What’s In A Name?
By
As a REALTOR that has been involved with Internet marketing for many years, I remember the first time I was able to find myself and my websites on the popular search engines. As new search engines start up and some older ones have lasted, Google is still the major search engine that brings the most website visitors.
The easiest thing for any webmaster to rank for is his name, unless it is a very popular name like John Smith. You wouldn’t think there would be too many Carolyn Capalbo’s out there, and there aren’t. But unfortunately, Carolyn Capalbo, a very successful REALTOR in northern Virginia, is sharing her name with the mother of Ashley Dupre. Ms. Dupre was involved in a sex scandal with former New York Governor, Eliot Spitzer. Not something a REALTOR with a website presence wants to be associated with.
In fact, acquaintances and clients of Carolyn’s have asked her if she is Ashley’s mother. It isn’t a common name, so they’re not sure.
The big problem for Carolyn is how much business she has lost from prospective clients that have searched her on Google by name and find the first page loaded with links to the scandal. Worse yet, the new “images” section Google now shows are full of photos of Ashley and her friends in bikinis. Pictures of Ashley Dupre coming up for a search of Carolyn Capalbo. A double whammy for Carolyn the real estate agent.
A group of fellow real estate agents, webmasters and more are coming to Carolyn’s aid. In fact, a contest has been created by Morgan Carey of Real Estate Webmasters (REW) to help Carolyn regain her first page search engine results for her own name. Carolyn Capalbo is a client of REW – click her name link in this sentence to view her great website.
Carolyn is a full-time, professional and successful agent in Prince William county and surrounding areas. She is now on my list of referral agents for Northern Virginia.
