I like Mark Madsen. He thinks like I do. He wants to help people and he trusts that in the end that helping people will help build his reputation online and off. Anyone who was at BHBU knows this.
He is a nice guy. I’d like to think I am a nice guy too. But even us nice guys have their tolerance levels for BS. And they ESPECIALLY have them for when people screw with their friends. (In my case friends = REALTORS). But what do I know…I am just a technologist.
Check out this weekly email update being unwittingly sent by many Louisville area REALTORS to their desperate to sell a home clients.
What’s wrong with this picture, you ask?
Well for starters, my mom has a word for houses that have been viewed on REALTOR.com (or any other place 4,272 times in the last 2.5 months)….SOLD. This house has not had near enough showings to come close to what that level of exposure should generate.
So while I am not technically calling BS on you REALTOR.com, the biggest part of me wants to. I am asking you for an explanation of how these supposed pageviews are calculated. You CLEARLY state at the bottom of your graphic that “views is views”. Is that similar to what the meaning of the word is is??? Hmmm???
This smells ESPECIALLY funky in light of the following:
REALTOR.com does not RANK anywhere on the first page of Google for Louisville Real Estate and for most of the higher traffic terms.
I have never seen a REALTOR.com TV ad run in our area.
I have heard a couple of the Ty Pennington radio spots on lower traffic radio stations run a few months ago. Would that gin up this kind of views on a $100k house??
From whence cometh the traffic?
HERE’S WHAT I THINK YOU ARE DOING:
I think when someone does a search for houses in the 100k to 150k range, you pull them ALL up. That may be well over 1,000 homes. (100 pages of listings) I think you are giving a “pageview” to ALL of those listings…even the ones on page 97 that NEVER got seen.
If so, I think you are doing it to pad your numbers and BS my friends the REALTORS by duping their clients about the exposure they get from REALTOR.com. I find that disgusting.
If not, then can you please explain to us hounds how this number is calculated. I have 110 agents to help understand what you are doing to and I’ll be dipped if I can find a reasonable explanation…(grin)
Their sellers who are getting all of these “views” are asking them why they are not getting showings…they have good pictures…what gives?
Missy Caulk says:
Good question Eric, same thing with Trulia. I get a weekly report from them too. I can now have it automatically sent to my sellers.
Nice feature, but one client called me this week and wanted to know why are so many looking, clicking and now calling to see?
May 16, 2009 — 1:18 pm
Mike Stefonick says:
Eric,
You my friend are one smart guy:-)
You figured it out!
BS+ Pie R Squared=Round and Round more BS.
Mike
May 16, 2009 — 1:29 pm
Eric Blackwell says:
Wow, Missy.
I did not realize that Trulia did that. We have a brokerage of 110 agents where virtually noone syndicates to Trulia and we get plenty of REAL page views. So I never go there and I have never had someone send those reports to me…
I would love for anyone from Trulia or R.com to explain how this is calculated in both of their cases.
Does Zillow do it? We don’t syndicate to them either…
FTR- If I was a seller, I’d want the REAL pageviews and not just a bunch of sunshine blown up my rear… 😉
May 16, 2009 — 1:33 pm
James Kimmons says:
Eric,
I think that you’re right about the count incrementing if a listing is part of a search result, even if they visitor never drills down far enough to see it.
If not, you would think that it would be easy to find an explanation of how these numbers are computed. However, I can’t find anything in their site stuff or FAQ to tell us.
Jim
May 16, 2009 — 1:56 pm
Joe Hayden says:
I always thought it was as you suspect – if the home shows up anywhere in the search results it is counted as a view. This very well could just be a bit of poor programming and a lack of oversight, but it certainly doesn’t reflect reality.
I think displaying the real pageviews does potentially conflict with a Realtor.com business practice – If you suddenly realized that you paid for the upgrades to feature yourself and listings and found you had essentially no page views, why would you consider renewing your promo package?
