SearchMe reinvents online property search
Move over, Google, here's something leaner
By Bernice Ross, Friday, August 8, 2008.
Screenshot from SearchMe.comMove over, Google, Yahoo and MSN; there's an entirely new type of search engine that's about to revolutionize how you search on the Web.
With a great deal of fanfare on July 28, 2008, a new type of search engine called Cuil (pronounced "cool") was launched. The company hopes to topple Google by indexing more than 120 billion Web pages. It also claims to "dig down" into the content on the site to give users more detail about the matches that they generate. Based upon the comments at PC World, the folks at Google have no need to worry.
At Real Estate Connect, Brian Boero did a short presentation on "20 Different Online Sites that You Don't Know About -- But Should!" I decided to visit each of them. While there were a number of interesting applications, the one that really inspired me was www.SearchMe.com. SearchMe is an entirely new way of conducting search that will revolutionize your search experience. This site achieves what the creators of Cuil hoped to do plus much more.
What Makes SearchMe.com Cool
Instead of displaying a link, imagine a cascade of various Web pages that you can flip through, much in the same way that you would turn pages in a book. By displaying the entire home page of each page that it catalogues, SearchMe allows you to quickly identify the most relevant pages from your search prior to clicking through to each site. This saves massive amounts of time since you will no longer open irrelevant sites nor will you have to toggle back and forth between sites and the original search.
A Lesson in Search-Engine Optimization
SearchMe also highlights where your search terms appear on each page. This gives you an opportunity to see how well the Web site fits your search parameters. If you are attempting to improve your search-engine ranking, conduct your keyword search on Google. Next, go to SearchMe to see where and how often those terms appear on the top Google searches. In most cases, following the same approach on your personal Web site should help you improve your position on both search engines.
Share Your Searches
Suppose that you are searching for a property online. In the past, sharing photos from multiple properties was a cumbersome process. With SearchMe, you simply create a "stack" of photos. You and your clients can then share photos from your favorite searches. This works well with relocation clients since you can quickly provide a visual overview of different neighborhoods. The result is that your clients will be able to more easily identify the neighborhoods and the types of property best suited to them.
Share Your Photos
When I searched the photos for Austin on SearchMe, virtually all of them appeared to have originated on Flickr.com, the Yahoo picture-sharing site. Since you will be taking photos of the property anyway, why not post them to Flickr and have the added benefit of increasing your search-engine ranking as well.
Preview Videos in Seconds
SearchMe also catalogs videos and images that are relevant to your search. Most of their videos were from YouTube. Nevertheless, the ability to quickly preview 5 to 10 videos in just a minute is another serious time saver. Furthermore, as in the Web search, you do not have to toggle back and forth between videos. On my computer, the download times on SearchMe were considerably faster than they were on YouTube.
Submit Your Site
If SearchMe doesn't currently list your site, you can submit it for inclusion on their search engine. I was surprised that they already had our current site in their index, complete with changes made just a few days earlier.
A Minor Downside
SearchMe does not appear to display the number of page views (i.e. analytics) that your Web site, your pictures, or your videos receive. Google Analytics, Flickr and YouTube do display this data. Having access to this data is critical to effective marketing. For example, in Austin, the lowest number of Web visitors for any YouTube real estate listing was 99 views; many had more than 1,000 views. These numbers are important for the following reasons:
1. When you are at a listing appointment, you can objectively illustrate how effective your marketing is.
2. You have an objective measure of "ROI" (return on investment). Did the money you spent on the video or other marketing pieces produce enough traffic to merit the cost?
3. When a seller needs to reduce his or her price, you can use analytics to show the seller how much traffic your marketing has created. When the listing has had several hundred page views and no offers, it's much easier to make the case for a price reduction.
The traditional search engines aren't going away any time soon, but the way that we experience search in the future will be faster and more engaging than ever before.
Bernice Ross, national speaker and CEO of Realestatecoach.com, is the author of "Waging War on Real Estate's Discounters" and "Who's the Best Person to Sell My House?" Both are available online. She can be reached at bernice@realestatecoach.com or visit her blog at LuxuryClues.com.
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Submitted by Lenn Harley on August 8, 2008 - 7:23am.
Interesting. The "cascading web sites" on SearchMe.com is identical to the display on RedZee. I wonder if they are affiliated or if we see a lawsuit in the making.
I didn't like it on RedZee and I can't say I like it on SearchMe. So many of the more visual presentations on web sites, cascading images and video take so much time. I understand that they are the craze these days, but I don't believe that these presentations are efficient for serious searchers.
Lenn Harley
Broker
Homefinders.com
800-711-7988
Submitted by Mike Parker on August 8, 2008 - 8:21am.
