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Word of mouth is one of the most common ways homebuyers and sellers find a real estate agent. Now, there are several Web sites that tout a more scientific approach: ranking agents based on criteria such as years of experience, how many sales they've closed, and the number of positive testimonials from past clients.

On auction sites like eBay.com, user feedback-based rankings can give anonymous buyers and sellers instant credibility. But is it a reliable way to find a real estate professional? Can it trump the referral from your a trusted relative or friend with firsthand experience?

Sites like HomeGain.com, AgentRank.com and IncredibleAgents.com function as repositories of agent profile pages. They make money from ads or, in some cases, by selling the contact information of potential customers who visited the site. Their rating schemes vary widely, and lack of active participation by agents can affect the quality of their results.

AgentRank, for example, launched in March and remains in its beta stage of development. The company brews agent rankings through a complex recipe.

Put simply, it bakes all kinds of variables into an agent's profile -- recent sales history, client reviews, experience, average days homes stay on market, among others -- and assigns them secret values that are then pumped through an algorithm that distills everything down to a rank between one and 10, with 10 being the best.

Visitors can search for agents by ZIP code or city and state, and they receive a list of agents ranked in descending order.

A key component of AgentRank and similar sites is the gathering of testimonials from agents' clients. What better way of ranking agents than by the number of positive reviews from past clients?

The site tells agents they can improve their ranking if they "close deals and make your clients happy."

Currently, agents solicit testimonials from their clients to place on the site. But that will change by next spring, when the site begins accepting unsolicited reviews, says AgentRank.com chief executive Marc Dugger.

A search of agents in Los Angeles on AgentRank turned up only 15, which is a precious few.

Dugger acknowledges the site is a work in progress. It has profiles for up to 5,000 agents spread out nationwide, which can lead to some regions having more than others, he notes.

Ultimately, relying on referrals from friends or relatives doesn't always work out, Dugger insists.

"People are very quick to hire an agent based on a single referral, but the power of these reviews are the fact that you get to see a pattern of success for an agent," Dugger says. "There are some agents that have upward of 15 to 20 reviews on the site, and that, in my opinion, would instill great confidence in that agent."

Another site, IncredibleAgents, beefs up its roster of agent profiles by tapping states' data on licensed real estate agents. As a result, many agent profiles on the site haven't been updated by the agents and offer slim to no details or client reviews.

The site, which launched two years ago, has 25,000 agents who are actively updating their profiles, says owner Damon Pace.

But faced with incomplete search results that turn up many stale profiles, it's hard not to feel like the overall rankings are pretty thin.

The rankings themselves are also somewhat puzzling. The site's current top agent in California, John La Mattery, has a score of 926. The next highest agent has 883.

The scoring is an average of 16 attributes, among these: "Office Logo," "Photo" and "Welcome Message." These seem arbitrary at best, when one considers what makes a good real estate agent.

Pace says the site helps validate agents' success and rewards those who are actively promoting themselves on the site, not just asking clients to submit testimonials.

"In a referral, you don't really have validation," Pace says. "You don't really know if that person is who they say they are, or who that person (that referred them) says they are."

The site lets anyone post a review of an agent on the site, whether it's positive or negative.

San Diego-based La Mattery racked up 70 reviews in the two months since he discovered his information on the site.

A link to the site on his e-mail signature is the only encouragement he gives clients to submit testimonials to the site, he says.

Even with his top gun ranking, La Mattery says he has yet to see any client referrals from the site.

"It's just to me another piece of the puzzle and it takes a lot of different pieces to have a client trust you and rely on your expertise and then actually work with you," he says. "Truly, it's an experiment for me."

Another site whose rankings might not instill great confidence is HomeGain.

Agents are ranked with one to five stars based entirely on consumer feedback. However, agents post the client testimonials of their own choosing, and to get a five-star raking, all they need to do is post five.

It's telling the site warns visitors that "consumer feedback may not reflect the actual quality of service" that they receive from the agents.

