Canada Rentals Blog

Removing a page from search cache

david — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:53:30 +0000

I had someone (very nice) e-mail me to have me help them remove their info that has been stuck in google’s index for many months. She had posted an ad with us, and several months ago asked us to delete her ad – a very normal thing, which we always honor within one day.
Well, if you do a search for her on google, and weird URL for our site comes up that isn’t even the right structure of URL’s we use, and some of her ad info is being pulled in – however, the ad page with her info has been removed for many months – it is not on the remote server – so nowhere on our site is her information still active on our site.
The weird URL structure is…weird – her ad “address’ appears after /index.cfm/ (the homepage file for our site – which is completely strange.
Anyways, she went into google’s webmaster tools, and asked them to remove the information by submitting a support request. We’ll see if it happens, which I hope it does. This is uncharted water for me – almost always if you remove a page, within a reasonable amount of time it is removed from search results.
I am reluctant to do a “404″ for the page, as I don’t want the index page of our site 404′ed as well – I’ll have to look into that more after I do a little more research. It just makes me a little nervous…

Happy Thanksgiving Canada 2009

david — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:33:26 +0000

It came around again so fast! It seems like each year, the holidays come around even faster than the last! It’s been a good year for me, and for Canada Rentals. Our traffic has grown, which was really the only main goal and accomplishment for the year. I have a friend that asks me every year about this time what my goals are for the coming year, and I’d have to say that for next year, in terms of Canada Rentals, I’d like to try to roll out some new features, and make the site more automated and user friendly. Whether I will find time for that, who knows.
I am thankful to be able to do this kind of work, and to make a living off of it. Nothing beats getting up and working with a good cup of coffee, some good music playing, and being able to go for a run, or even take a nap during the day whenever I want to. It is my hope that I can keep this up indefinitely.
I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving – and please, don’t work…or work too hard!
~ David

A break for a little humor

david — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:39:37 +0000

Ok, this post isn’t really anything about rentals, but sometimes you just have to take a little time out for humor. A friend of mine posted this on Facebook (so I ‘facelifted’ it from him) and I am sharing it with the rental world…
So, without further ado…the Wood Spider..(Trust me, it’s pretty funny..with a little bit of ‘language’ if you are easily offended)

More Free Property Managment Tools From Pickrent!

david — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:02:54 +0000

Well, my friend Dave has done it again – He’s come up with another round of great property management tools and widgets for property managers and landlords. The one I really like is the Pickmap Widget. The PickRent Mapping Widget shows rental listings from you, the property manager in an interactive way.

Dave also offers a really great complete web site template that is very snazzy and interactive – it pulls in your listings from PickRent automatically so you never have to enter your properties twice.

I recommend to anyone interested in experiencing a rental listing website that has great architecture and design to look through all of Pickrent. Expect more great tools and widgets to come from Dave down the road!

Well, I am just delighted!

david — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:00:25 +0000

I have received so many great comments lately from people who tipped off from the plight of scammers after reading our blog post about scam e-mails and from our Fraudsters and scammers list here.

If I had accomplished nothing else from this site but saving just one person from being taken by one of these scams, I would be happy. So naturally, I am thrilled!

I will continue to post information about scammers, and hope that someday, the rental world will be a scammer-free world!

Thank you everyone for your great comments, and happy renting!

David

Well Duh, It’s Victoria Day

david — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:29:51 +0000

I always do this every year – have minor “panics” on certain days when traffic goes down. Now, I am not one who usually gets to excited about holidays…in fact, I usally forget that holidays have occurred until after the fact.

Today, I noticed that traffic was down a bit. Being in the internet business, that’s never a good sign, and I started to worry about it…only briefly, when I remembered that it is Victoria Day, so many people are taking the weekend off.

That’s good – since the weather is nice in many places, and people do need to unplug a bit.

I’ll stop worrying about traffic, and get outside and enjoy myself. Happy Victoria Day everyone!!

- Be Safe!

David

Will it blend

david — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:03:19 +0000

My friend Dave has done it again with another funny video for our Scammer friends…

How To Identify A Scammer Tool

david — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:57:28 +0000

Identifying scammers has been a big challenge on our site. We have been pretty successful in blocking many of these shady people, as well as educating our users about how to identify a scammer or a scam e-mail.

My friend Dave has launched a new site called Pickrent, and he has created an awesome Scammer Identification Tool and video. It is a really great, and very accurate way to dissect an e-mail or exchange to see what the likelyhood is that it is a scam.
I highly recommend that you try it if you think you might be a target of a scam.

Rents are ususally negotiable

david — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:34:19 +0000

In our time doing managing this site, we have heard of many people who have successfully negotiated a lower rental amount than what was advertised. If you bring something to the table that is desirable, often times the renter will favorably move on the rental amount.
Most landlords or property managers will happily take a person with solid references, and a willingness to sign a longer lease – at a lower rental amount – over a person with no rental history, or a person who can only sign a 6 month lease over the preferred year lease.
If you don’t have any pets, that is also a negotiating point. Don’t smoke? That is another one.
I had a friend that negotiated a lower rent by agreeing to paint the apartment she was living in. The bottom line – even if you don’t have much to bring to the table – is to ask. All they can say is ‘no’ and you might be surprised that the landlord is flexible, especially if they are highly motivated to rent the unit, or if it has been sitting on the market for a while.

Truly awesome

david — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:47:32 +0000

I don’t usually post things not related to rentals, but this one I had to – for some reason, I agree with its awesomeness..