The team at Squiiz did an amazing job selling themselves and their concept to the industry to become partners in their yet to be released portal Squiiz.com.au. They gained the financial support from most of the national real estate groups and certainly the best wishes from the remainder. Groups like PRDnationwide, Belle Property, Century 21, Harcourts, IRENE (Independent Real Estate Network of Excellence), LJ Hooker, Ray White, Raine & Horne and REMAX became partners in the venture.
Because of those connections they launched in Mid November with more than 200,000 properties on day one..
It seemed to me and many others as the best opportunity for an industry owned portal to finally start gaining some traction and thus by default place competitive pressure on the commercial players like realestate.com.au and domain.com.au.
But its been two weeks now and its clear that something serious has gone wrong. Really really wrong.
They forgot to do even basic level seo on the website and the two main search engines, Google and Bing have essentially rejected them.
You can put up a website today and it can be indexed on google within minutes. So with well over 200,000 pages on day one how many of those are on Google and Bing some 2 weeks later ?
Google – 34 Pages
Bing – 16 Pages
In direct contrast the industry leader, realestate.com.au has over 20 million pages on Google. The have pages for property for sale, property for rent, property sold, property rented, suburbs. agencies and soon they will have profile pages for each salesperson and property manager as well.
We know from comments made in the past from ex CEO Simon Baker that Google delivers in excess of 30% of the traffic to realestate.com.au. Squiiz needs to hire an SEO consultant immediately and get this turned around if it thinks it is going to make headway.
So whats gone wrong? This stuff gets a little technical but for those interested here are some things I found with a 2 minute look.
There is no robots.txt file and no sitemap file. Now Google and Bing do not need these files to find and index your site, it just make it easier and quicker for the search engines to find your pages. In two weeks I would not have expected them to be ranking well in the search engines but I would have expected them to have their pages at least in the index. In my mind this omission shows that very little thought was put into the onpage seo and that is evidenced by the sheer lack of pages they have on the two biggest search engines.
Most traffic driven to property pages from outside of the navigation on the portal itself is when a buyer types in the address direct into the search engine. Squizz does not use address in the page title, page description, h1 or h2 tags or even body copy of the page itself. It finally shows up in just one place, a lonely h3 tag.
Given the fact that they are not using the suburb or the street address in key points in the seo code means they are going to struggle to even show up for when people search for the direct address, at least on Google.
If you have agents out there pushing the branding of Squizz when the buyers start searching on the internet if they dont see that brand show up in the SERP’s then how do you expect them to use the website. With a name like Squiiz you cant expect them all to remember the exact spelling to type it in themselves bypassing the search engines entirely… even this media release could not get the spelling right . ***Since been updated with the correct spelling***
When you see the handful of properties that have been lucky enough to be found on the search engines you can see why. Here is how the listing for 16 Milton Avenue, Fulham Gardens, SA 5024 is displayed on Google for Squiiz and for realestate.com.au.
So lets consider that they can even get all of those pages indexed by submitting a sitemap, be honest.. even if the top listing “Large Corner Block” showed up on the first page of Google which it probably wont, would you click on it? It has no indication that it is the property you are searching for.
A deeper analysis of the site would probasbly show much more but the numbers dont lie.. 34 pages listed out of 200,000+ needs to be improved.
Cmon guys.. !!! We all want you to succeed.
**** Update 08/12/2014 ****
Late last week Squiiz.com.au added a robots.txt file to the website which identified a sitemap.xml file which finally allowed Google and Bing to access all the property pages. Indexing started immediately and has been increasing every day.
As at the time of writing there are now 38,900 pages on the google index. Bing is a little slower to catch on but that is typical.
I think the thing to take away from this is the speed that this was fixed once it was identified. Whilst we cant go back in time and fix it before launch it is my opinion commendable how quickly they fix the problem. I hope that the team equally prioritise the onpage SEO so they can start generating some real traffic from the search engines.
64 Comments
Thomas Roberts
Glenn, very well spotted. This is an incredible oversight. I fear if they can’t get this right then there is little chance of them challenging the IT sophistication and nous of realestate.com.au
Do you have any insight on the web developers involved? I’m surprised that they didn’t raise it to the Squiiz commercial team who may not be as knowledgeable on the importance of SEO.
