Topping the Charts . . . In India??!!

Worldwide Blog Rankings

This blog's worldwide ranking, at least according to Technorati, continues to be about 19,000 (given that there are at least 5 million ranked blogs, that translates into the 99.7% percentile!).

While I can't prove it, I'm convinced that this blog's ranking in India is much higher.

That's because City Lakes Real Estate blog gets more than 1,000 page hits a month from servers based in India -- typically between midnight and 8 a.m. Central Standard Time (business hours on the other side of the globe).

For the most part, I'm delighted by that.

However, I can't get rid of this gnawing feeling that there's a real estate blog somewhere in India with an awful lot of familiar material -- minus my name and URL.

Hope I'm wrong about that . . .

Realtor "Blocking & Tackling"

Key to Successful Listing: Attending to Basics

This blog's classification on Technorati not under "Real Estate" but "Football" ("Dear Technorati") has had me thinking in terms of -- you guessed it! -- football metaphors.

Like this one: just as football games are supposedly won "in the trenches," with good blocking and tackling, so, too, are successful listings characterized by attending to the basics.

Here's my (partial) list of what constitutes good Realtor -- and homeowner -- "blocking and tackling":

--For sale homes should always be "showing-ready": clean and orderly, well-staged, everything in good repair, and generally welcoming.

--Whenever possible, make sure all the lights are on for showings. And for second showings, absolutely!

--The Minnesota Seller's Disclosure and any municipal point-of-sale inspection paperwork should be completed and readily available, both in the home and online.

--The MLS allows 10 photos per listing. Use them! (and make sure they're good! --flattering angles, in focus, well-lit with no shadows, etc.).

--The Listing Agent should be be readily accessible to field inquiries, arrange access to the home, and be in regular communication with the owner.

--The home should be available to Realtors via Broker Tour (at the commencement of the listing), and thereafter to the public through Sunday open houses at regular intervals. (Note: there's a difference between "good exposure" and "overexposure.")

--Literature Box: if the curb appeal is deceiving, provide a literature box in front of the home so that prospective Buyers can see interior photos.

--All the information about the home on MLS should be accurate and proofed for typo's (you'd be surprised how often this one is violated). Is the MLS area correct? Are appropriate boxes for foreclosures and short sales marked?

So what other parallels are there between football and selling homes?

The team -- and Realtor -- that makes the fewest unforced errors and turnovers often wins.

Case in point: I viewed a home last month with a spectacular unfinished expansion -- great overhead, wide stairs with excellent risers, two dormers already in place -- that I discovered completely by accident: I thought I was opening a door to a closet!

The listing agent finally updated her marketing materials to showcase the expansion potential several weeks into the listing (and also conspicuously marked the stairway door!), but by then the first (and most serious) wave of Buyers had already been through.

P.S.: of course, great football teams -- and Realtors -- excel at both blocking and tackling and the big flourishes, like the acrobatic, one-handed touchdown catches (in real estate, think, the blow-away photos and marketing literature).

Quick! Name Everyone on the 1969 Vikings Roster

"Dear Technorati: Please Check Your Classifications"

Well, yes, as a matter of fact I can rattle off practically every player from the 1969 Minnesota Vikings' football roster, starting with Joe Kapp and Alan Page.

Still, I'm pretty sure that's not why -- at least according to Technorati -- this blog is ranked in the top 1,000 football blogs worldwide (#747 to be exact, as of this morning . . . )

Funny, I always thought this blog was real estate-related . . .

Top 100 -- Really!

In fact, going by Technorati's "authority ranking," this blog is now ranked just outside the top 100 real estate blogs -- in the world!

IMHO, even that is misleading.

As *Lloyd Bentsen might say if he were a blogger, "I've read most of the top 100 real estate blogs, put up more frequent and better posts than they do -- and they're no City Lakes Real Estate blog."

As for the occasional anti-Wall Street rant by yours truly, as Bill Maher would say, "But I'm not wrong . . ."

*If you're under 30, Texas Senator (and '88 Democratic VP nominee) Lloyd Bentsen famously put down Dan Quayle when the latter had the temerity to compare himself to JFK.

Shameless Ratings Ploy

So, at least according to Technorati, the City Lakes Real Estate blog ranking has been slipping lately (I haven't a clue why -- in fact, it seems like traffic is up).

