*Google +1 to impact property search rankings

Google’s latest initiative to add a “social layer” to its search results has some interesting implications for property professionals.

The project named +1 will add a “like” button to both paid and natural search results and will
enable searchers to view the preferences of their friends and acquaintances linked through their Google accounts (Google Mail, Google reader, iGoogle etc).

Search for “estate agents in [your town]” for example and in theory Google will be able to highlight and promote any real estate business that has been “+1’ed” by friends who have made similar searches in your location.

Trust or lack or lack of it is still a major issue when researching purchases online. Choosing an estate agent for an instruction or performing background research on an overseas property agent is little different.

In the current environment, without any social signals, people tend to trust companies with sites that look professional and rank highly on Google. As we all know some of these companies are run by charlatans.

If Google can make this work (and this is far from certain given its track record with Google Buzz), it should give the companies with the best track records and largest customer bases an advantage.

There will no doubt be short-term opportunities to game the system but longer term there are three likely implications:

It raises the barriers to entry for new agents
It increases the value of product selection and after sales service for overseas agents
It gives an advantage to “professional” agents dedicated to looking after the long term interests of clients

Advertising is becoming more social. Whether Google succeeds or not third party recommendation will be an ever increasing part of future real estate promotion.

Source: Global edge

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