1) Ingrained Bureaucracy (w/ a capital “B”)
2) NAR has a status quo formidably built over 100 years.

Great post, Rudy.

Once again, I nominate you for the role for NAR.

VOTE FOR JAY TODAY!

Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia

A dramatization that illustrates why we need the National Real Estate Library.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1556063484/bctid1556133612

NAR takes advantage of the fact that few Realtors, few attorneys actually understand internet marketing, what it is, how it works. That’s a huge victory for NAR. It’s really all they need. Because it permits them to hide behind this nonexistent trademark infringement dodge.

MOST Realtors with websites pay to have them done and maintained. They do NOT know how they work, especially how they appear in the Search Engine (Google, Y!, etc) on those search results. That’s the key to this. NAR does know.

The case can be made that non-NAR members have no right to use the Mark. Realtors PAY to use the Mark in anyway they see fit that complies with ethics. In any trademark infringement action, the first “bar” that has to be crossed is “dilution or harm” to the Mark. Realtor’s websites do NOT dilute or harm the mark, in fact, they enforce and promote the Mark. Second, if Realtors can use the mark in any other advertising media EXCEPT internet advertising, why would that be? What’s so important about that that the NAR singled out URLs, only? The answer is money. NAR wants to wrongfully dominate internet marketing for all things Realtor, all things real estate in each and every state, city, town and region. It’s about money.

History: NAR started this policy after realtor.com came into being. At first, realtor.com offered free inclusion for Realtors at the site, including a direct link to the Realtor’s website. THEN, the light went on in their old fuddy brains. Why not CHARGE Realtors for inclusion? And so, within a couple of months, realtor.com removed all the Realtor website info and links and started a strong-arm campaign to sign them up. The great majority of Realtors (at least those that knew they didn’t need realtor.com because their site was doing just fine, thank you, did not sign up). NAR took notice of this and took steps to wipe out competing Realtor websites. But only those with area descriptors in the URL.

The no-use of Realtor in a URL WITH AN AREA DESCRIPTOR, such as “sarasotarealtor”, “miamirealtor” policy was born. Why just the area descriptor prohibition? That’s the first clue. Because, NAR learned that, consumers most always (duh!) type in search terms like this: find miami realtors, find a Boston realtor. NAR wanted all those searches to lead to— realtor.com. Tada. WHERE, if a Realtor wanted to be “seen”, he/she would have to subscribe, get an NAR-hosted site, etc. More money for NAR.

And of course, the more hits realtor.com got, well, the more advertisers. More money!

NAR learned that consumers looking for goods, services, etc., tend to pick from the top three results on any search at Google, Y, MSN, etc. BUT! All the really good area-specific websites were beating the pants off them. How to stop this? Stop the competing websites, kill them, shut them down. Force ALL consumers to realtor.com.

Does this help the consumer choose the appropriate area Realtor when he gets to realtor.com? No. Hardly ever. Because, only those Realtors who are paying blackmail money to realtor.com are shown. Perhaps less than a 10th of the Realtors in any given area are seen at realtor.com. So, is the consumer getting a fair deal? Certainly not. As a matter of fact, at the lowest tier of inclusion at realtor.com, Realtors are given no way for a consumer to contact them, period.

That notwithstanding, the next clue as to their intent and objective is the new “no redirect, no 301″ policy. What exactly does that mean and how is it a clue?

When a website has matured and is doing well (and that means it shows up well in a search at G or Y or MSN), it has accrued “trust”, “backlinks”, size, content, age– all of the factors that are actual “votes” for the authority of the site, it’s usefulness, its RANKING. It is everything. Absent all that, the site would disappear into the ether. Those that don’t have most of those “votes” do not do well.

So, a 301 redirect (from old “noncompliant” site to new “compliant” site), which is recognized by all the search engines permits all that “juice”, “clout” to follow to the new “compliant” website. You would think, NAR problem solved. Old noncompliant website gone, new compliant website up. That was the first policy. But, NAR discovers that– horrors! The new compliant websites are still competitive. Still high in the search engine results! Hence the “no redirect policy”.

Now, with no redirect, guess what? Your new site is dead and buried. It may never, ever regain the ranking it worked so hard to achieve.

So, why kill and bury a now compliant website? Because it’s not about the use of the Mark, it’s about competing with NAR for advertisers, consumers, money, money, money.

And, NAR is buying these defunct sites up. Do we really believe that they’re worried about the Mark? Or are they planning to sell them back to Realtors– or are they using them in some arcane way to redirect to realtor.com?