My Last Post

Dear City Lakes Readers:

You're reading my last post.

Not forever -- just at this particular blog address.

The reason for the lull in posts the last week or so is that I've been busy tweaking and fine-tuning -- with very patient assistance from Web developer Tim Elliott -- the new City Lakes Real Estate Blog.

The new blog, powered by WordPress software, is much more robust, aesthetic, and -- hopefully -- user-friendly.

The one thing that won't change is the content: posts and comments by yours truly.

Revamped blogs don't really have opening nights or formal debuts; they just have re-directs and hypertext links.

So, please follow the link (above), or enter the actual address:

http://rosskaplan.com/blog/

See you there!

Google and "Advertising Arbitrage"

Everything You Didn't Want to Know About Blog "Plumbing"

Want to know why -- amongst other reasons -- Google is a $200 billion behemoth?

Because it collects big bucks from advertisers to place their ads on millions of big and tiny Web sites, blogs, etc. (mine is decidedly in the latter camp).

Meanwhile, Google essentially auctions off the English language, one word at a time, to the highest bidder via a phenomenon called "sponsored search."

Tom Sawyer, who got paid both by the homeowner to paint their fence, and also by neighborhood kids for the privilege of actually painting it, would have been impressed.

Want to know who paid Google the most for "car?"

Type in "car" on a Google search, and you'll find out.

Raw Deal, or, "AdNonsense"

On the back end, Google promises to share some of its advertising revenue with content providers like this blog.

Through a program called "AdSense," Google software scours your online content, and "serves" ads that appear to be related.

Hence, current ads on the City Lakes Real Estate blog touting "Premium Deicing Road Salt" and "Roof Ice Melt Solution" -- thanks to my recent posts on ice dams (not to mention regularly serving ads from competing local Realtors -- something that I find especially annoying).

Call it "advertising arbitrage": charging a pretty penny for the phrase, "premium deicing road salt," while paying content providers practically nothing.

"Advertising Arbitrage"

How little?

After three years of blogging and almost 70,000 page hits, my cumulative Google ad revenue will barely buy . . . a steak dinner.

For one.

Meanwhile, the one time I signed up to buy ad words -- terms like "Twin Cities real estate blog," "Minneapolis real estate blog," etc. -- I literally had to scramble to unsubscribe after my bill tripped $100.

In less than 72 hours.

Nice business . . . for Google.

So, thanks, but no thanks.

Early in 2011 -- that would be about a week -- you'll see a brand, new-and-improved City Lakes Blog, no longer tied to Google, and with much more functionality and a slicker design, to boot.

P.S.: Kudoes to the superb Tim Elliott, Web developer par excellence, for his help with the transition ("emancipation?").

Selling Wall Street Journal Subscriptions Against My Will

City Lakes Real Estate Blog 2.0:
Due Early 2011

A capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with.

--Lenin

I suppose the blogging equivalent of Lenin's famous line is, "a blogger whose ads are served by Google will end up promoting that which they denounce."

Which explains all The Wall Street Journal ads bracketing my last post (Google samples key words, and serves ads that appear to be related -- never mind the context).

Amongst other upgrades (Wordpress platform, "jumps," customizable format, etc.), the new-and-improved version of this blog will have better control over ad-serving.

Look for it in early 2011!

P.S.: Personally, I always thought that The Journal should charge for its (time-saving) annotations, and give away the unabridged articles. Instead, it's the other way around.

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 . . .

Getting the Jump on the (Wall Street) Journal

"Told 'Ya So" Department

You read it here first -- by four days, to be exact:

No, it's not good when already volatile markets lurch downward like they've done the last couple days. However, astute financial observers know that such turbulence is also accompanied by a "flight to safety" -- in this case, U.S. debt. The silver lining is that anyone who's on the cusp of refinancing can do so at rates that are temporarily "on sale."

--"Flight to Safety = Rate Drop: Market Melt-Down Creates Refinancing Opportunity"; City Lakes Real Estate blog (5/20/10)

Now compare that with what's in Monday's Wall Street Journal:

The financial turmoil in Europe is providing an unexpected windfall for American home buyers, as international money seeking a safe haven is flowing into the U.S., pushing domestic mortgage rates to the lowest levels of the year and back near 50-year lows.

--"Mortgage Rates Decline"; The Wall Street Journal (6/24/10)

Nice scoop, if I say so myself!

P.S.: No, I'm not clairvoyant -- it's typical for print articles to post online the night before publication.

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!