Cut the Middle Man Out

Guest contributor Graham Wood of REALTOR®Mag says:

It may seem like a forgone conclusion that you should have your listings displayed front and center on your website, but some real estate practitioners are finding less value in it these days. While many choose to pay a third-party IDX provider to set up a searchable MLS feed on their sites, others say the cost isn't worth it, instead turning to other platforms that they say offer more exposure and a better return on their investment.

MLS migration is a common solution for getting listings to display on a personal website, most often involving an IDX company storing MLS data on its servers and migrating that data onto an agent or broker's website. The agent or broker pays a monthly fee for this feed, which is automatically updated regularly.

But one major drawback to using some IDX platforms is that they don't give the agent website any of the search engine optimization value of the MLS data, says Carolyn Bickerton, a former practitioner who now works for real estate web development company Realtyna Inc.

"The framed IDX provider is a middle man," Bickerton explains. "It gives you the data to display listings on your site. The framed IDX provider has all of the real raw pages from the MLS on its server, which means it keeps all of the IP addresses, so it gets most of the SEO value. Agents are actually paying framed IDX providers to rob them of SEO value."