http://lancewiggs.com/2009/02/05/finda-and-yellow-they-had-already-lost/

Given that statement you will be pleasantly surprised at what we are doing at PropertyNow.

I share your goal and we are definitely doing something about this.

There are some other sites also trying to make an impact in creating a better deal for house sellers in Australia. One of those businesses is called Private Point.

So you see, all is not lost .

At PropertyNow we’ll be looking at the possibilities of Google Base very closely as we try to level the playing field a little.

Keep the discussion going chaps and in the best tradition of Don Chipp , lets try to keep the bastards honest.

As for the whole evil empire thing, we all contribute to the power of the mighty G.

Google will remain the sole leader for as long as it can provide the most relevent search results to it’s market.

The minute they slant results or show obvious or blatant favouritism in the serps they damage their own effectiveness and they know that.

I think they know that well and that’s possibly why they are taking their time in exploring the real estate side of things in Australia.

Andrew Blachut
PropertyNow

TrueLocal’s arrangement with Google is over as announced in November last year.

http://www.business2.com.au/2008/11/27/domains-little-secret/#comment-76416

When this comes into place and if the current listings in Google’s Business Directory get removed i dont know but YellowPages now has the role.

One of many news articles discussing it:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/sensis-concedes-defeat-to-google/2008/11/03/1225560716428.html

In the meantime agents/agencies should be working hard on getting their websites Google compliant because never before has SEO been as important.

As for being described as an Evil Empire – that would apply to existing property portals opinion of Google. As Google already delivers more traffic and enquiries than any of the existing property portals. When I look at our Google Analytics traffic sources – direct is number one, Google/organic is number two, domain.com.au number 7 and REA at 13. So that provides a very strong clue:)

As Sal has pointed out searching for Australian properties on google Maps US has started working again. Sal reported this late last year but as soon as it worked it stopped. I certainly could not get it to show. I could go to Google Base US and search the properties but I could not get them to display on google maps, either the US or AU versions.

It has now started working again. I am hoping this is an indicator that they are starting to setup the mapping of Australian Real Estate addresses. Obviously it is not Google Base AU nor is it Google’s real estate solution for Australia, but it hopefully is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Apparently it a “Mapplet” that was created back in 2007, based on technology unveiled at Developer Day in Sydney in May that year (http://www.itnews.com.au/Tools/Print.aspx?CIID=82519) and has been publicly available in the Google Maps directory ever since.

I have never noticed it. and it does say it is from Google. Fool am I!