,
I noticed a couple of people having trouble including the Trulia Awareness Widget. To make things easier, I have written a small JavaScript file that will allow people to include the widget without the need to have php, install any plugins, or modify any server settings such as url_fopen (which could be seen as a security issue).
In addition, this code can be placed on almost any blog even if it doesn’t run PHP (such as ActiveRain).
There is no hidden agenda here. I am not adding any links or anything to your code. In fact, I will be happy to supply you with the original file so you can host it on the BHB server. (Although I wouldn’t turn down a “thank you” link)
To add the Trulia Widget, simply add this one line of code to any website…
May 20, 2008 — 8:39 am