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Seattle Condo Blog Wars Heat Up

By Matt Goyer April 24, 2008

Ben’s got plenty of fighting words in his post, If You Can Beat’em, Play Dirty:

The condo blog has risen to become one of the top condo websites in Seattle – it’s #1 in Google’s organic search results for a myriad of condo related keywords and receives the most visitor traffic (per Compete, Alexa and Quantcast metrics) among Seattle-based condo blogs and websites. And, the exclusive partnership with King5.com is a testament to the blog’s reputation. Admittedly, it’s a nice position to be in.

Apparently “someone” was buying Google Adwords on his name. Too funny but not surprising given the downturn in the real estate market. Consumer leads are now more and more precious and I’m sure everyone is willing to do whatever it takes to win. Granted, buying Adwords on your competitors names isn’t an uncommon practice in search engine marketing.

…Maybe we should all just share Google Analytic passwords for a day to see who is really winning at Seattle condo blogging. Though thankfully blogging isn’t a zero sum game.

Meanwhile Scott Thompson of Weber Thompson joins the blogging fray with a blog about their new offices. Hopefully they blog about their condo projects one day.

I own and manage Urban Living, a boutique Seattle and Bellevue real estate brokerage. I love lofts, floating homes, new construction, and mid-century moderns, but I will help you buy or sell just about anything!

Get in touch to:

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Contact:
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18 responses to “Seattle Condo Blog Wars Heat Up”

jo says:

April 25, 2008 at 6:44 am

Drama. Awesome.

I don’t see a problem with buying keywords in a competitors name; it’s done all the time. But labeling your blog in someone else’s name? That’s so out there I wonder if Google just defaults the ad title to the searched KW if the advertiser doesn’t specify a headline. I highly doubt that Wen…errr…the competiting blogger meant the ad to show with Ben’s name as the link.
jo says:

April 24, 2008 at 10:44 pm

Drama. Awesome.

I don’t see a problem with buying keywords in a competitors name; it’s done all the time. But labeling your blog in someone else’s name? That’s so out there I wonder if Google just defaults the ad title to the searched KW if the advertiser doesn’t specify a headline. I highly doubt that Wen…errr…the competiting blogger meant the ad to show with Ben’s name as the link.
The Tim says:

April 25, 2008 at 5:03 pm

Heh. It seems there’s a lot of charged emotions running around on the local RE blogs of all flavors lately.

I find it quite amusing that people use Compete, Alexa and Quantcast as some sort of authoritative measure of popularity. All three have been miserably off base for most websites I’ve ever tried to compare.
The Tim says:

April 25, 2008 at 9:03 am

Heh. It seems there’s a lot of charged emotions running around on the local RE blogs of all flavors lately.

I find it quite amusing that people use Compete, Alexa and Quantcast as some sort of authoritative measure of popularity. All three have been miserably off base for most websites I’ve ever tried to compare.
mattgoyer says:

April 25, 2008 at 5:18 pm

I just looked up Redfin and all three are horribly inaccurate compared to our actual traffic numbers in Google Analytics.

I certainly wouldn’t trust them for sites which receive much less traffic.
Matt says:

April 25, 2008 at 9:18 am

I just looked up Redfin and all three are horribly inaccurate compared to our actual traffic numbers in Google Analytics.

I certainly wouldn’t trust them for sites which receive much less traffic.
Ben K says:

April 25, 2008 at 6:25 pm

Yeah, they’re not the best, but it’s really all that’s available to compare sites. Though, I wasn’t comparing actual traffic numbers, but rather looking at where blogs stand relative to each other. The real metric sites probably don’t even know our tiny blogs exist.

It’s all pretty amusing actually.
Ben K says:

April 25, 2008 at 10:25 am

Yeah, they’re not the best, but it’s really all that’s available to compare sites. Though, I wasn’t comparing actual traffic numbers, but rather looking at where blogs stand relative to each other. The real metric sites probably don’t even know our tiny blogs exist.

