RDFO®Rent Directly From Owner

Information for property owners

Why is RDFO better than some other vacation site I have found?

Are you advocating that we stop using other sites to advertise our properties?

You have been around for years but I have never heard of you. What's up with that?

Having a high ranking on Google is important, but where is RDFO.COM in some of the other search engines?

Can I use the URL of the page which describes my property at one of the other vacation sites?

How do I know if you are doing me any good?

How do I become a member?

Why is RDFO better than some other vacation site I have found?

- RDFO is a search engine which has a massive database of rental properties owned by individuals. RDFO uses a proprietary web crawling technology to build this database. RDFO is NOT a web hosting site like the plethora of other vacation property sites out on the Internet. People looking for vacation rental property really like the idea about going to a site which lists properties from all over the web. They don't need to spend time trying to find each one of the advertising sites and spend their valuable time navigating around each one of them. Think about it, why do you use Google to perform generic searches? Because it is fast and it works. There is no need to go to Yahoo or Alta Vista or the other search engine sites. Our users use us for the same reasons. To our knowledge, we are the only service of this kind, and since we use a proprietary web crawling technology that has been under development for years, it is unlikely others will be able to easily duplicate what we have done.
- Referral Networks! RDFO is the ONLY site which allows you to easily join or form a referral network. Networking is a very powerful tool. It allows you and your fellow owners to help each other out and to keep the guests in YOUR area instead of losing them to a another vacation spot. If they like your area, odds are they will be back. In addition, when you enter a referral into the network we keep a log of it and allow you (and only you) to go back and get the names and emails of people you referred to. So, if someone contacted you in February of 2005 to stay in your ski condo but you did not have availability and you entered them into the referral network. Then in January of 2006 you can go view your history and get the contact information for the person you referred and contact them again to see if they are planning on returning. Some of our RDFO members have told us that the Referral Network feature is worth the yearly membership fee all by itself.
- Simple & Clean User Interface! We are not bombarding the user with rental car ads or airplane tickets or who knows what. Once the user goes to our site they immediately "get-it". That is, they know what the site is all about. They don't need to do a bunch of clicks to get to the listings. Compare the RDFO interface to the others you have used and decide for yourself! You are looking at it right now!
- Since our search engine only has a link to the owner's site, once an owner is in the database he really never has to update anything in RDFO again. If he wants to change his web page, he just does it at the main site, and it is done. No need to come over to RDFO and do an update. If you advertise on multiple sites you know the time required to keep them all updated. You have better things to do with your time than updating multiple sites about your property.
- It does not take you hours to fill out all the information to become registered. You only need to answer a few questions, on one page. Total time required is less than 5 minutes. If you have signed up with other vacation sites you know how much of a hassle it is to answer all the questions. The majority of your customers are searching for properties based on location, followed by number of bedrooms, followed by price. You main web page has all the other details, why waste your time reentering all that information? If you have a main web page, why should we be so presumptuous that we can design something better then you can? That is why we send them directly to YOUR page. If you don't have your own page you can tell us to direct the customer to the site which does describe your property.
Are you advocating that we stop using other sites to advertise our properties?
That is up to you. If they are doing a good job for the price they charge then probably not. A yearly membership is only $80 (6 month memberships are also available) and we do offer a guarantee. In addition, the first year of membership at RDFO is FREE! Our fees are extremely competitive with other services out there (most charge around $150 and some charge over $300).
You have been around for years but I have never heard of you. What's up with that?
Before 3/1/2005, our service was completely free. Google, is a wonderful thing. We know the many tricks necessary to get Google to find our site. In fact, on 7/26/05 we were the #1 site on Google for "rent directly from owner" query. In addition, if you property happens to be listed in one of our top 10 sites then when Google indexes our site they will find the URL to your property on that page. That page is only 1 click away from the main page and since it is so close search engines will give it more importance. If your property happens to be in the top site of the month then it will show up on our main page which is even better. The more links you have to your property the more visibility the search engines will give you.
There is a also a good chance that people have found your web site because of our search engine and you didn't even know it. Remember that until 3/1/2005, we just provided a link to your page. You might want to ask your guests over the previous years if they got to your listing via RDFO.COM You might be surprised at the answer. If you do a search and don't see your listing that does not mean it was never there. Our systems may have removed it if we detected the web site was not available. All web sites become unavailable from time to time. When you Opt-in our system will not remove you from the database, we will assume the link is valid (even if it is not available for some reason). If we do think there is a problem with your site, we may send you an email to check into it.
Having a high ranking on Google is important, but where is RDFO.COM in some of the other search engines?
We hired an independent company which provides ranking (and other) information. Here is a excerpt of a recent (7/28/2005) report:
WWW.RDFO.COM is in the TOP 20 in these engines:
    You're # 4 on All The Web
    You're # 1 on AOL
    You're # 1 on Google
    You're # 13 on HotBot
    You're # 8 on SearchMSN

The above information is for the "rent directly from owner" query. Where does your site or the sites you list with show up? If prospective renters cannot find you or your site, how will they contact you to rent your property?
Bottom line is to get your property in front of people who are looking to rent it.
You can have the best property and web page in the world. However, if prospective customers don't find it then it does you absolutely no good.
Can I use the URL of the page which describes my property at one of the other vacation sites?
Sure, we don't care, as long as the URL describes your property.
How do I know if you are doing me any good?
That is actually a very good and reasonable question. Our search engine results provide your phone number. In addition, we provide an email link which people can use to send you an email. However, most people will contact you via the web page that we direct them to. We do ask people to mention RDFO.COM but we doubt many people actually take the time to do it. If you have your own domain then you can probably contact your service provider and get what are called referral reports. These reports will indicate how many people were directed to your web page via RDFO.COM. We recommend that you look at our search engine along with our rankings on Google and the other search engines. If you think we have a reasonable shot at increasing your visibility then why not give us a shot? A 12 month membership is less than two tanks of gas and will more than pay for itself if you rent a single night plus it is probably tax deductible!
How do I become a member?
Just click here and answer a few questions. The entire process will take less than 5 minutes and the first year of membership is totally free.