{"id":15018,"date":"2011-09-01T12:16:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-01T19:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=15018"},"modified":"2011-09-02T05:03:47","modified_gmt":"2011-09-02T12:03:47","slug":"google-thinks-your-idx-site-sucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15018\/google-thinks-your-idx-site-sucks\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Thinks Your IDX Site Sucks"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are plenty of places to go<\/a> if this is your first time hearing about \u201cPanda\u201d, but the general idea is that Google has set out to target what it considers to be \u201clow quality\u201d content of the sort generally propagated by link farms, scrapers, and the eHows of the Web.<\/p>\n

Any time Google makes a major change to their algorithm there are winners and losers, and you can count on the losers to raise a fuss about Google goring their ox<\/a>. This time, Google has come back and said<\/a>, in effect, \u201cIf you don\u2019t publish crap you have nothing to worry about\u201d.<\/p>\n

The problem for those of us who currently rely on IDX to power listing search on broker and agent Web sites is that IDX content is, by Google\u2019s definition, crap — and the crap has come home to roost: Some of our sites are down 30% since Panda hit.<\/p>\n

This, finally, should force some brokers to address the issue of content quality and strategy, because the alternative is to pay through the nose for inquiries that Google would send, for free, if brokers understood what Google wants.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the questions Google suggests site owners ask themselves about their content. I\u2019ve picked a few that speak directly to real estate listings and IDX (the whole list is here<\/a>). Every place that Google had the words \u201carticle\u201d, \u201ccontent\u201d, or \u201cpage\u201d I\u2019ve inserted the real estate specific terminology {in brackets}:<\/p>\n