Temecula Real Estate

I am having such a hard time getting my www.temecula-real-estate.com site listed. I have had an editor tell me they thought it was a mirror of my Hemet site until I told them it was a site for a seperate office in Temecula, then he agreed it belonged. For some reason, he wrote today and he cannot get his fellow editors to look at it and help me get it in.

Two other agents in my office have their sites listed for Temecula, but I am being blackballed. Can someone help???

Here is a little about my sites and myself. I am a Realtor in California. As we all know, Realtors can sell anywhere in the state they are licensed. I live in between Hemet California and Temecula California. I am a Re/Max agent. I grew up here and am 36 years old. I have watched this area blossom into the beautiful place it is today. Hemet and Temecula are about 30-40 minutes apartwith French Valley and Winchester in between. I have a Real Estate Office in both Cities. (in fact I have a total of 4 offices, Murrieta and Lake Elsinore as well.) I do not have a Murrieta California site because my Temecula site takes care of the Murrieta area also. The Murrieta and Temecula areas share the same MLS System for property databases. The Hemet area has a completely different MLS area.You can find some agents post on both, so I include some data from Hemet to post on the Temecula site. This is why I have the two sites. My temecula-real-estate.com site serves the needs of Buyers and Sellers interested in the Temecula, Murrieta areas and my Hemet site serves the Hemet City area. I am not as gifted a graphic artist as some, so I use te same format, colors and background on both sites. I think this is initially why the first editor thought it was a mirror. Understandable. If you look at the content, they have different databases for MLS and links to School and City information unique to the Cities they serve. The customer or user for the two Cities are not interchangeable. Hemet is a nestled Valley 30 minutes from any freeway and Temecula is a freeway town. The price range for properties are drastically different as well. There are examples throuout the directory where companies do business in multiple areas of the state or even nation, that are having no trouble getting listed in the areas they do direct business in. I have an office in each city to meet my customers! I cannot figure out what the hold up on listing this site is.

It is so imperative to be a part of the OPD. The quality of user is the target users for my sites. Please take the time look at the Temecula Site and allow it for inclusion in this great directory. Thank you for your time.

Joseph Chesla
909-652-4548

Real estate agents get one listing. That's it. So only one of your sites can be listed in the ODP. You're not being blacklisted, just held to the same rules as all the other agents. Do you have a primary office?

I have looked at the guidlines. I have 4 offices. I had no idea I would be penalized for my quest to expand my business by opening offices to serve the cities that surround me. I am opening an office in French Valley in late 2004. You truly have to understand how this area works to understand why an office in each city is so important. This would be considered a major ring of growth and you cannot have one office serve all Cities.
Guidline quote...
" Agent and Agency Sites"

Local real estate agents and agency web sites should be listed once in the directory. Generally, a site will be placed in the locality in which the office is located. Editors should make exceptions where it makes sense. Nonetheless, editors should list an agent or agency site only once in a real estate category in the Regional branch."

The Regional Branch listing, is the way the guideline was written to accomadate a Realtor like mself that has multiple offices to serve the customer. I truly understand why it was written this way. I despise a search result that brings up an agent living in San Diego, trying to sell Real Estate in San Francisco! The guidline was designed to keep this abuse from happening. The guideline does, however, allow for inclusion in the regional result for an agent that has an office in that region result, me. I am not asking for a city listing that I do not have an office in. Trust me, not many Realtors have multiple offices in such a close area. The cost is outrageous! We have a great marketing plan that should sustain such an endevor. I am trying to promote to the user of the ODP my office in Temecula and it's property database. I am, in fact showing the Temecula area tomorrow and will be in my Hemet office Monday at 10 am for a showing. My offices share the same keys, wireless networks and codes. Walking in one is no different than waliking in the other. The infrastructure is the same, only the neighboorhoods are different. Please take the time to comprehend this business model. Thanks,

Food for thought...

