Can Weblogs Sell My Mate Steve's House?

Objective
To quickly build link popularity for the page on which Steve's property is featured so it turns up higher in related searches, thereby allowing him to reach more potential buyers for property in this area.

Why The Rush?
Steve's new job is all the way over at Oxford, and the commute is killing him (I can relate). He needs to shift his old house in Bromley house now, so he can move into new one that's closer to work.

How You Can Help
You can help to make this happen simply by linking to his site.

What's In It For Me?
Ah, good question. I did mention money, didn't I? OK, here's the deal… Steve has bet me a cool grand (£1000) that I can't help him sell his house by getting top results for queries like 'bromley property' within a few days (as opposed to a few weeks). I've told him how weblogs and daily indexing works, but the poor man lacks faith. We are about to prove him wrong, get his results, sell his house, and score some beer tokens in the process.

What Do You Mean 'We', White Man?
Ah, you see, here's the fun bit. If the search results come about and Steve sells his house via the website as a result (within the next month, i.e. by the 27th of July 2002), then he has to pay up. Everybody who participates will get an even share of my winnings. Really, I just want to see the look on his face when we actually do this. :o)

OK, So What's the Plan?
Every blogger who meets the criteria below and follows the instructions is up for an even percentage of the aforementioned £1000. If for some reason your blog or link does not qualify, you will be notified in advance and will have the option to make the necessary changes or withdraw from the project.

Condition One
You must own and run a blog that is indexed daily by Google.

Condition Two
You must place the link provided below outside of your blog content (so it doesn't disappear into your archive in a day, week, etc.). It doesn't matter where you put it, so long as that sucker is on your front page and gets indexed each day, everything will be Jake.

Step One
Cut and paste the following link code into your front page. Minor changes can be made for reasons of subtlety or aesthetics, but the function and name of the link is not to be altered.

Step Two
Advise me of the placement by email.

All qualifying participants will have their involvement confirmed by return email. The current number of participants will appear below and be updated daily to let you know if your cut is going to be £100, £50, £20, or whatever. Be warned that I reserve the right to reject any new participants once we crack that all-important top spot, and that I will definitely be limiting the maximum number of participants to fifty so as to avoid having to write a shedload of cheques for piddling amounts.

Current Number of Participants: 3
Current share of potential winnings for each participant: £333.33
(with the remaining penny to be held in trust until the next such activity)
http://www.bloggerheads.com/
http://www.funjunkie.co.uk/
http://www.ultimateinsult.net/

Now What?
That's it, really. You've either decided to participate or are only here for laughs. Either way, thanks for your time. I'll be publishing regular updates, so do drop by again sometime to see how we're getting on. Cheers all.

UPDATE 1

Three weblogs, that's all it took to get Steve's page to the top spot for the primary target search query bromley property (and a bunch of others besides). Three weblogs and three days. Even I'm impressed.

Needless to say, Steve is feeling pretty nervous right now. :o)

Sadly, this does mean that I am no longer taking applications for participation. All this page does right now is let you know what the hell's going on while we three link whores sit around with our fingers crossed, hoping that Steve sells his house by the 27th of July. Then, regarless of outcome, it's onwards and upwards again to see what else weblogs can do...

UPDATE 2

In one of those ironic twists that makes you want to strangle a cat, Steve received a solid offer on the house about a week ahead of the deadline, but it was from a lead via his agent. It wasn't until this same potential buyer got home and decided to have a peek around at other properties in the area that he saw Steve's site.

Ain't that a kick in the pants?

Still, with the power of three weblogs, we wiped the floor with over a dozen heavily armed estate agent's sites and came close to actually achieving something (as opposed to Googlebombing merely for the sake of it).

Onwards and upwards? You bet. I just need to have a little think about what we can do next.

UPDATE 3

Nov 2004 - The top result is still current, and Steve has now expanded the page in order to advertise other properties in the Bromley area. Isn't he a cheeky scamp?

Back to 'Can Weblogs...?' for further results and updates.

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