They'll register a domain, such as buymyhousenow.com (although the matching domain bonus is a thing of the past), spend lots of money in a short period of time to rank it, make money off of it for a few days until Google gets wise, and then move onto the next site once it's de-indexed.

Or should I look at something like a low tax, low fee S&P 500 index fund?

I simply post and help people and the indexing goes into page one of many Google searches for strong keyword searches.

So, though I “missed” out on the gains in real estate, I was able to capture quite a bit in index funds (I dabbled in individual stocks as well, but that is a story for another site).From there, I moved on to Dayton, Ohio to pursue and Master's degree on the military's dime. 

For instance, my area (Denver, CO) scores badly on a lot of "liveability" indexes in the weather area because the high temps are so high and the low temps are so low.

For me it works amazing.I have over 7,000 posts in the forums and investors that are doing a search for a keyword shows up in Google for page one.They are not even BP members but they read an indexed post I responded to that showed up in page one of their keyword search.

I've been posting the Realtors Confidence Index as they are released.The results are state driven rather than metro area, so it's interesting to see how comments on Austin and Atlanta differ from the confidence in the states as a whole.I don't know enough about SLC, but it seems strong and growing.  

Indexed list of applicable real estate terms and definitions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_real_estate_articles

With a six figure income I'd personally look for a multifamily property ideally 5-10 units (up to $600k) with value add that makes sense with a property manager.If he more of a passive real estate investor then I'd spmit the money over 4 to 5 real estate syndications in different markets.To be truly passive and not in real estate with a long time horizon total market index funds are the way to go.With a six figure income I'd hope he is investing significantly in a 401k so real estate is a good choice for these non retirement funds.

Use Vanguard and invest in one of their index funds, can't really go wrong with that.