Google is about to revolutionize the way consumers find real estate agents

PHOTO: Google My Business

Clear your cookies. Delete your browsing history. Switch to Incognito. Google is poised to bring the power of aggregation to real estate.

First, a little history.

If you’ve worked in digital marketing since 2016, you remember when Google used to sell Sidebar Ads on the side of search results. These ads didn’t perform nearly as well as the ads at the top of the search results, and for good reason: the ads at the top of the page came before the organic results and had a fighting chance; the ads on the side competed directly with organic search results, and they were off-center, so they lost most of the time.

Google had a decision to make: what to do with the side of the page? White space, after all, represents a surfeit of opportunity.

If Google were one of those companies that sought to bilk consumers and advertisers out of every last ounce of trust and penny to boot, it would have stayed the course. Advertisers would have continued to buy ads — that’s what advertisers do. But at some point, some Silicon Valley David would have challenged Googliath, and won.