Also the fact that none on the involved real estate parties noticed this error also points to how large a gap there is between an online centric firm like the REA Group and those who primarily focus on property.
I suggest they form an advisory board or executive made up of those with the requisite IT skills to complement their property expertise.
Regards
Thomas
Glenn Batten
Brilliant idea also mentioned to me by somebody offline who told me he specifically asked at the roadshow about their on page SEO and was told it was “in hand”. I guess they had their hands full.
I think if they asked for assitance from there partners and the industry they would have got it. We all want them to be successful.
Pete
If its a brand new site, only launched in Nov, how can you possibly expect it to rank well in Google after 2 weeks! lol
It will take them years to build the trust and authority that sites like realestate.com.au have.
You said they ‘gained the financial support from most of the national real estate groups’. This might give them a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside, but it means nothing in terms of SEO, rankings, traffic, etc.
Google hasn’t rejected them. The site doesn’t have enough power for the bots to crawl all of the pages. Again, this will take time.
Their link profile is very weak also, which is to be expected for a new site. They should be careful dropping their link in forums like http://www.inthemix.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=395499300. Google would give them a slap for dodgy links like this.
Anyway, I get the feeling you (and other customers) were expecting this site to boom in the serps as soon as it went live. This never happens especially in such a competitive niche.
They have years of hard work ahead of them before realestate.com.au would see them consider them a competitor.
Glenn Batten
***Edited – This was one of the missing comments that the techs found. Since I responded again this is essentially just a duplicate***
Glenn Batten
You must have **misread** the article because I never said that they should be ranking by now, only that they should be indexed by now. The two are very very different. Anybody can get indexed but only 10 websites or less can get ranked on the front page for any search term.
Google has not rejected them at all and neither have I have not suggested that.. Rejection is when they are indexed for awhile and are not ranking.
The problem is the site design. They have all the property behind a search form which a robot/spider cannot follow. Since they dont have a sitemap for the spiders to follow the search engines simply dont know they exist at all. They are essentially hiding their pages from Google and Bing. This is a common problem that any SEO consultant would have spotted.
Re your “feeling” about Squiiz booming in the search engines, I cant speak for anybody else but you are certainly wrong about what I thought. Expecting them to be competitive in the search engines within days or week is simply not realistic. but if they dont fix this glaring mistake they never will be and that is a problem because the industry needs them to succeed.
Glenn
Squiz were a web site building platform last time I looked, I look for squz.com.au and it redirects back to the development .net.au site.
So where is it, gone completely. ?
Glenn
http://www.squiiz.com.au (typo)
Glenn
Ok that weird, the link I typed in works but if I put www,squiz.com.au in the Google search box it directs to the .net.au development site.
Glenn
I see squiiz with a double i
Looks like Google are confused too, I can sell them a good domain name if they like……
Glenn
Furthermore I think you should delete my posts as it may confuse anyone trying to follow this ….
Glenn Batten
Actually I think it highlights one of the challenges with there name.
Stewart Bunn
Interesting article Glenn.
The confusion around the spelling of the name is only the start. The much heralded App has yet to turn up in the App store either.
Glenn
If people cant find the web site and don’t use it on a regular basis an app is a waste of time, no one will download it or use it.
I don’t even use REA or Domains, I just Google them each time.
Glenn
Just downloaded REA, Domain and REV apps, only REA do it properly IMO. (off topic)
Ben
Paul
If there are 200,000 plus listings and it was set up correctly they should be ranking in Google. It’s concerning a prospective buyer can’t sear the address in Google & find the listing. Our own site will show up the address in Google & it hasn’t been around for years.
It begs the question of whether anyone at squizz has any knowledge about backend websites. Clearly not.
Let’s hope they get someone on board with some website basic nouse.
Robbert Dekker
Besides the SEO issues, I think their property results page looks awful. By default they show properties on a unreadeable detail format with tiny property thumbs. I would make the property gallery view the default view, since thumbs are larger and you get a better overview.
Then you have the next page links, that is so old school. Why not load more results like homely.com.au does? loading properties using AJAX (as you scroll down more properties appear) with no need to click to see the next property results page.