At the same time, it seems like whenever I mention a large company, either they or their public relations firm or lawyers immediately scope out this blog to make sure they're not being defamed (as a former lawyer who can cite the (still) leading case in the field, The New York Times v. Sullivan, I'm actually pretty careful).

Just the same, as a shameless ratings ploy, I'm running the following list.

As they say, "do not adjust your set" -- or, more accurately, Web bookmarks:

(in no particular order):

ExxonMobil
Microsoft
IBM
Google
Procter & Gamble
3M
Target
Wells Fargo
General Electric
United Technologies
Home Depot
Oracle
Raytheon
Boeing
Altria
Toyota

Come and get it, guys!

Minnesota's Highest-Rated Real Estate Blog!

17,000 - With a Bullet!

What's Minnesota's highest-rated real estate blog?

You're reading it!

According to Technorati, which keeps track, "City Lakes Real Estate" is now ranked about 17,000 worldwide (it seems to fluctuate a couple hundred places daily). That compares with a ranking of around 1.4 million this time last year.

In fact, Technorati tracks almost 2 million blogs, which in turn is only a fraction of all blogs in existence.

So, a ranking of 17,000 easily qualifies as being in the top 1% worldwide!

Thanks for visiting -- come back soon!

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!

City Lakes "Hits"

"Top Ten" Google Hits . . . Worldwide!

OK, so no one would confuse the traffic on this blog with The Drudge Report or The Huffington Post.

Still, run a Google search on any of the following 56(!) key terms, and you'll find the related City Lakes blog post ranked in the top 10 hits . . . worldwide! In fact, many of the posts are ranked in the top three.

Go ahead, try it (posts with an asterisk* have been especially popular):

"Financial-Industrial Complex"
"Real Estate & Inflation"*
"Freakonomics Rebuttal"*
"Realtor Demographics"
"Realogy Bankruptcy"*

"The Loop Calhoun"
"Westin Galleria Edina"
"Highest & Best - Explained"
"Lakefront Premium"
"'As Is' Misconceptions"

"Realtors & Angie's List"
"Zillow & Social Networking"
"Bracketing, explained"
"Bernie Madoff & the Path to Recovery"*
"Price Reductions: A Realtor's Take"

"Foreclosure Feeding Frenzies"
"Contractor Etiquette"
"Real Estate Auction Checklist"
"George Soros on CDS"
"Firing Your Realtor"

"Dear Client Letter"*
"Financial Son of Sam Law"
"Peggy Noonan Recession Trends"
"Marooned in the Exurbs"
"Vanishing FSBO's"

"Defending Sodom & Gomorrah"
"Warren Buffett's Crystal Ball"
"Taking Trulia for a Spin"
"Light Rail Impact on Property Values"
"Underwater vs. Drowned Mortgages"

"Consumer Payment Hierarchy"
"Rehab Mistake"
"Investing in New Windows"
"Mpls St. Paul magazine super real estate agent"
"Title in a Nutshell"

"Worshipping Villains"
"Price Reductions -- A Realtor's Take"
"Highest & Best - Games & Abuses"
"Home Buyer Incentives Multiply"
"Moral Hazard, Illustrated"

"Hijacked Listings"
"The Bob Newhart Economy"
"Enron Just Ahead of Its Time?"
"Bear Market Winners: First-Time Buyers"
"Is There Capitalism Without Capital?"

"Foreclosure Bait & Switch"
"Real Estate Misunderstandings"
"The World's Most Powerful Realtor"
"Deconstructing AIG"
"Realtor-to-Realtor Letters"

"You Know It's a Tear-Down When"
"Lying Realtors"
"Financial Reptiles vs. Mammals"
"John Paulson's Billons"
"Lake Calhoun Visitor"

"Cedar Lake Specialist"

Not bad for a blog ranked 1,603,173 by Technorati! (the Nielsen's of the blogosphere).

Blog Rankings

I'm Number . . . 756,681??!!

According to Technorati, the Nielsen ratings of the blogosphere, this blog now ranks 756,681 world-wide in popularity.

That's actually a bit better than it sounds: there are millions of blogs out there, and most don't have enough traffic to even warrant a ranking. Technorati alone tracks more than 4.7 million blogs.

Want to see (some of) what ranks ahead of me? Click here to see the Top 100 blogs (Note: you can sort either by "fans" or "authority").