I do however, want to show you just this one example (I have many more) of just one site that was allowed to submit to the multiple cities it serves on the ODP (and they are cities hours apart) I am just trying to serve my neighboring city just 30 minutes from office to office. Check out "Pacific Trust Bank". You will find there result under Temecula, El Cajon and other city searches. Talk to you soon! Have a great night.

Because the Real Estate Guidelines are fleshed out and they were necessary due to the volume of submissions. Alot of those hotels are not even submitting sites - they are getting FOUND by Regional editors to fill out there Locality. There is no way we are going to list multiple Real Estate sites - there are just not enough editors.

I was re writing the post when you submitted this. You are not being asked to list multiple Real estate sites. There are not many agents out there that have multiple sites. The average agent has one office in one region and submit their site in that region. We have 4 offices in this county and are working on our 5th in 2004. I cannot express how rare this is. Most Brokers cannot afford to operate this many offices. It is a state of the art approach and very, very expensive. We have been at it over 2 years and are doing well. The guidline is clear as to the office location being a major test for validity of the submission. I am asking to comprehend the business model and embrace it. I am not asking you to put me in a listing region I truly cannot serve. Thanks

The guidelines are very explicit and specific with regards to real estate agents, and the very case you mention (which is not unprecedented). If you have four, five, or fifteen thousand offices in a county, you should have ONE listing ... in the COUNTY category rather than one of the LOCALITIES categories.

And as for "penalizing you for having multiple offices..." that's absurd and irrational. Are you suggesting that you have less listings than an agent who has only one office? If not, it is also contrary to fact. Don't go there. What you CAN get penalized for is spamming.

This is the gui

I was told to come to this forum for answers and debate over the guidline. So far, I received nothing but hostility. You, my friend, so far are the worst. I should hope further debate is more constructive and less hostile so we can all learn. Business model change and adapt, so do directories. Here is a chunk of dialog from on editor regarding what I am experiencing...

...Not many of those points are correct, as a matter of fact. If they were, it would be abuse of power. However, senior editors (among whom I think I can count myself these days, even though I'm junior to a great many editors) are patently not always right. All edits are logged, and senior editors are as answerable as their more junior colleagues for abusive editing. And senior editors do make mistakes, and are called on them. The nice thing is that mistakes in editing are not irrevocable. Anybody who has the editing rights in a particular part of the directory can add a site that was mistakenly deleted, or delete one that was mistakenly added. And the editing criteria are official....
Back to my dilemna...

The County is thousands of miles in size???? When a user searches for real estate, they type in the city in which they are looking to buy, not a county. When I say penalizing, I should have made it clear that the user in the search is being penalized as well. They do not get the opportunity to see my site when looking for property in Temecula! My company offers the best representation and my site offers the easiest searchable database available to find their next home or chunk of land. Due to various interpretations of the guidlines, the consumer never gets the chance to hire me or learn what my company has to offer. Who are we to take that right away from them?? The ODP was designed to give the user a true and accurate result in the category they search. That is why I love this directory so much. I am truly and accurately a real estate agent Located in Temecula, Murrieta, Lake Elsinore, Hemet and coming soon, French Valley. All in a 30 mile radius. I have 2 web sites that serve 3 areas right now.

Please try to be less hostile and try to see the guideline does apply here. By the way, I notice you referred to yourself in the 3rd person after your reply. What does the "GUI" stand for? Are you the directory creator, president or owner? Please let me know. I am hoping to reach the "one" to debate and learn.

A fellow mentioned a couple replies back, there is no way they will list all real estate sites in the directory because there are not enough editors. That is a dangerous statement for an "open directory". I would hate to think this directory, in all it's glory, has taken a turn for the worse because some editors do not have the time to edit or do not want to take the time. I know you guys have spent countless hours examining sites and with no pat on the back. I am sure the only time you hear from a user is when they have a problem. Sorry. This directory should remain pure of quality results. If all 87,000 Re/Max agents want to list there site in the directory, the consumer should see them all here to choose from. If they don't see all the legitimite sites here, what kind of directory do we have? Think about it...