May 16, 2009 — 2:12 pm
Elaine Reese says:
I’ve never found any correlation between R.com views and showings. I’ve had homes get up to 10K views per their little graphs yet have minimal showings. It hurts my sellers’ feelings since they take it to mean that a buyer has viewed their home and rejected it. When the listing and photos are very, very nice it’s particularly painful for them.
If R.com is recording the views as you note, that is despicable. You are not the first person to suggest this possibility, so I too, would like to know if that is what they’re doing.
May 16, 2009 — 2:25 pm
Malok says:
It will be interesting to see if any clarifications are forthcoming as to exactly WHAT XXX Property Views means, and HOW the numbers are specifically calculated not only by the big R but by others as well.
May 16, 2009 — 2:29 pm
Chris Bolstad says:
For what it’s worth, Trulia reports three different numbers. They automatically send a weekly report to agents with the following:
Results page views (how many times the prop was in the search results) this is the one Eric suspects may be reported by NAR in their own stats.
Detail page view (this is the specific listing details page on Trulia) this is the one that should be reported
Clicks to source (this is how many people followed the link from Trulia to your own website) this is the one that really matters
They provide these numbers for each active listing, for the last 7 days, and cumulatively for the entire time the listing has been on Trulia. They also show the cumulative numbers for ALL of your listings for the last 7 days.
I received an email a while back mentioning they could now automatically send a weekly report to my clients which would be branded with my pic etc, but I have not looked into it at all as it doesn’t really interest me.
May 16, 2009 — 4:30 pm
Joshua Hanoud says:
Eric – I’ve actually had this conversation with R.com staff (back when I paid for Showcase Listing Enhancements). From what I understood the rep to say, a property has been viewed on R.com not just when the full listing display is shown/clicked on…but whenever it shows up on the search results page. That was my understanding of it, anyway.
May 16, 2009 — 5:36 pm
Eric Blackwell says:
@Mike- Hey there…good to have you reading (and commenting!) around these parts. 😉
@Jim- Yep. They need to be clear with us (and our clients) what the meaning of the word is-is…It looks to me like they are being purposefully deceitful about it. I am just giving them a chance to show us otherwise.
@Joe Hayden- Quote “I think displaying the real pageviews does potentially conflict with a Realtor.com business practice” – If the TRUTH conflicts with their business practice the TRUTH should win and they need to have the transparency to admit it. As you know, in Louisville, they really are not a player in the real estate game. FWIW, I don’t consider a “programming glitch” a possibility. Calculations for programmers are calculations, not accidents.
@JoshHanoud – Hey Josh thanks for that info..confirms my thoughts…if so then they need to ditch the line at the bottom that says Property View: the Number of Times a listing is viewed on R.com…am I the only one that views that as a lie?
May 16, 2009 — 5:49 pm
Joshua Hanoud says:
@Eric – I think that depends on how literally you translate it. Technically, whenever a property shows up in the search results – “the property has been viewed” (picture, possibly short description & headline)…not necessarily “in full” but “viewed” nonetheless…
Just because the average Realtor defines the term differently, doesn’t mean R.com is being dishonest…just that the agent is ignorant of the definition.
I find that I am in that position every single time I speak with my attorney about contract terms/issues. I ask him to help me understand something, he reads it back to me and kinda looks at me funny (like…why the heck are you inferring anything other than what is written here, Josh?) and I look back, smack myself in the back of my head as the lightbulb goes off and go “oh yeah…so…it means exactly what it says (no more, no less)…got it.”
“Number of times a listing is viewed on R.com”… I suppose the next step is to define “listing”. Is the photo & short blurb/headline considered a “listing”? Or is it only a listing if all of the ancillary data is pulled up on the screen?
May 16, 2009 — 5:57 pm
Eric Blackwell says:
See, that’s the thing.
If they are actually playing that word game, I think that says a lot about them. And attorneys for that matter. For me, there is truth and there is not.
To me, if they are taking liberties with the word “pageview” they are doing it to convey to the seller that they need to have their home listed with an enhanced listing on R.com so that they can aid in the fleecing of the REALTOR. They are overstating their true value plain and simple.