Matt Malmgren, senior manager of client services for HomeGain, says the site performs audits of agent profiles to make sure the testimonials are legit. In one example, the company booted an agent last year who elicited several consumer complaints and allegations of fraud. Prior to the agent's expulsion, however, he had a star rating of four or five, Malmgren says.

"It can be misleading," Malmgren says of the feedback ranking system. Still, he stresses, "if you meet an agent on the street, they're only going to give you testimonials they want to give you."

Another entrant into agent ranking is ZipRealty.com, an online real estate brokerage that is taking a slightly different approach.

The company rates its own agents based on responses from clients who are surveyed by an outside vendor. Clients are allowed to post comments and rate agents on a five-star scale. The company says, on average, 75 percent of survey recipients respond.

"We have them rate how we did as a company ... agents' performance," says Pat Lashinsky, ZipRealty's chief executive.

One sign ZipRealty's approach may be on the right track -- Lashinsky says: "Agents are nervous."

The State Department called on Iran on Friday to pony up any information it has on a former FBI agent who vanished there last year.

Christine Levinson, wife of Robert Levinson, went to Tehran last year to try to learn her husband's fate.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack urged Tehran to share "any and all information" about Robert Levinson, who disappeared from Iran's Kish Island over 19 months ago.

"The U.S. Department of State remains committed to determining Mr. Levinson's whereabouts, and returning him safely to his family that includes seven children, one grandchild and a second grandchild on the way," McCormack said in a statement.

Senior administration officials say the United States is increasing pressure on Iran to provide information on Levinson's whereabouts. Several officials have said they suspect Iranian authorities are holding Levinson in a jail inside the country.

However, they stress they have no information confirming their suspicions and have consistently voiced frustration with the lack of developments in the case.

"Some people suspect he is being held by the Iranian government, but nobody knows that for a fact, or we would be saying that," one senior State Department official said. "We all agree the Iranians are not putting forth 110 percent effort to find this man."

Levinson is a retired FBI agent from Coral Springs, Florida. After leaving the agency, his wife says, he worked as a security consultant specializing in cigarette smuggling.

Last week, Undersecretary for Political Affairs William Burns, the State Department's third-ranking official, met with Levinson's family, and earlier this fall, the State Department sent a diplomatic note to Tehran through the Swiss government, which represents the U.S. interests in Iran in the absence of an American diplomatic presence in the country.

In September, Christine Levinson flew to the United Nations in New York to ask questions about her husband.

She sought a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was at the United Nations for the U.N. General Assembly. But Ahmadinejad declined to meet with her.

Last year, she traveled to Iran to try to retrace her husband's steps. Back then, Iranian officials told her they would investigate and report back to her. She still hasn't heard a word.

The State Department and FBI have denied he was working for the government and has demanded that Iran free Levinson -- if it is holding him.

Levinson says her husband suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure and has offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to his safe return.

Last year, CNN reported that Levinson met with Dawud Salahuddin, an American fugitive who lives in Iran, shortly before his disappearance.

Salahuddin -- known in Iran as Hassan Abdulrahman -- converted to Islam and was given refuge in Iran after admitting in interviews to killing Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former Iranian diplomat under the shah, in Maryland in 1980.

Salahuddin said he was detained by Iranian officials in plain clothes and taken away from the room he shared with Levinson to be interrogated about his Iranian passport.

When he was freed the next day, he said, he was told by officials that Levinson had returned to Dubai.

Senior administration officials have told CNN that they think Salahuddin met with Levinson, but do not believe him to be a credible source of information on Levinson's whereabouts.

McCormack said the State Department is trying to keep the public aware of the case in the hopes of finding a fresh clue about Levinson's whereabouts.

"We're always looking for ways to maybe break loose that vital piece of information or the vital lead that may help us," McCormack said.

He asked anyone with information about his case to contact the State Department or the Levinson family via their Web site.