Craig's List Job Posting (Seriously)

"Dear New York Times Op-Ed Department . . ."

Just in case any readers of this blog know anyone, I just posted the following on Craig's List:

I write a highly-regarded (but relatively lightly read) real estate blog, and am looking for someone who can help get my pieces/posts published on high traffic, national sites (The NYT, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, etc).

Location: Twin Cities
Compensation: commission
Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
Please, no phone calls about this job!
Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

As far as commission goes, what I had in mind was a "bounty" ($250 - $500) for each successful appearance on one of the aforementioned sites (Hey! I'm a Realtor -- I believe in paying for results!).

And yes, I know about search engine optimization, but I'm not convinced that anyone offering to do that (for a big fee) really knows what they're talking about, or can deliver the promised results.

And, just so I don't sound too forlorn, my pieces are published nationally on a surprisingly regular basis, including more than a dozen times now on RealClearMarkets.com.

Amazingly, another 50(!) or so posts from this blog currently show up in Google's "top 10" hits by subject matter (try typing in "Freakonomics rebuttal").

Bing, 'Bot's & Blog Rankings

Bing vs. Google: No Pay, No Play

It is a bit of an understatement to say that this blog's rank on Technorati, one of the third-party sites that track such things, has bounced around.

In the almost two years that I've been blogging (yeah, it's a verb), Technorati has ranked City Lakes Real Estate Blog somewhere between the high 400's (as in thousand), and and 1.7 million.

Until now.

I checked the other day, and this blog now ranks just over 24,000 worldwide (thanks, regular readers!).

You'd guess that has something to do with my stellar posts (IMHO); as I wrote last month, there are now more than 50(!) posts from this blog that rank (or did) in Google's "top ten" hits, worldwide ("City Lakes Hits").

However, over on Microsoft's search engine, Bing, this blog -- and presumably, many others like it -- don't exist.

What gives?

Bing vs. Google

Bing's rankings are for sale; Google's aren't (or at least, less so).

To take just one example, my post titled "How Big a Premium for Small Lakefront" currently ranks #1 worldwide on Google.

Type in "lakefront premium" on Bing and what do you get?

Literally thousands of (paid-for) hits for lakefront properties for sale. Meanwhile, I stopped searching for City Lakes Real Estate . . . ten screens in (10 posts per).

The blogs touting lakefront properties for sale are both buying key words directly from Bing, and in many cases, using sophisticated software called "bots" to attract the search engines' attention and drive up their placement.

P.S.: the other way I know this blog's rank is climbing is that I'm getting more and more unsolicited email from SEO ("search engine optimization") consultants promising to put me on Google's home page.

Thanks, guys, I'm already on it!