As hutcheson points out, you're misreading that guideline and you're missing the most important part of it -- "Nonetheless, editors should list an agent or agency site only once in a real estate category in the Regional branch." An agent or agency with multiple offices in a county gets listed at the county level, not in every locality they have an office in. Your site is now listed in the Riverside County real estate category and that, I'm afraid, is the only listing you can have.

I'll admit I don't understand what your issue is with Pacific Trust Bank -- they have only one listing in the ODP, at the state level, not a listing in each locality. How they're turning up in search results is not your concern.

RE: hutcheson's "gui" comment -- I think his post was cut off and he just didn't realize it (presumably that line was going to say something about the guidelines).

RE: the other editor's post that you quoted -- yes, mistakes happen. However, the real estate guidelines are very specific and very well understood. This isn't a situation that is being misunderstood by us, though I really do understand why you're upset.

RE: thehelper's "There is no way we are going to list multiple Real Estate sites - there are just not enough editors." comment -- what he meant, I think, is that editors are not likely to go out and actively search for new real estate agent/agency sites to list where they might do that for hotel sites or the like. He wasn't implying that we were going to be selective over what we listed because we don't have enough editors. We are very strict with how real estate sites are listed, though.

So far, I received nothing but hostility.

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That is patently untrue -- my posts to you, for example have been polite, though obviously not what you wanted to hear. I know you think that your situation deserves special consideration but what we're all trying to tell you here is that by our guidelines, it doesn't. You have a listing that is appropriate for your office locations and asking for more than that isn't going to get anywhere.

Nicely said as always motsa.

If my post seemed hostile to anyone please let me state that was not my intention. I think it was late when I wrote that.

I was told to come to this forum for answers and debate over the guidline.

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I think it's important to point out that this forum was not created as a place to *debate* the guidelines, only to explain them and answer what questions we can. The guidelines were put together by ODP staff and later expanded with input from the editors. Specifics like the real estate guidelines where put together after long serious debate within the editor community.

If we were turn this forum into a place where anyone could debate these guidelines, it would quickly turn into an unmanagable mess. I don't think there's a problem if you wish to state you don't agree with these guidelines, but arguing about it would be pointless.

>When a user searches for real estate, they type in the city in which they are looking to buy, not a county.

That may be true. It doesn't matter. We don't have a search engine (our site search is seldom used by anyone but editors and webmasters), and we have no control over what any search engine does.

>When I say penalizing, I should have made it clear that the user in the search is being penalized as well.
An absence of willingness to give you something beyond what is fair, and far beyond what you are guaranteed (which is a site review but not necessarily any listing at all), is not a penalty for anyone.

>They do not get the opportunity to see my site when looking for property in Temecula!

>Hundreds of sites get found on city-specific searches without ANY ODP listing. The searchers get the opportunity to see all of them. Don't take my word for this, just do a search for "Any-city Hotels" and check the domains on the first page for ODP entries.

>Since this is indisputably true, the failure of users to find any website is totally due to that website's design and promotion activity, and not at all in any way to the Open Directory.

There are many forums that will give you advice on how to address the inadequacies in your website design and promotion. searchengineforums.com and webmasterworld.com are two of the older ones, but there are many others. The proprietors of THIS forum prefer to focus on ODP-related issues (which this isn't.)

As to your impression of our feelings: It is our obligation as moderators to make sure that site submitters do not think they can browbeat editors into violating the guidelines on their behalf. What you are seeing is an assertion of editor's rights against the privileges you desire. We can't expect you to like rejection -- blaming it on the other person's feelings is a common psychological response -- but it is nonetheless our duty to reject: perfectly clearly, as forcefully as necessary, and as finally as is appropriate: so that you fully understand that additional attempts to pressure editors will be positively counterproductive.

There are not many agents out there that have multiple sites.

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Oh, friend, if only this were true. Real estate agents have earned a well-deserved reputation as some of the worst abusers we have to deal with. I just recently ferretted out more than 40 websites belonging to a single realtor who was attempting to create a separate websites for nearly every community within a several hours drive from his home office.

