What Are The Advantage Of True Search?
True Search means people have tools and ways to search and pull a web site out among a huge list of hundreds of other brokers. This gives mortgage brokers a competitive marketing advantage. By listing strengths and marketing advantages, a mortgage broker can more effectively target the kind of customer they want to reach. True Search uses a sophisticated on-line database. The same type of database that WebCrawler, Lycos, and most other Primary Search Engines use. You'll find that most other directory systems are really "flat file" systems. The problem with "flat file" systems is that each entry is put in by hand and each loan shopper sees the same information no matter what they are looking for. Using our True Search Database, each loan shopper designs a customize "look" based on what's important to them. One shopper may find geography is important while the next may find something else like experience or loan type is more important. 

What Is The Advantage Of Listing Your Database?
Let's face it. The biggest problem on the Internet is finding things. Having an ordinary Internet Service Provider or Web Presence Provider build your web site is just not enough anymore. Once your site is up, no one will find it, and listing in an ordinary search engine or directory won't help. The reason is because hundreds or thousands of brokers will have already thought of that before you did. Ultimately, you need a search engine that allows you to differentiate your services, your specialty, and your company from the competition. You need "True Search"?.

The other thing you need is marketing. We advertise our database on major search engines and web sites. This advertising helps to ensure that people seeking mortgages go to only one site instead of having to visit thousands of mortgage sites. We also build calculators, provide general mortgage information, and rate information to attract traffic. Basically, we are in the full time business of advertising and marketing your web site. In addition, we generate, and help traffic find your web site. 

How Can We Offer This Service For Free?
This service is free because we want to be and remain the "largest" Mortgage Broker Search Engine on the Internet. The most important reason its free is because adding names and maintaining a "True Search" database is much easily and less expensive than building and maintaining hundreds of directory pages. It takes only seconds for us to add new names. 

I Submitted My Entry And I Cant Find It?
You entry should definitely appear within 30 days of your submission. If you did not receive a confirmation email, something has probably gone wrong. If you provided the wrong email address, your submission was probably rejected. If this is the case, please re-submit your listing. On occasion, we have had technical difficulties receiving new applications. You can also try searching by company name. 

Why Do You Need A Web Site?
Put your feet in the shoes of the average loan shopper. If your already shopping on-line, wouldn't you pick a broker that has a web site. After all, you could visit their web site and become acquainted with their company. You could send them an email or find out what kinds of rates they have. You can find out their values and the types of services they have. Or, on the other hand, you could also select the broker with no web site. To us, a broker with a web site has a clear and distinct advantage over those without one. In addition, our web customers receive a priority listing on top of any particular search stack.

Are There Other Databases Similar To "True Search"?
All of the primary search engines (Lycos, WebCrawler, and even Yahoo) use databases. However, these search engines are geared only to find a single global topic out of all the information on the Internet. Obviously, if you don't know where to start, a primary search engine is always the best place to go. Once you've got an idea of exactly what you want, a primary search engine isn't very helpful. The last search we did on  primary search engine resulted in thousands of web sites with the word "mortgage" in them. To find exactly what you want, you need a specific database that has the parameters that define exactly what your want. Building a web site is much simpler, easier, and cheaper than building and connecting a database to the Internet. However, we are specialists in software programming, database management, and marketing. Your web site is always treated like a business with 24x7 operation and even UPS back-up to ensure its always up. Our 1996 up-time record was 99.974% (we were down once for 2 hours during the major power outage affecting the west coast)

Won't My Entry Just Get Lost In The Crowd?
No, definitely not! Your name only gets lost if your services are similar to other brokers. Our search engine actually allows you more control over where you appear in the results than any other search database or directory. For one, Brokers should choose a specialty. A specialty actually increases the odds that someone will find you rather than decreasing them. Make sure your description is brief, concise and contains as many keywords as possible. Avoid marketing words. They just take up space and are rarely searched for. 

In addition, for a nominal charge, we have options so that you can now upgrade your listing. You can have your site sorted higher with higher priority so that it
appears higher in the list. You can make your web listing stick out by making it bold. In addition, if your company can deliver more services or provide them in more locations, you can also pay to increase the number of search parameters or services that your company will come up on. 

Here's an example of how True Search works. Let's say I'm looking for a broker who specializes in refinance loans for the state of California. I'm interested in
refinancing my current mortgage and I want to lock in a 30 year fixed rate loan before the rates go up any further. In addition, I want a mortgage broker who thinks they can get me the "lowest" rate. Now, how in the world would you ever find the brokers who match this description using Yahoo, Excite, or any other search engine on the Internet for that matter. The only way is through our search engine.

Still don't believe, try doing an example search. The example search performs a search on the exact same database to retrieve just one single entry.  

What If My Specialty Is Not Listed?
If you have a marketing advantage, we want to know about it. Our database is not static. We can instantly add a new category or specialty. If you are a customer of ours, we can build special categories to bring your unique marketing advantages to the top of our search engine. 

Can I List With Multiple States?
Of course. However, you can only list one state for free. There is a nominal charge for listing additional states, counties, cities, specialties, etc. - just upgrade your listing.