I spotted another SEO issue. Doing a search on Adelaide for example:
page 1: http://www.squiiz.com.au/Search/Buy/Adelaide+SA+5000
page 2: http://www.squiiz.com.au/Search/Buy/Adelaide+SA+5000/?propertyTypeId=&sortDirection=1&suburbId=11706&surroundings=true&pageNumber=2
page 3: http://www.squiiz.com.au/Search/Buy/Adelaide+SA+5000/?propertyTypeId=&sortDirection=1&suburbId=11706&surroundings=true&pageNumber=3
Those 3 pages have the same title tag: Search Results for Properties in Adelaide SA 5000
and no metatags indicating that they are unique pages with no cannonical tag (This tag lets google know that these pages are similar to another)
Sorry for the technical talk, but these are issues I´m also struggeling, since I´m in the process of re-launching my own property portal.
Merv Barrett
Totally was seeing the same result and it hasn’t improved much since I think now they are at 42 indexed pages. Woeful result, if I built the site I would sack myself.
It’s like they never thought of the end user let alone Google or SEO.
I’m in a funny position as I created a WordPress plugin called Easy Property Listings and did a video and can build Squiiz in one hour.
They really need to seek some advice if they are to ever have a chance at even scratching at REA.
I’m thinking they are hoping that the app will be the second coming, however it really doesn’t do much of anything unique…
Glenn
My new site has been up about a week and has 2,700 pages indexed last time I looked….something very wrong with Squiiz
Beating REA ? Sorry not even worth discussing.
REA are cleverer than anyone else in the market by far……..
Glenn
Should have looked first, back to 168 but we’re still tweaking…..(rolls eyes)
Glenn
There’s a definite problem with the domain name, I just searched http://www.squiiz.com.au on Chrome and got this –
Did you mean: http://www.squiz.com.au/
Glenn
http://www.squiz.com.au has a PR of 6, that’s not easy to get………..
Pete
The website is called ‘Squiiz.com.au’, not ‘squiz.com.au’.
The fact that squiz.com.au is redirecting to another site has absolutely nothing to do with ‘SQUIIZ.com.au.
Also, there is no confusion on Google’s part, only the users who seem to be searching ‘squiz’ instead of ‘squiiz’. If you google ‘squiiz’, they are there. No confusion.
This domain name was a poor choice from the marketing team as it is a miss spelling and the correct spelling already exists. Branding nightmare!
Also, if a website has a responsive design (mobile friendly), then there is no need for an app.
Getting back to the OP, every single point he highlighted is normal. Nothing unusual about those stats of a site that was launched 2 weeks ago. Its as if you have no understanding at all about how Google works and unfortunately neither do the agents who advertised with them.
Glenn
Did you mean: http://www.squiz.com.au/
Even Google tries to point searches on Squiiz to Squiz if that isn’t an indicator of a bad choice of domain name what is.
Glenn
PR may not be updated any more but squiz HAD a PR of 6 and that’s significant.
They would be regarded as trusted by Google.
Glenn Batten
You are entitled to your opinion but it seems at least for the moment you are in the minority and many people commenting here and offline are experienced in rolling out property websites and portals and they see exactly what I do.
Getting a site indexed if you submit a sitemap takes minutes at best, hours normally and certainly days at the latest. The problem here is not google indexing the website as they have found and indexed all the pages they can.. its that they cant see those property pages. there is nothing for Google to follow to find those properties.
Maybe you could tell us how Google’s spiders could actually find those pages to index them? There is no way to find them through links from the home page nor is their a sitemap.
If that is not bad design, what is it then?
Pete
Page rank is dead! It means nothing and Google is no longer updating it. So that pr 6 could be a pr2 now. We will never know.
Also, where is the pr coming from? Is it coming from highly related, high quality websites, or is it coming from spammy, unrelated, inorganic and unnatural links, paid links, etc. If yes, then that or6 could be extremely toxic!
(even though that is not the website the OP is referring to.
Page rank is dead.
Glenn Batten
PLEASE NOTE: There is about 5 or so responses that have been made and have not been displayed in the responses. They have not been moderated but there is an issue the techs are looking into it.
