I used to work for Rentclicks so I have been curious how CSI would absorb Rentclicks and Rentalhouses. It was no secret that those two companies did not like each other so I have been watching from afar to see how things would work out.

It appears that not only has Dave left but Jason and Jonathan as well. It looks like the brain trust from RH….if you can call them that…….has won the war.

I would think things are going south for the last of the Rentclicks employees faster than PRM stock!

I should write a book!

Jim

I think you are in a minority however, because if you were to look at this poll I did here:
http://www.rentvine.com/blog/index.php/should-i-tone-it-down-a-bit/
You will notice from that poll that an overwhelming majority of people think I am not whining at all. In fact many of them said I should give me competition more of a hard time.

I found this entertaining until you said, “…their [CSI] history shows that they have failed… in the past.” ..but then you site an article about Primedia. CSi had nothing to do with About.com, ever. That’s like stating that Mercedez will likely fail because the Chrysler Prowler didn’t take off. You repeatedly insist that you treat your competitors [Primedia] with respect but you expend all your energy bashing them shamelessly.

Websites are a collection of pages linked together using urls. Some of those links are organic links designed to navigate to a reference or valuable resource while some are links bought to gain the benefit of another site’s audience. Google’s entire revenue model is based off of paid links targeted to specific traffic. NARPM is a very targeted audience and it would be absolutely foolish not to charge $ for a link on their home page. If NARPM believes that Rentals.com supports their brand and image, then it is not necessary to place nofollow on that link. If it is an anonymous, unqualified link, (blog comment, 3rd party banner ads) then the nofollow helps to protect the reputation of the host and indicate to the search engines that the link does not represent the image of the host site. Rentals.com is a link NARPM can be proud to host and proud to be paid form they earned that right. Neither Google nor yourself have the right to proclaim that exchnging money for established business value is unethical. Unless gettin gpaid for links on a website results in the widespread death of baby rabbits, I believe websites should continue to earn revenue for their success and they should be expected to market their product just like every other kind of business has since the beginning of capitalism: by getting a booth at the dang industry show!

You also said, “…most people to not like having to deal with large companies who attempt to dominate a market by buying out the major/minor players.” You’d think, by that logic, that Walmart and HomeDepot wouldn’t be successful. Their approach is to provide more under one roof for a lower price then the competition. I, personally, hate Walmart. I like small stores that specialize in their products and offer choices and expertise. However, walmart has $5 prescriptions. Many businesses have gone under both trying to compete with Walmart and trying to supply Walmart. If one wants to compete with Walmart today, one must provide a more valuable service or product then Walmart can aquire. Perhaps you should carry your laptop down to Walmart, slap a “no fair” sign on the back of it and prance around the parking lot crying about how mean they are for selling $6 baseball caps. Or, you could stop trying to imitate, think about what the current market leaders aren’t offering and fill that gap. But, if you prefer, you can call them failures and losers and unethical and mean and unfair and wimper until your little blog loses its edge and fades out of shear bordom for the same, old, tired story: my competitors aren’t giving me a turn.

Its one thing to insult a company and site incomplete statistics to try to create a dramatic story but you’ve resorted to insulting the people who are a part of that company, members of the industry you choose to compete in and, believe it or not, people not unlike you (except that they spend their time working, not whining). They feel satisfaction in a job well done, are pleased when their clients are happy and they like to make money doing it. That let’s them buy things like cares and college for their kids and links from other websites.

Try, if you can, to return to the time when you actually spoke with respect for your industry peers rather then just saying you do while insulting them in the very same keystroke.

I really enjoy the conversation – I am glad everyone is passionate about this topic even if some are against me.

When I worked for an engineering firm I had the opportunity to talk with my fellow engineers, but when I quit that job and started working out of my basement I was starving for that social interaction. This blog has helped me feel a bit more social. Thanks.

They have the stickman and that great sales manager at RH!

If $99 at one site brings you N leads and $99 over a number of sites brings you N leads then you are choosing the basket of sites over the one site for personal preference because surely keeping your listing current on one site is easier and less time consuming.

I do not want to advertise my home rental on a site that has tons of Apartment listings and so many housing rental ads that my ad gets buried….and I’m not going to spend $99.00 for a premier ad.

I will place an ad on a site that has decent traffic and I get lots of solid leads……and pay much less!

I do not go to Wal-Mart either….it is not convenient to me! But I’m sure you love it!

The consumer/ advertisers are better served by RC, RH and HRA being independent competing companies…….not part of the “take over the world” mentality of CSI!

“number of listings gets to big in a metro area the advertisers (PM’s) do not get as good of response from your site”

Yes that’s a problem all sites have, even Google. Once you have too many listings of any type, how do you get people to “relevant” information and generate leads?

But is the user better served by 20 sites each with 5 listings in a city, or by one site that has all those listings and a myriad of ways to slice and dice the data set? Most people these days don’t go beyond the first page of search results, especially when searching for a commodity that’s well served by one of the sites in the top 3 or top 10 results.

At the end of the day, it needs to be about the consumer, else a web site will not succeed, no matter what site it is, or how well funded it is.

PRM did not think the rentals.com master site out very well!