Open-Realty® 3.0 has introduced a number of new features that improve search engine optimization.  First off, for anyone who does not know what search engine optimization is, wikipedia.org provides a decent description which follows:

"Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site or a web page (such as a blog) from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to other forms of search engine marketing ("SEM") which may deal with paid inclusion. The theory is that the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine."

Meta Robots Tags

- In Open-Realty®3.0 we have improved SEO link generation in multiple ways, the first is through the use of the meta robots tag, which instructs search engines if they should index a page and if they should try to follow the links on the page. If you view the page source for an Open-Realty blog archive page, you will see the robots tag that instructs the search engine to follow, but not index the page. Under what conditions should a web page not be indexed? The answer is simple: search engines hate duplicated content, so only your pages that contain unique content should ever be indexed.

Canonical Links

- The second way which we have improved upon SEO is through the use of canonical links. Often there are multiple URLs that will resolve to the same page, for example, the standard link and the SEO link. If the search engine finds multiple links that lead to the same page, it thinks you have duplicated content. Canonical links tell the search engine, this is the page's main URL. The search engine then understands the page is not duplicate content, but it is in fact the same page found through a different URL and therefore does not penalize you.

Customizable SEO Links

- The third thing we have done, (this is for all you Wordpress fans out there), is that we added customizable links. Customizable links are really great if you are replacing a previous website that the search engines already know about. For example if you have a Wordpress blog installed that you are replacing with the Open-Realty Blog Publisher, and Wordpress is installed in a folder named "wpblog" on your site, you may want to change the blog index page to be "/wpblog/index.php" in Open-Realty so the search engine and (more importantly) your users can find the blog in the same location on your site. You could also use this feature to put things like the MLS Number from your IDX or RETS data feed into your listing's URL. For example, for a listing with the MLS Number "20100615", you can make the URL http://mysite.com/listings/20100615 );

Compression & Caching

- Last but not least, in Open-Realty® 3.0 we are using gzip compression to compress your pages, css files, and javascript. Why does this compression matter? Most importantly it allows your site to load faster for your visitors. Secondly, this feature helps improve your Google site rankings as Google has decided to take "site speed" into account in their search ranking calculation. In addition, we have improved upon the ability for your web browser to cache your site's css and javascript files, this results in faster page loads and less bandwidth usage.

Considering the SEO changes we have implemented, Open-Realty® is now a more powerful tool for your business. Now, your business can potentially be ranked higher in search results, and now your real estate site can be found by more potential customers. If you are using one of our MLS import tools for IDX or RETS, you can even further leverage your site's potential by increasing the number of unique indexable pages.

Ryan Bonham is the CEO and Lead developer of Transparent Technologies, Inc.

This page was created entirely with the Open-Realty® real estate Blog Publisher