UPDATE: The missing comments have been now fixed.
Pete
Just because I’m in the ‘minority’ in this thread doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
I’m not saying the site a good or bad design. I’m also not disputing what you see. In fact, if you read my comments, I’m in agreement with you.
What I am highlighting is the fact that this website launched 2 weeks ago in a massively competitive niche. How can you expect the site to rank well for both competitive and long tail search terms in such a short period of time, with no links??????
Google bot can easily find those listing pages……easily!
1) Social media: All they need to do is promote each listing page via facebook, twitter, google plus, Linkedin, etc, etc so Google can see the url and index it.
2) Links – Linking to each listing url via blog posts, bookmarks, etc.
I hope this answers your question.
Glenn Batten
***How can you expect the site to rank well for both competitive and long tail search terms in such a short period of time, with no links??????***
Why do you keep asking that.. Show me where I have questioned that.. I didnt expect them to rank well. This is something only you have commented on… I expected them to be indexed by now. Maybe you dont understand the difference between indexed and ranked. They are two entirely different things.
***Google bot can easily find those listing pages……easily!***
Ahhh so you agree that Googlebot cant find the property pages through the site design itself.. The rankings of the y have to hope that agents tweet or put a public post on facebook or in a blog to each listing.
Like that has a snowball chance in hell of happening on each property 🙂
That’s a unique SEO Strategy.. Hope that third parties link to all your pages so the search engines can find you.. You cant be suggesting that was Squiiz’s seo strategy ???
Lets keep the discussion in reality I think..
Pete… tell me, you called agents customers in an earlier post. Customers???
What connection do you have with the site or Squiiz?
Pete
Well when you talk about SEO you are talking about all aspects. You keep referring to how bad there SEO is.
You said:
‘They forgot to do even basic level seo on the website and the two main search engines, Google and Bing have essentially rejected them.’
First of all, Google and Bing haven’t ‘rejected’ them. What does that even mean?
Secondly, I never said Google could access the listing pages via their site and even if they did ‘index’ all of their listing pages it would make ZERO difference to the overall performance of the site. In fact, it could have a negative impact.
You said:
‘Maybe you could tell us how Google’s spiders could actually find those pages to index them?’
So I gave you the answer. Period.
Also, if they have a marketing department (or not), they should be implementing social media marketing, SEO, etc themselves (in house or outsource), without having to rely on brokers to do that work for them. lol
I agree that relying on brokers to link to them is not a viable SEO strategy and that is not what I was suggesting…… at all! I never insinuated that this was how I perceived Squiiz’s SEO strategy.
And FYI, if you are suggested I am affiliated with Squiiz because I referred to their customers and ‘customers’ (what else are they), then you are mistaken.
For the record, I think Squiiz, or any other newbie in the online realestate space is a total waste of time. You cannot compete! It’s like coming out with a new carbonated Cola drink and taking on coke! lol
Glenn Batten
Fair enough..
I always thought it was the goal to get your pages on Google. Here I was thinking that would bring you traffic.
Now I know all those property pages indexed on Google would provide “ZERO” difference and may even have a “negative impact”..
I am always happy to learn something each and every day!!!
I think we will leave it right there. 🙂
Pete
These discussions are always good because it highlights certain aspects that someone might not have otherwise know and gets people talking about it.
Let me quickly share why having every single listing page ‘could’ have a negative impact.
1) If there were 200,000 listing pages indexed by google, on a brand new site like Squiiz, it would drain all (if any) of the power from the main pages that you would want to rank well, making it nearly impossible for the home page, etc to get some decent page rank, authority, trust resulting that it takes to achieve decent rankings.
2) I’d imagine these 200,000 listing pages are also listed on other websites. That being said, you wouldn’t want Panda to slap you for duplicate content (seen it happen). Noindexing these listing pages in the short term might be the best option until the main pages build up some juice (or not making them accesible via your site).
Martin Crampton
So, again real estate agencies are supporting the chipping-away of their control.
This discussion is about buyers & tenants doing more & more direct Google searches, Surely agents would prefer their own websites gaining some visibility within the ocean of portal spam dominating Google searches. I reckon Realestate agents used to be marketing innovators. What has happened?