In our town, they get VERY little real traffic and it is clear to me what they are up to.
Ask your rep EXACTLY how many home searches they get in a given month for your city. To date, noone from R.com has given me those figures for Louisville…I have asked. IMO there is a reason for that.
May 16, 2009 — 6:22 pm
Joe Hayden says:
I’ll will state for the record that the truth caused me to forget that there was a website named Realtor.com. No benefit to me.
I don’t think they will change their practice, though, as it is obviously used to inflate the site’s value resulting in a certain number of premium member sales. I guess there remains the possibility that in certain markets that website actually performs a service to the local real estate community, but Louisville is definitely not one of those markets.
May 16, 2009 — 6:48 pm
Cindy DiCianni says:
Eric,
I have asked the same question to Realtor.com several times trying get a real answer. I’ve purchased the showcase of enhnacements and found no difference in graph information. Plus our office paying each month for leads that come thru. We have found that the graph info provides info when I homes are included the search page results. Not individually clicked on and viewed. we feel that is not a true picture of the number of times the property is viewed. We have had this conversation with realtor.com many times. but unfortnately, we haven’t see any results from the realtor.com enhancements. My 2 cents worth.
May 16, 2009 — 8:25 pm
Paula Henry says:
Eric – I do not contribute to R.com. I did put my listings on Trulia; my last count from them indicates in the last two months I have had over 27,000 views. It was not broken down as indicated above; just overall views. I have no idea what the numbers represent, but know I do not have one verified client from any of those views.
May 16, 2009 — 8:42 pm
John Rowles says:
It is really hard to make an advertising model work on the Web because the technology is just so darn *accountable*.
Advertising-supported print and broadcast models used to work b/c the advertisers went along with the idea that circulation numbers and Nielsen audience metrics meant something about how often their ads were being seen, and they agreed to pay the going rate publishers attached to those fuzzy numbers, b/c in a market driven by scarcity neither the consumer or the advertiser had much choice.
But the Web is different. Consumers aren’t locked into one of three channels or a local paper. The Web is boundless in its abundance while at the same time we can measure the effectiveness of advertising by measuring impressions and click through.
Publishers can’t cook click-through numbers (as they are measured by the advertiser on the receiving end), so all the publisher has to work with is the impression number.
Given the option to use search result inclusion instead of real, unique page views, it is hardly surprising that Web publishers, frustrated by the accountability of the medium, would opt to use the larger number, even though it is obviously a farce.
Think of it like the “elections” they have in North Korea where the “Dear Leader” wins with 100% of the vote. Everyone knows the vote is rigged and the number is meaningless, so if you are going to bother giving people a fake number, it might as well be an impressive one.
May 17, 2009 — 8:13 am
Susan says:
The R.com report seems to be an intentional misrepresentation of information making their site look like a fabulous marketing tool that we couldn’t possibly do without. It puts Realtors in a spot explaining why the home isn’t selling and/or getting more showings.
I know their reports have caused sellers in my area to feel that their Realtor must have all the R.com features…probably part of R.com’s plan. A featured home slot in my area can easily run $3K+.
May 17, 2009 — 1:49 pm
Joshua Hanoud says:
what it does is play into the typical listing agents scenario.
List it high to get the listing, then show figures like those in the R.com reports to show “we’re getting seen because of my fantastic marketing but not getting showings/offers because the home is priced too high”.
May 17, 2009 — 3:29 pm
Mark Madsen says:
Thanks for the nice guy comment, Eric. And I definitely agree that helping others succeed is a good way to do business. The problem that I have with Realtor.com is that they do battle my friends in the search engines for our area.
May 17, 2009 — 8:28 pm
Tina Fountain says:
If the reason r.com counts a search view as a view is to show a much larger number, it may actually be working against them. While a “view” is nice, a conversion is what I’m really after. So, if you calculate the number of conversions based upon an inflated number of views, it makes your conversion rate even worse.
If you have an open house do you count the number of people who came inside or the number of cars that drove by while you were there?
