Case Study for Spiderable IDX
Posted by Tony Kawaguchi, RA on Friday, February 19th, 2010 at 10:44pm.As I mentioned on Geek Estate Blog, I've decided to do a case study to
determine the effects of having a spiderable IDX on my site. Since my
site doesn't have a lot of authority just yet, I've asked Morgan Carey
of Real
Estate Webmasters to show me data from other clients' sites (with
their permission), so I could see how sites with high authority do with
their spiderable IDX.
I had Analytics installed at the same time as my spiderable IDX, so
unfortunately, I can't show you a before/after with mine. I have
however, been given permission by Nashville Real Estate Agent, Gary Ashton to
show his before & after results. Gary's got a high authority, high
ranking site, that's been around for about 4 years. However, he only had
spiderable IDX added to his site in January of this year. Looking at
the number of pageviews of his site over the past year, you'll see a
pretty amazing spike once the spiderable IDX is installed, replacing his
iframed solution:
My own pageview results so far can be seen below:
My pageviews aren't as awesome as Gary's--yet 
Traffic-wise, if we compare Gary's number from Jan-Feb 2010, with
Nov-Dec 2009, you'll see that all the numbers are up significantly since
getting a spiderable IDX:
Gary's total visits are up 45%, the number of pages viewed per visit are
up by a whopping 277%, the average time on the site has more than
doubled, and the bounce rate has dropped by 36%. These are the stats of
my future : )
Here is my own traffic so far (from June through Jan):
Traffic's steadily increasing, as my site gains more pagerank. Also, my
IDX listings are the second most viewed page (after the home page), so I
know that users appreciate the feature.
In terms of rankings, Gary's doing very well, blasting large sites like
Trulia and Zillow, to attain the #1 position for the highly competitive
terms, "nashville real estate" and "nashville mls listings":
Here is another REW client, Greg Eckler,
who was willing to share info and ranks top 5 for "denver real estate" and "denver mls
listings" even after his board made him completely switch domains:
Yes that reads 733 THOUSAND pageviews for just a years worth of stats - simply amazing!
In terms of leads, Gary's numbers are pretty astounding. Prior to
replacing his iframed listings with IDX, he averaged about 120 new leads
each month (plus returning leads).
Before IDX:
After IDX:
That's TEN TIMES the number of new leads since getting an IDX.
The bottom line for me is that spiderable IDX works.
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Share6 Responses to "Case Study for Spiderable IDX"
Hey Tony!
I'm sort of an IDX geek myself (former Dir. of Sales Ops for 1Parkplace), to the point where I've built a site around the idea of agents/brokers actually being able to list and review their IDX system(s) in an objective and structured way - sort of a Yelp! for Realtors. I would very much appreciate your opinion / review of REW (the link above is to the review I wrote on REW about a year ago). To add your review just log in and add your own user review. I would also be interested in your opinions on the listing criteria and rating criteria that I've established.
BTW: Your post over @ geek estate may end up being one of the best reads of the year! Educational and highly entertaining.
Posted on Saturday, February 27th, 2010 at 5:48 PM.
I have had a custom REW site since 2004 and kind of fell away from updating and SEO from 2007-2009, and my traffic was dropping considerably. I recently changed over to the LEC 2 and have seen my traffic drastically increase. To give you an idea, February 1 - February 18th I had 1,520 visits, 24,501 page views, averaged 16 pages a visit and 8 minutes 41 seconds on my site. Me LEC 2 went live on February 19th and my traffic over the last 15 days(not even 18 days) is 2,287 visits, 27,806 page views, average time on site is 7 minutes 20 seconds, and average page views is 12.5. I am excited to see what my results are over the next few months now that I am back focused on SEO, blogging, links, etc...
Posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 2:46 PM.
Thanks Preston, your numbers look great!
Posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 2:53 PM.
Love this post tony. Switching to REW as we speak and am going to post results and such on Geekestate.
Posted on Saturday, September 24th, 2011 at 5:46 PM.
I have started to develop a strong interest in SEO and web development ever since I started my first online Real Estate Page back in 2009. It took my two years before I quit using pay per month templates before I started running across REW,Agent Image and Geek style web developers. I decided to go with REW because I wanted to hire the best developer to program a web page for me.
The interesting thing is that after I started running a great web page from REW I started getting solicitations from more high end programmers that wanted me to leave REW and join there system. REW helps agents produce organic results, market leaders dominates pay per click and idx pro is good for cheap idx feeds. I have learned that you need to think of your web service as a return on your investment.
Why talk bad about one company vs another. Instead give them the money they need to bring you to your maximum earning potential with them within your market and track how long it takes you to start earning profit with their solution.
I want to see a company that runs,5 urls with each url tracking return on investment results.
Give REW $10,000
Give Agent Image 10,000
Give Market Leaders 10,000
Give diverse solutions 10,000
Etc etc etc etc etc
Then track results over a few years. I think you would then have knowledge that you would not even want to share with people because then you would be advising your competitors what works best. I guess long term your goal should be to have multiple different urls that place well within organic results. The problem is leveling the playing field.
To compare these companies fairly you would have to take all your urls live at the same time and spend an even amount on SEO on all your pages. This is would be idea if you wanted to dominate your market on the internet but the problem is that as a designated broker and business owner I understand that most of my business is generated by meeting clients and building relationships.
I have had clients that have told me flat out we are going to use web site X because we like ther e map search. Then after I thought they were gone they call me back to show houses. Then we develop a friendship and I proceed to close the deal.
Majority of sales people will say that one agent will have the ability to close deals better than another agent. The truth is that the idea programmer/ agent relationship would be profit sharing. Let the programmers battle it out on search rankings but the in the end look at the percentage of your cut that you are giving them for your leads.
Posted on Tuesday, November 15th, 2011 at 6:53 AM.
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[...]about the topic have any validity. So, for my own research (and yours), I’ve decided to do a case study on my blog that looks at the effects of having a spiderable IDX on my site, and on sites that have higher[...]
Posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 7:07 PM.