Reminder: Wiki Guidelines

To: Wiki contributors
From: Wiki administrators
Re: The wiki ( aka Zillow™ Real Estate Guide)

First, thanks to everyone who has contributed to the wiki (yay!). People are adding articles in droves and we really appreciate your time and effort in doing so. But, to save yourself some hard work that might be lost, please help us keep the wiki as useful and vibrant as possible. What’s happening is that we’re seeing a lot of articles that are breaking the Real Estate Guidelines. Here are the two "don’ts" we’re seeing (and our solutions):

1. Promote a business or service. It pains us to do this, but we are removing articles of this nature, and have several suggestions for what you can do on Zillow to "get the word out":

• Add your business/service to the Directory of Real Estate Professionals page.
• Create a profile for yourself. When you create a profile, your contact info and photo thumbnail will appear any time you make a contribution on the Zillow site. Take a look at mine or Bloodhound’s, or Del Mar Mortgage’s or Cyndi Sloop’s — they’re easy to do and it’s fun to see how many people come to "check you out."
• Add your blog to the Directory of Real Estate Blogs and the Directory of Local Real Estate Blogs
• Advertise to a targeted audience with Zillow EZ Ads — at just a penny per ad view.

2. First person articles (e.g., I, me, my, our).  It’s pretty much inevitable that articles in the first person lead to advertising a business/service. Please avoid first person articles. Also, buyers, sellers, owners and consumers usually tune out these types of articles since they’re almost always promotional in nature. Rather, write in the third person objective, which presents information without a bias or slant. Moving forward, we will edit first-person articles so they appear in the third person. Or, if you’ve written first-person articles, please go ahead and rework them yourself.

Per Drew’s blog post in February, our goal is to create a Real Estate Guide that is a compilation of useful real estate information that consumers will turn to and depend on. Most importantly, your expertise will radiate from the articles and be very visible from your profile. When in doubt, consult the Guidelines or leave a comment here, or contact us. We’re listening!