Google Base's Next Move With Real Estate

If I were a realtor, that just scored a listing, the next thing that I would add to my marketing plan would be to get that listing into Google Base.  Google has snuck in their Base real estate listings at the top of their search results whenever you include the words "real estate" with major metropolitan geographical searches.

Try it out. Here's San Diego; here's Seattle, here's Sacramento, here's Boston...

If you have been taking the time to add your listings to Craigslist.  Stop.  Sign up for Postlets.com.  They will post your listings in Craigslist, GoogleBase and 8 others, for free!.  Now you can tell the seller (with a straight face) "I'll have your home at the top of Google."

Comments

[Teresa Boardman]

I just "googled" my listings and they all come up to the top of the search. I have been doing this for months. I guess I am at the top of the heap!

[Jackie]

When I click on your link for San Diego I see the Google Base but the same link for Sacramento pulls up the regular results page

[Jackie]

Any idea why some get the Google Base and others don't?

[Jim Cronin]

I too experienced this intermittently. It seems as though it is not an 'every search' result... perhaps they are checking it's effect on appearing vs not appearing... who knows.

[Jason]

Yeah, they're probably doing some kind of testing with it. Visibility is probably tied to your Google cookie, too. I didn't get it for any of the searches you posted. If I deleted my cookies and refreshed I saw the box. It doesn't seem to be perfectly consistent, so it may have been a coincidence.

By the was, I like Postlets.

[Jim Cronin]

After playing with Postlets a bit, I realized that there is no way to add a hyperlink back to your personal website. This is something that I thought would be an excellent way to continue to drive traffic back to your site:
read: http://realestatetomato.typepad.com/the_real_estate_tomato/2006/06/whats_wrong_wit.html
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So I emailed Postlets to see if this was an option they were considering. Here is there reply:

Hi Jim,

First of all, thanks for the feedback on the service and for the plug in your recent Google Base blog entry. We do notice bumps in user reg whenever we get some pub, so we do truly appreciate the support.

Re: URLs. We haven't allowed users to add hyperlinks in the description field for security/misuse reasons. We are, however, relaxing this by adding in an extra "website link" field so users can provide additional property info. You can expect to see this feature in the coming weeks.

Again, thanks for your support and for evalangelizing postlets!

Asher

[Jason]

Thanks for sharing that. I normally edit the generated HTML before posting to Craiglist, etc. This will hopefully make things slightly easier.

[Jason Benesch]

Hey Jim,

Just a quick comment.

You wrote in your article, "If you have been taking your time to add your listings to craigslist, stop and sign up for postlets."

I wanted to clarify that postlets will "automatically submit your listing to Oodle, Google Base, Propsmart, edgeio, Vast, HotPads."

They will then "generate the HTML code that can be used to post your ad on classifieds sites such as craigslist, backpage.com and LiveDeal as well as on your blog or email newsletters"

So I still strongly recommend entering the listing in craigslist. I have seen by far the greatest results from craigslist and probably because there is no automatic listing service. I think the general consumer likes to see fresh new listings on a daily basis.

I believe in two years google base MAY take over. Again my only problem with google base is that they will automatically receive feeds from such places like postlets. This tends to lead towards a lot of commercialized junk to be quite honest. A big catch of craigslist is how efficient they are at catching duplicate ads, wrong area postings, bad and or illegal content. I think google will have a hard time overcoming that.

[Jim Cronin]

Jason,

I knew I kept you around for something... thanks for digging through to the truth.

[Asher]

Just wanted to give an update on external links in postlets. We've added two fields to add links to a virtual tour and website. We appreciate user feedback, so feel free to send your thoughts and how we can improve the service. Thanks!

[John T.]

A little late to this discussion I know, but its worth mentioning you don't have to use postlets. Make a template and submit your listings directly to google base via the bulk upload option. Its free and there is more flexibility. Google base has an advantage over the multiple listing in that they are not limmited by what they can display. All of the listings can be in there together which is more attractive to prospects.
The following article in my blog relates to this:http://4mnhomebuyers.blogspot.com/2008/01/searching-for-homes-on-internet.html