I got another tip this morning to have a look at RentalHouses pricing page.
You can now list on RentalHouses for $39 / 30 days or you can list on RentalHouses, RentClicks, HomeRentalAds and Rentals for $79 for 30 days.
Judging by the graphic of the lawn signs I was correct in thinking that Rentals will be their flagship product. It will be a up hill battle for them to get traffic for Rentals just like what HomeAway.com is going through right now.
I think it was smart of them to offer the $39 package. Now the big question is will they allow any back-door unlimited plans to the larger property managers. I will guess that they have learned their lesson not to offer this because property managers talk to one another and soon as the word is out that some are getting special treatment they will have many unhappy smaller customers.
Heres a question. If you post on the family of sites does your ad run 45 days on HomeRentalAds?
I am very impressed that they could merge their databases together this quickly. They must have a good web site team.
Another question comes to mind. What does this do to the user experience? If I am looking for a place to rent and I hit the RentClicks site that is #1, then I look on RentalHouses that is #2 and then HomeRentalAds and I see all of the same listings will that provide a negative experience to the visitor to these sites?
Also they need to watch out for duplicate content issues, I can tell you from my own experience that Google does not like to display duplicate content - they know this provides a poor user experience and they will only show one copy of the content to the user.
So what is going to happen to all those property managers that got all that great exposure for their properties for a cheap unlimited plan? I would love to hear my readers thoughts on this…
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3 users responded in this post
“I am very impressed that they could merge their databases together this quickly. They must have a good web site team.” Wow, thanks! that was a huge compliment! It was a fun challenge to integrate so quickly across so many different platforms. In the rest of your post, You’ve got some great points and we’ll diligently address these issues. Good luck and how the heck do you get your info?
You’re a well informed individual
Rusty thanks for stopping by.
I am curious are you guys merging the backend for each site so when one site gets updated it reflects across all 4 sites instantly or is it scheduled nightly XML feed that updates the other sites?
As for where I get my information, it usually just shows up in my inbox!
I know that Homeaway.com is having a rough time getting their site (flagship vacation rental site) ranked well, I am wondering if that is the big push for you guys to get Rentals.com ranked well right away?