Glenn
Time for us to get together Martin and do another one, properly, cheap and affordable for all agents.
John Stevens
I think the moral of the story is that nobody, not even the gazillion SEO experts knows how Google ranks pages as that is proprietary.
The fundamental requirement of building a website is to make it useful, useable and fast and help search engines with appropriate metatags. Thats all.
Glenn Batten
The problem here is not one of ranking, it is one of indexing. You have to be indexed before you can rank. Google is not indexing those pages because it cannot see them.
Saying that, my personal opinion is that based on the current onpage seo, even if they were indexed they would rank well. But as you say, nobody can say for certain … until they are indexed..
crawl, walk, run
publish, index, rank
There is a natural progression to follow and Google needs to find them and index their site before they can display them.
Glenn
REA has over 19 million pages indexed, they’re in real trouble (rolls eyes)
Glenn Batten
“could” be in trouble Glenn… could be!!! 🙂
Glenn
Yes Glenn I forgot about their attack dog legal department 🙂
Glenn Batten
I have done an update to the article. Late last week Squiiz added a robots.txt file and a sitemap.xml as a sitemap index and as I described the property pages started to be indexed virtually immediately and in just a few days there is nearly 40,000 properties indexed.
Congrats for the team getting straight onto this.
Pete
This site could have 1 million pages indexed and it would make no difference to their traffic in its current condition.
Obviously a page has to be indexed to get traffic from search engines, but indexed pages doesn’t equal traffic.
Glenn Batten
There are many more things they need to do before they rate well however the first step is now done.. the next step IMHO is their onpage seo.
Somebody at Squiiz has run a woorank report which was interesting reading..
http://www.woorank.com/en/www/squiiz.com.au
Virtually non existant onpage seo. The page title does not even have real estate or property in it. Same with the keywords. Also no H1 or H2 tags, non keyword based h3 tags.
Hopefully we will see this stuffed fixed in a day or two.
One thing I was very surprised at was the server location is in the USA and they are using cloudflare cdn to speed up access here in Australia.
Glenn
The best place to hide a dead body is on page 2 of Google search results so they have a lot of work to do.
Perry Smythe
Interesting article and have enjoyed reading the various comments regarding indexing vrs SEO. I suppose it goes to show that there’s still big gaps in knowledge when launching a presence online.
Jason D
Squiiz is terrible. Poorly designed and constructed, misses the mark on almost every facet of building a website.
No hope of challenging the major portals.
Face facts. Your hatred and bias towards said portals masks what could otherwise be a nicely objective article.
Glenn
I think the article is probably the best advice they’ve had so far, they should be paying for it.
It simply tells the truth.as you did in your first and second paragraphs.
Glenn
I thought you were talking about hared against Squiiz – “hatred and bias toward said portals”……..We need a delete button for posts and an edit function as well for that matter………
Glenn Batten
Maybe you are right and that is what he meant. I just did not think so.
I assumed his point was that I did not pick on Squiiz enough. As an investor (and I believe one of the founders) in REA he provides a different perspective to any articles about REA specifically or portals in general.
ie. A strong Squiiz or indeed any other portal providing effective competition will financially effect him directly.
Thats not to say his opinions are not welcome, you just need to understand his perspective on the topic just like anybody needs to understand that I am an agent and I write from that perspective. If you look at his comments they only ever appear on articles about realestate.com.au or their competitors.
For me the article was specifically about the SEO failure and that was the focus but I have mentioned in comments that more details about what I think of their design, user interface etc etc..
Glenn
Ok I’ve got no idea who he is but I found his post a bit confusing……I don’t think REA have anything to worry about let’s face it if anyone looks like a threat they could just reach into the petty cash and buy them out.
The agents had their chance with the Industry portals and let that slide.
I will say this, Squiiz did a great job of getting agents on board, too bad the basic skills of running a web site weren’t present as well.
Glenn Batten
Hatred?? That is such a strong word. I don’t hate subscription based portals. I think they have their place. but I think it is pretty clear I really dont like the prices rises they have undertaken over recent years. Prices rises that backfired rather badly on them just recently for the first time.