If you are a person of integrity, I commend you. I just regret to inform you that you seem to have few peers in that regard. As a result, regional editors such as myself have to spend significantly more time working on suggested real estate URLs than we do for most other type of sites.

My example of the bank was, I found them in the OPD under Temecula and El Cajon when typing the city in which they claim to have branches. Thats all. To put me in the county, just cut my throat. I am now delisted from Google for a "Hemet Real Estate" search. According to my "web trends" Google has been my best lead generator. Many search engines feed off the ODP. That is why I have a desire to have a listing in the Cities I have an office.

I have a family to feed and bills to pay, by putting me in the county, you cost me alot of business. Man, I worked hard to make these sites user friendly and respectable. I plead with you at this stage, to please return my status for the Hemet listing. I will have to settle for the one city for now until the guidline may change or accomadate someone in my position. I was told by an editor this was a place to debate the meaning of the guidline. I did not intend to upset someone to the point it affects the way I can support my family.

I hope you will reconsider.

Thank you for the kind assumption. I have been on the web for over 7 years and have fought on the search engine level, real estate agents trying to list their site in my city that live and work in cities hundreds of miles away. I agree, the worst abusers of the gift. I can understand the frustration. I truly believed my situation was different and the guidlines may not have taken my scenario into consideration when creating it. The mass has spoiled it for me. For this I have no remedy. Take care,

I am now delisted from Google for a "Hemet Real Estate" search.

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We are not Google and have no power to "de-list" anyone from Google's search engine. The only thing that will change whenever Google updates its directory is that under the snippet for your site in Google's search results, the directory link will be to Riverside county and not Hemet.

You may be under the mis-impression that an ODP listing is critical to your success at marketing your website. The good news is, it's not. How your website appears in the search results of other search engines is far more under your control than ours, via your website design and other marketing options available to you. The previously mentioned sites are excellent resources to help you out.

Best of Luck!

>>I was told by an editor this was a place to debate the meaning of the guidline.

That editor was mistaken as this is not the place to debate guidelines. You can ask (and have asked) for clarification of the guidelines but this isn't a forum for debating them.

>>I did not intend to upset someone to the point it affects the way I can support my family.

You didn't upset anyone and the site wasn't moved to the county category as a punishment. But by our guidelines, the county category is the right one for your site given the multiple offices. The county listing has the names of your four offices in it, just like the Pacific Bank does.

The only thing that will change whenever Google updates its directory is that under the snippet for your site in Google's search results, the directory link will be to Riverside county and not Hemet

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I know. That is the problem. The common user at Google or on the web, looks for real estate by typing in the city name, not the county. The customer says "lets move to Hemet" and type "Hemet" or "Hemet Real Estate" to find property. They never say, "I think we will move to riverside county". Real Estate is sold by city. There are hundres of cities in this county to choose from. I am not a county realtor, I am a city specific realtor. I cannot possibly serve the other cities in such a vast area.
I would like to have the Hemet listing back. This will at least help generate leads from Google like I was before entering here. One city is better than none. I will have to find other ways of promotion as well. Hutcheson gave me a few pointers (thanks!). I am sorry I stepped in this forum and will write the editor today that sent me here to thank him for leading me to slaughter. You are all a very intelligent and passionate crowd. Way out of my league. I am just not that bright when it comes to programming, code, etc. Good luck to you all...

You seem to be suffering from another misconception as to the structure of ODP real estate listings.

The listings are indexed by the location of the office, not the areas served. To index by areas served would require the editors to be real estate auditors, because they would have to verify your claims. Office locations can be verified with only a little effort.

Lissa gave you some very good advice. There are many ways you can improve your position in search engine rankings for the keywords you rely on, and this is not the place to discuss them. Several forums exist which could help you a lot. My own personal favorite (my opinion only) is Cre8asite. It seems somehow more genteel than the others. See this dmoz category for a wide selection of others.

Motsa also gave you good advice. Well, maybe "advice" is not a strong enough word here. Motsa wrote with authority

this is not the place to debate guidelines

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