It’s all pretty amusing actually.
Greg says:

April 26, 2008 at 12:20 am

This is silly season. From the screen shot, it looks like the Adwords campaign put the search term in the ad creative dynamically. Buying competitor keywords and using dynamic keyword insertion is PPC 101.
Greg says:

April 25, 2008 at 4:20 pm

This is silly season. From the screen shot, it looks like the Adwords campaign put the search term in the ad creative dynamically. Buying competitor keywords and using dynamic keyword insertion is PPC 101.
Dalai Lama says:

April 26, 2008 at 3:56 am

Wow. I just read Ben’s post. Not sure which is worse, using a blog post to libel someone or buying keywords on your competition. I didn’t follow all the conspiracy theories but seemed a bit harsh to me.
Dalai Lama says:

April 25, 2008 at 7:56 pm

Wow. I just read Ben’s post. Not sure which is worse, using a blog post to libel someone or buying keywords on your competition. I didn’t follow all the conspiracy theories but seemed a bit harsh to me.
Wendy Leung says:

April 26, 2008 at 4:27 pm

This is Wendy here. First of all, I want to say Ben has a great blog. Secondly, as soon as he contacted my branch office earlier this week, I immediately talked to my webmaster, had the problem fixed, and apologized to Ben the same day. As many of you know, my specialty is helping people buy/sell condos and writing condo reviews ;-) I’m not an expert in html or Google ads so I rely on my webmaster (who’s also my husband) to deal with all the computer programming.

Anyhow, he looked into it right away and found that Ben’s name was indeed a keyword (one of over a thousand) in my Google ads campaign. Almost all of my campaign keywords are generated through a computer program which periodically crawls the web for keywords related to Seattle condos. I asked that Ben’s name be removed immediately and it was pulled within minutes. As for the ad itself, I learned many of my ads use a feature which pulls the exact search words entered into Google and displays them as the headline of the ad.

In summary, the ad was definitely not intentional; as soon as I heard, I confirmed the problem and had it fixed; and I personally explained and apologized to Ben the same day. I would never intentionally do this to anybody and again, apologize to Ben for the misunderstanding.
Wendy Leung says:

April 26, 2008 at 8:27 am

This is Wendy here. First of all, I want to say Ben has a great blog. Secondly, as soon as he contacted my branch office earlier this week, I immediately talked to my webmaster, had the problem fixed, and apologized to Ben the same day. As many of you know, my specialty is helping people buy/sell condos and writing condo reviews ;-) I’m not an expert in html or Google ads so I rely on my webmaster (who’s also my husband) to deal with all the computer programming.

Anyhow, he looked into it right away and found that Ben’s name was indeed a keyword (one of over a thousand) in my Google ads campaign. Almost all of my campaign keywords are generated through a computer program which periodically crawls the web for keywords related to Seattle condos. I asked that Ben’s name be removed immediately and it was pulled within minutes. As for the ad itself, I learned many of my ads use a feature which pulls the exact search words entered into Google and displays them as the headline of the ad.

In summary, the ad was definitely not intentional; as soon as I heard, I confirmed the problem and had it fixed; and I personally explained and apologized to Ben the same day. I would never intentionally do this to anybody and again, apologize to Ben for the misunderstanding.
PistolPete says:

April 29, 2008 at 5:13 pm

Hey Ben,

Wendy says she’s sorry :P hahahaha
PistolPete says:

April 29, 2008 at 9:13 am

Hey Ben,

Wendy says she’s sorry :P hahahaha
newbuyer says:

April 30, 2008 at 2:00 am

Wendy, I completely believe you and people should chill. Stop being so competitive. . .
newbuyer says:

April 29, 2008 at 6:00 pm

Wendy, I completely believe you and people should chill. Stop being so competitive. . .

Seattle Condo Blog Wars Heat Up

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