If I was a shareholder in REA like you and not an agent my perspective would probably be different, but I certainly dont love or hate a public company or a website. .
Squiiz has some big challenges in design, user interface and branding but hopefully that can be fixed in time. The one thing they have got that realestate.com.au and domain.com.au do not is the support of the participants in the industry. They need to harness that better but whilst that support remains strong I would not rule them out of being at least competitive in the future.
Replacing realestate.com.au as the Number 1 portal would probably require a fumble or two from REA at the same time as they improved their own offering before that was a chance of reality. But stranger things have happened, especially on the internet.
Peter
Hosting a site in Australia will have no ranking benefit in Australia. It may be a little faster for Australian visitors, but nothing significant. I’ve only had bad experiences with Cloudflare, but each to their own.
Glenn Batten
Peter.
I disagree with “no ranking benefit” To save me explaining why I think this here is some articles that also believes that the hosting location is a ranking factor..
http://www.seochat.com/c/a/website-promotion-help/server-location-as-local-ranking-factor/
http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/5-less-known-but-important-ranking-factors-that-affect-search-engine-results/
http://www.seocopilot.com.au/blog/on-site-seo/
Because SEO is more an art than a science, as you would expect there are bound to also be some SEO sites that claim that it has no or little benefit however in these cases its best to see what Google actually officially states on the matter and the guy in charge of this stuff at Google is Matt Cutts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keIzr3eWK8I
Not their latest video but still on their official Google Webmasters channel. I believe it is one of the 200 or so ranking factors and it would be best to have it hosted in Australia. You can minimise the impact of server location by using a .com.au address which they do or by specifically stating it
Whilst think it has a negative effect I dont think in this case it has a large negative impact and my comment on server location was more about latency and service availability. The site will appear a little sluggish because of the USA server location but as say nothing too significant..
I was surprised… and I went and checked the location of other portals and as far as I could see they are all in Australia.
John Stevens
Can we keep this thread going? its been a scream. I think we can get up to 65 if we try hard enough.
Peter
I tend to agree with Google’s comments here https://www.seroundtable.com/seo-geo-location-server-google-17468.html
Google said:
‘For search, specifically for geotargeting, the server’s location plays a very small role, in many cases it’s irrelevant. If you can use one of the other means to set geotargeting (ccTLD or Webmaster Tools’ geotargeting tool), you don’t need worry about the server’s location.
Straight from the horses mouth.
Anyway, from personal experience I have to agree with Google’s statements.
Glenn Batten
I said “I dont think in this case it has a large negative impact ”
and you quote “the server’s location plays a very small role”
Thats the same thing and confirms if you can set your location in other methods you dont have to worry about physical location. But the chances that either of those alternative solutions was in place at that time is virtually nil.
Hopefully Squiiz has moved on. They quickly followed the suggestions made here and got their pages indexed in the time frame I suggested they would although I still dont see them coming up in the SERPS.
Peter
Yes you did say “I don’t think in this case it has a large negative impact ”, however, it had ZERO impact.
Server location is irrelevant whether you believe it or not.
Peter
FYI – The video you referenced is from 2009! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keIzr3eWK8I).
Jason D
This just in for 2015.
Squiiz is still terrible.
Ben
Don’t know how you figure that Jason D – to me it looks really clean, simple and is easy to navigate. Not cluttered up with all the crap you get on the majors which are still slaves to 20 year old design sensibilities. Major improvement in my books, well done squiiz’ers.
Jason D
Yes it is very very modern.
The 6 listings in Hawthorn are very impressive as well.
keneza
So its now April and the site still has very little traction.. Two actions needed IMO are –
– Immediate name change to something that makes sense and can be spelt correctly that relates to property
(not sure who keeps coming up with squiiz or homehound etc)
– Major franchises agree to a lag on their multi upload to all sites excluding squiz (say of 48 hours) public will follow where the listings are first displayed and will be benneficial for their rankings too if they get the original data
Jason D
Yes, it is going very well.
Prize Homes
I think the moral of the story is that nobody, not even the gazillion SEO experts knows how Google ranks pages as that is proprietary.
The fundamental requirement of building a website is to make it useful, useable and fast and help search engines with appropriate metatags. Thats all.