There are probably hundreds of websites out there claiming to be one of the top nationwide directories of real estate agents.

I just got an e-mail spam from one of these directories: www.proreagent.com

So, I did a lookup to see how many agents they listed for my town, Menifee, California. Only one agent, for "James Morrell".

I know there's at least fifty that make Menifee their headquarters.

This is why people don't use online directories. They're incomplete, and often times outdated. Even Yahoo downplays its website directory. That's proof that people don't put faith into them anymore.

But what about SEO value? Aren't website directories good for a backlink? Not really. The only directories that will help you are those with editorial oversight. For example, a directory of my favorite real estate blogs has value, because each link is a reflection of my personal opinion. But an agent directory, where any agent can be listed (if they pay money, or reciprocate a link), has no editorial oversight, and therefore transfer zero PR value.

Google remains a "popularity based" search engine. It looks for outbound links that were establised with some level of opinion. The links on an agent directory, however, do not reflect personal opinion.

Let's go back to "James Morrell", the lone real estate agent that appeared in the directory I mentioned above. I did a Google search for...

"James Morrell" menifee

I got 139 search results. I reviewed the first 30 results, and visited each page. Of those pages, only 8 of them pointed a link to James Morrell's website (www.jamorhomes.com).

Now, I ran a backlink search on Google for...

link:http://www.jamorhomes.com/

Nothing showed up!

So despite having at least 8 webpages linking to his website, he's not getting backlink value from any of them! These webpages were a mixture of agent directories and MLS listings, and Google didn't find any of them worth a toot.

So, don't bother participating with online agent directories. You're wasting money, and/or giving away your PR value.

Instead, work on getting links from blogs. Google loves blogs. Look for personal blogs, independent blogs, blogs where every outbound link was made from a blogger's opinion.

Labels: Agent-Listings, Backlinks, PageRank