Can I Move Up In The List?
Of course. The free listing service has the lowest search priority. The final search results from our search engine are actually sorted. Our web customers receive top billing. They are our partners and sponsors of this search engine and they have made an investment in its success. In addition, for a nominal fee, you may upgrade your free listing to get a higher search order. Once you are in a particular order, you stay in that order for the duration unless someone above you cancels. So if your on top - you'll always be in top, so it pays to get there early. 

If I Host My Web Site With You, Do I Get Any Special Privileges?
Yes, we wouldn't have it any other way. First, as we discussed above, you get top billing for any particular search. In other words, if you meet any of the criteria that the target customer is looking for, you name will appear at the top. Second, our hosting customers receive a banner graphic that is displayed on the very top of the search engine at the beginning of their hosting period. Since the banner graphic is already built, this reduces your costs if you ever decide to advertise in the "your ad" region of the search engine. Thirdly, customers can have up to five separate states, cities, counties, specialties, etc. without charge. We are planning several other programs and will announce them as they become available. 

Why Are The Cities Not Listed In The Search Results?
This is really for your own protection as well as ours. The only way someone can discover the name of your city is to actually request that particular city. Without the city, it becomes difficult for other parties to use our list to compile a mailing list. This helps to reduce the amount of list stealing as well as bothersome mail that you receive. Obviously, we can't eliminate this, but it does help to deter this activity. If a prospect is really interested in your company, they can easily get the name of your city by calling you, emailing you or visiting your web page. 

How Is The List Maintained? Since Its Free, Won't Some Of The Listings Be Outdated?
Probably a few. But, keep a few things in mind. First, on a semi-annual
basis, we send out a letter to our members giving them an opportunity to update their entry or to upgrade their service. If the mail is returned, we update, enhance, or delete the names from the list. Second, free entries always appear at the bottom and entries that are returned from our mailing move-down one-notch in sort priority. Therefore, the least active entries always automatically go to the bottom of the list. From time to time, we check the bottom names and remove outdated entries. 

Why Do I Need To Choose A Specialty? I Can Do Any Type Of Loan?
We admit, most brokers can do most loans. However, many brokers do some loans better. They have special investor ties or other techniques they make them better. This differentiation is a marketable difference between brokers. If you don't have a specialty, you don't have to choose one, but choosing a specialty increases your odds of getting picked. If you have a specialty, then our database allow you to exploit this marketing advantage over your competition and also to the advantage of your loan customers. 

Is The Search Results Sorted Alphabetically?
No. The results are sorted by a numerical preference. Our hosting customers and sponsors are sorted to the top of the list whenever the search criteria makes them available. 

Why Do You Provide Mortgage Calculators And Reference. Isn't That My Job As A Mortgage Broker?
It is definitely your job and as often as we can, we try and remind our on-line enthusiasts that ultimately they must consult with a mortgage agent to receive the type of loan that is best for them. With that said, there are basically two reasons why we provide this information. First, our traffic is actively seeking information about mortgages and they want this information as soon as possible. By providing information and calculators, we give them an added service that encourages repeat and increasing traffic to our web site. Secondly, by providing basic calculators and basic information, the size, cost, and maintenance of you web site can be reduced. In other words, you won't need to provide this information on your web site. Finally, we can easily add links to your site or incorporate these capabilities into your site.

How Can I Check For My Listing In The Database?
You can search for a specific mortgage broker by going to the mortgage broker "By-Name" Search Form. 

Why Are The Search Results Limited To A Certain Number Of Mortgage Professionals?
Our search engine is very popular not just with loan shoppers but also with
low class net citizens who try to steal our list and who want to send you junk mail. Loan shoppers can easily find you by entering the parameters necessary to bring your company to the top. You can also upgrade your listing so that your company appears in the top of the search results. 

Why Is The E-mail Address Now Required?
The email address is now used for quality assurance and we will use your email address as our confirmation that your listing is accurate and up to date. We will send you an email from time to time; and if it is returned, your listing will be made inactive. The e-mail address you provide must be complete and written as if you were sending email to yourself.

What Is A URL/Web Address?
At a minimum, you must have at least a basic web address to get prospects from the Internet. If you don't have a web site, we can provide one to your for free. The Web address is what people type in to find your web site. The URL you provide must be complete and it must be actually written as you would need to browse to your web site. 

What Does URL Mean?
URL means Uniform Resource Locator. It is your web address. For example, http://www.LoanPage.com.

What Is SSL?
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and it is your assurance the information is protected while it is being sent over the Internet. You should never submit confidential information over the Internet without verifying that the information is secure (using SSL). The information you provide or that you view with our forms is "encrypted" while it travels over the Internet using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). (We are certified for SSL - the recognized standard in Internet Security by
VeriSign) {Serial #: 02:7A:00:0B:F9}. 

What Is Allowed In Company Descriptions?
The individual company descriptions can be up to 210 characters long. The company description must follow basic rules of grammar. Only the first character of a sentence and proper names can be capitalized. There is no HTML code allowed in the description. The descriptions must be sentence form--not bullet form. Every description is checked by hand to ensure it follows these rules.