Mike Parker
mparker@theblackwatercg.com
Dear Bernice,
I know you mean well, but sending people to obscure portals and telling them that it will help their online marketing dilutes what little chance most agents have of online success. 880,000,000 real estate related searches are entered online, monthly, and 65% of them are on Google. These people who are going to be "better than Google" won't be, for that simple reason. No real estate portal gets over 5 million true visits a month: Google gets about 57.2 million (not to mention Yahoo and MSN).
But, more importantly, page views aren't the be all end all; it's unique visitors and conversion that matter. I said it about Facebook over a year ago, and I will say it about SearchMe today: While these boutique little businesses may (and that is a big MAY) survive, how many homes will they help sell? People like simple, as in go to their browser and enter what they are trying to find. Only students of the Internet, propeller heads and IT people even will know about SearchMe, and within a year or two, they will have burned through their start up money and then what?
Selling real estate online is not about "the next big thing." Selling real estate online is about harnessing what already has changed the entire paradigm about house buying; that is organic search from any browser.
In atonement for disagreeing with you, I promise to give you a full blown demonstration of what I am talking about any time, at your convenience.
Submitted by Bernice Ross on August 8, 2008 - 9:56am.
Bernice Ross, CEO RealEstateCoach.com, the place you go to make Real Estate Dough!
Dear Mike,
Google used to be a little known site called "Goto.com." I believe SearchMe is the face of the next generation of search.
As someone who spends a big part of her day at the computer doing searches, as do a number of our readers, Searchme is a huge time saver. How many times do we have to redo a search because we end up on a site with some sort of application that freezes up our computer? The constant toggling back and forth on Google is also a waste of time. So far, the people I know who have actually played with SearchMe liked it a lot better than other search engines, primarily for its speed.
I know you're in the business of helping people with SEO (and BTW--Mike is very, very good). For many agents writing blogs and trying to do a better job in tagging their posts, being able to see how high ranking sites have search terms appear on the page they are searching helps them to better understand the search process. The result is more effective blog posts that garner higher placement.
Agreed this may be too geeky for most agents and that real estate is about connection. Web marketing, like traditional marketing, is merely a way to make the connection. Millions are connecting on Facebook and MySpace, and younger agents are starting to have great success with sales from Facebook and even some from MySpace.
As for the demo, would you be willing to share that with our readers in a guest column?
Submitted by Keith Dobbs on August 8, 2008 - 1:12pm.
This is definately a cool idea. Wouldn't be surprised if this took over Google!
Frisco Homes | Frisco Real Estate
Submitted by David Smith on August 8, 2008 - 7:07pm.
Bernice,
Honestly, this is a cute toy, but will never fly for series search. Fun for a second or two while you flip through the cute images of the sites, but then it is time to get to work and back to the real world. As in all things real estate "Time is of the essence."
Submitted by Thom Abbott on August 9, 2008 - 11:23am.
I searched MY website name, and while I came up from several pages that were correct, I also came up liked to one very unpleasant sex site!! Not somthing I would want clients to see. Then, when I clicked on that page to try and figure out what it was and how I "got there" it has thousands of websites linked to it. Like someone went and got all kinds of addresses and added them to their site...so there are LOTS of people that are going to experience this....Not pretty!
Submitted by Carolyn Gjerde-Tu on August 10, 2008 - 4:36pm.
I think there will be a user base that is very visual that this will appeal to. When you have the snapshot of the site, you do have a sense of that page and can decide quickly if this is a web page worthy of waiting the several second load time that most sites take.
Submitted by Michael Reilly on August 11, 2008 - 9:21am.
I think they have an interesting results presentation but my initial experiences with Cuil did not return the most relevant results. I've heard the same thing from many other people. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you index more pages or show pics if the results don't give the user the best answer for their query.
Michael Reilly, REALTOR
Great Austin Properties, LLC
Website Great Austin Properties
Search Austin Homes For Sale
Submitted by Matt Carter on August 11, 2008 - 9:25am.
Google and Goto.com were never the same company.
Goto.com invented the keyword/clickthrough business model and Google one-upped them by delivering more relevant results.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/books/2005-09-11-google-book_x.htm
That's going to be what makes or break Cuil.com. Doesn't matter how artfully you present your search results if they're not the results people are looking for in the first place.
It takes a lot of computing power (and manpower) to do what Google does, but it's nice to see people don't feel the challenge is insurmountable -- even when giants like Microsoft have failed.
Submitted by lucas shortridge on August 14, 2008 - 2:27pm.
I like the inerface of the site. But the search doesn't come up with that good of results.