Lay My Hat

+1 Russellt. Fingers crossed the slow burn approach will eventually pay off. I have decided to list on a few sites over the winter that offer a free or low cost listing, provided I like the site and approach, in the hope one or more will take off. I like to think in the end free market forces will win out and the best/lowest cost sites for guests will prevail, but for that to happen we really need to get the word out and list our properties.

None of us have a crystal ball.
Collaborative decision making is proven to be the most effective.

How refreshing and heartwarming to have all views considered and listened to, even if ultimately the decision is different to an individual perspective!

Your approach is much appreciated Nigel.

This thread seem to have been hijacked, it's supposed to be about simplyowners.net

Apologies

paolo wrote: it's supposed to be about simplyowners.net

What more to say? The mere mention of ethics, money and lawyers in the same thread is enough to quieten the most opinionated souls.

Apologies, I tried to be obtuse, but then found myself getting sucked in and responding to others. A veritable whirlpool. Hand smarting from the slap.

Simply Owners phoned me a couple of days ago...

They told me that if I typed Owners Direct I would see their listing. I was sitting in front of my computer so typed it using Google. Their listing did not appear.

I was then told that they could see it and other people could see it. & was I using Google.

After I repeated that I was using Google but couldn't see it they hung up..

Strangely today I typed Owners Direct and Simply Owners came up...

I never found out the purpose of their call..

I have just searched Owners Direct on Google and yes they did come up, but understandably only as a paid add, not in the organic search results. It appears OD have a stalker - I bet they are fuming!

When I searched 'holiday lets Cornwall' and similar, they did not come up. Perhaps the paid add will be enough to boost web clicks and get them to page one organically, who knows.

Yes, I got a call with the same message too and had a brief conversation. I asked the person calling to forward me a link to their site and she forwarded me a link showing what my advert on the site would look like if I chose to make it live as they have now added a button for you to push should you wish to go live with the ad they've created for you (with the assurance that if you do not wish it to go live then this will not happen). The ad is lifted from OD with a few minor amendments but looked fine so I decided to give it a try. I will report back if I get any enquiries.

Doesn't show up at all for me in any Google Search for 'Owners Direct'

Shows up 7th in a search for 'Simply Owners'

Last week, when I went on there and searched for my village I got 7 pages of properties, hardly any in my village, most from towns many miles away (very Owners Direct indeed!).

Just now, there were only 4 pages, again hardly any from my village. Whether lots of people have asked them to remove their listings I don't know.

They haven't pinched my listing from OD at all. I don't know whether to be offended or not! Or maybe they just can't find it, like all the other holidaymakers...

Assume you weren't asked to pay for your listing Yorkshire Lass?

No charge at the moment but I think they did mutter something about phoning me in 3 months to review how things were going.

ManxRed1 wrote:They haven't pinched my listing from OD at all. I don't know whether to be offended or not! Or maybe they just can't find it, like all the other holidaymakers...

Does that mean you were not one of the "chosen ones", or that you were chosen but they wrote the listing themselves?

Deleted : not really relevant

casasantoestevo wrote:to save your photos being "reused". one should add a watermark. We have ours with the website on it. Where that is not allowed we use the property name at the listing portal.
It may not stop theft but it will make some think twice and you can always trace back from where the photo originated from.

good idea ... will do the same from now on