May 18, 2009 — 7:26 am
Keith Lutz says:
I even took it to the next level with my marketing and bought into their “Featured Home” BS. Views or not views, I do beleive they get more traffic than most! If that can sell just one more home, than it is worth putting my dollars there than into say… print advertisment. It would be nice to know the REAL numbers, that is for sure! Great post Eric!
May 18, 2009 — 8:22 am
Joshua Dorkin @ BiggerPockets says:
Many agents are just counting on listing websites to do their work for them. These folks have forgotten what marketing is about and count on having their homes listed in a few “major exposure” websites to do the work for them. Now that everyone is on the net, it isn’t special anymore to list online.
What can you be doing to get real exposure for your listings? How can you stand out from the crowd? Are you pricing your homes properly? Are you promoting your open houses and making sure that the home looks spectacular? Are you ensuring that your clients have a product that is sellable?
That’s how you sell a home, not by placing it in the MLS and waiting for the buyers to come. Three of the last four open houses I’ve gone to have had weeds and junk in the yard, the home has been a mess inside, and no one but an investor would buy these things. They’ve all been on the market forever!
When are agents going to learn that part of their job is making sure the place looks great? Sure, R.com may not give the exposure it claims, but is that really the reason a property isn’t selling? I say no.
May 18, 2009 — 8:22 am
Eric Blackwell says:
@JoshuaDorkin – I agree with you completely. That’s kind of the point of marketing homes rather than just listing them. We are singing from the same sheet of music on that.
But that’s a different issue than is R.com (and apparently Trulia as well) MISREPRESENTING their traffic numbers. (There, I said it.)
If I was listing your home and I told you that I was going to do X,Y,and Z and pay x,y and z to get THOUSANDS more people to view your property and then it came out that I was only getting a SMALL fraction of those folks to your house and thus I wasn’t really giving you any significant exposure, wouldn’t you be (rightfully) ticked?
See, I am equal opportunity about this misrepresentation (and over inflating what value you are REALLY providing) thing. Being less than honest with folks is not acceptable when a REALTOR is dealing with a client and it is EQUALLY wrong when a TPA (and REALTOR.com fits that description) misrepresents how much traffic they are providing.
And it is also equally wrong when Zillow misrepresents their value in bringing “traffic” to their site because much of the “traffic” is coming to see the latest “celebrity real estate news”.
I am now officially calling BS on all of it. If they cannot or will not explain how they are calculating these numbers in a straightforward way, then they are misrepresenting them, because I can tell you that these numbers certainly are not REAL pageviews of the property. And that is what the seller thinks that they are getting.
I understand WHY people fudge numbers…hopefully these same folks can understand now WHY we call them on it.
best;
Eric
May 18, 2009 — 9:13 am
Doug Quance says:
Years ago, when r.com allowed me to use custom html pages, we could see our true, actual views.
Those numbers were not nearly as impressive as the numbers that r.com served up.
May 18, 2009 — 10:59 am
Sean Purcell says:
Eric,
I have to admit, I don’t understand half of what you’re talking about. But the half I get makes me twice as good. What is that… a four to one ratio? You kick ass.
May 18, 2009 — 11:31 pm
Kevin Sandridge says:
Eric and Missy – was Trulia involved in a cloaking deal not too long ago? If not, I stand corrected. In any case – this stuff is getting to be ridiculous. Old Abe said it best: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
May 20, 2009 — 6:35 pm
rmasse10 says:
Hey Eric,
I think you hit it on the nose on that one. I have always thought that the numbers coming out of R.com were odd and now a clear explanation like the one that you presented makes perfect sense. I try not to rely on R.com as it is but our office like many others have purchased enhanced accounts. With the massive reduction of agents across the country, I believe R.com will start to make changes as their services will need to stand up to the fees they charge.
And yes you are a good guy! Keep up the great work!
May 26, 2009 — 7:36 pm
Geno Petro says:
Eric, i think you might be too smart to be in this business!
May 28, 2009 — 4:15 am