The National Association of REALTORS yielded to requests to allow agent and broker IDX listings to be “spidered” or “indexed” by search engines last year. Prior to this ruling, the suggested NAR rules and regulations for IDX was to not allow this activity. This change plays a significant role in search engine optimization whereby a search engine will ‘index’ every listing in an MLS along with all of the content associated with each listing and attribute that to the website.
Most agent websites were previously only being indexed for 20 or so pages of content by search engines – examples would include the home page, about us page, buyer and seller resources pages, and contact pages. Now, with an indexable property search solution, the search engines will look at every page of every listing presented on the site – so in some cases, that could lift the number of pages on an agent site from 20 to 20,000 or more. This is a big lift for agents, and we have begun to see more vendors offer these solutions into the marketplace.
Below you will find a press release from Dynamic Page Solutions, a vendor who is offering an indexable property search solution. WAV Group suggests that the feature of INDEXABLE listing data is a key criteria in selecting a property search solution for MLS public facing websites, Broker Websites, and Agent websites. This is the advantage that REALTOR.com, Trulia, Zillow and others have had for years, which has enhanced the SEO of those websites over sites that could not be indexed. This should level the playing field and allow practitioners to gain the same SEO foothold as these other sites and become more competitive for search engine relevance.
The question remaining has to do with Content Spamming. When publishers reprint the same thing on their website as other websites, the search engine spiders do not know who was the original author of the content. Typically, the first site to publish the data gets the SEO credit. Since there can only be one “first” publisher, it will be interesting to see what happens. It may well have the effect of unwinding the benefit that NAR was seeking to offer to in their ruling to allow indexing.
Anyway – check out the press release. I will be curious to see if they are successful at obtaining a patent.
Dynamic Page Solutions announces its newest patent-pending MLS Enhancerproduct. The company has expanded its product line to include IDX Fusion, an appended IDX solution that can be integrated to enhance existing real estate websites and WordPress blogs. This solution offers an unprecedented opportunity to capture real estate traffic through a complex matrix of optimized keywords ranging from generic to long tail.
Mesa, AZ (PRWEB) April 20, 2010 – Dynamic Page Solutions, a vendor in real estate technology development, announces the release of its latest product, IDX Fusion. The IDX solution makes it possible for real estate agents to keep their existing websites or blog yet take advantage of a vastly broader spectrum of real estate targeted keywords. This system appends a powerful content management system (CMS) that can effectively increase traffic through the auto-creation of hundreds or thousands of topically themed, optimized web pages.
MLS database content is typically hidden within i-frames which search engines see as third party content. This leaves the owner of the site at a severe disadvantage for providing relevant real estate content for the search engines. Website and blog owners that use an I-framed IDX system must drive traffic by developing highly authoritative web pages that typically target a limited number of highly competitive keywords. The fully crawlable IDX Fusion site automatically generates pages from MLS listings content and is optimized to cover a large array of focused keywords.
IDX Fusion can be appended to an existing root domain as a subdomain and blends seamlessly with the appearance of the existing web pages. “We are experiencing very encouraging results by appending our solution to sites that are not currently using our spiderable IDX technology. Low performing sites can see a significant increase in traffic and it also works well for sites that win on high traffic keywords but miss the other 70-80% of the traffic that originates from long tail queries” stated Larry Toppenberg, CEO of Dynamic Page Solutions.
In this market, there are agents that have spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours customizing their site only to find that the content management system is incapable of using the power contained in MLS listings. Users will be pleased to know that IDX Fusion offers a solution to Internet visibility that is not dependent upon the core site. While the MLS Enhancer content management system offers optimal integration of MLS database content, the appended IDX Fusion or custom integration of the CMS extends tremendous traffic value to existing sites.
The automated process of optimizing listing data and presenting the property features in themed clusters creates unparalleled opportunities for pages to match search engine user queries with precision. Supplying exact matches for thousands of potential searches is what drives users of this technology to the first page of Google for thousands of terms. The power is in the aggregate number of pages that target less competitive keywords. The search engines are given numerous doorways that offer matches for real estate queries …not just a few which is typical of real estate sites on the web.
Real estate is one of the most competitive verticals on the web. Now agents have three powerful choices when it comes to incorporating optimized MLS database content with personalized web platforms. IDX solutions that are fully search engine friendly and present the content in themed categories are the key to Internet visibility. Beginner agents to seasoned real estate Internet marketing professionals can benefit from the opportunity presented in the long tail of real estate search. Dynamic Page Solutions has been providing fully spiderable, auto-optimized real estate IDX solutions since 2004.
Real estate agents select Dynamic Page Solutions as their website and IDX provider because of the innovative use of MLS database content to create comprehensive keyword nets that win real estate traffic. Located in Mesa, Arizona, Dynamic Page Solutions has the capacity to sell and support their services nationwide. For more information on IDX solutions and real estate websites visit www.dynamicpagesolutions.com or telephone (480) 839-0016.
