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Over the last few years there has been a flurry of excitement about real estate websites now having Search Engine Friendly URLs so the dynamically generated pages from your MLS Board can be readily indexed by the Search Engines. Our competition is promoting this like it just happened. In fact the UltimateIDX™ has been generating Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URLs for their Clients since early 2005.
In an era where “Content is King” having a search engine friendly real estate website is essential for ranking well in the search engines. A major point missed by most major IDX or RETS custom MLS vendors is the utilization of Search Engine Friendly URLs (SEF) on all MLS (multiple listing services) listings.
If “Content is King” then it would be fair to say that “Fresh Content is Queen”. Search engines love fresh content and visitors demand it. By using the listings in your MLS database as content your site can be continuously updated with new listings and changes to older listings such as price changes.
Our integrated SEO Feature generates SEO friendly pages with search engine friendly URL links and keyword content in all the right places.
By allowing the search engines to index listings on your website, you not only offer a service to your visitors by the inclusion of these listings but you better your chances of ranking in the search engines by the inclusion of possibly thousands of listings.
Your website pages that have SEO friendly content, should also have unique and indexable URLs.
Since 2008, our integrated SEO Feature has used proprietary server prerendering technologies to generate indexable listing pages with a well formed URL, that are indexed by the search engines.
Unfortunately most of the major 3rd party MLS vendors not only DO NOT furnish Search Engine Friendly URLs they still use either a sub-domain to their domain OR an in-line framed solution. Both are obsolete technology and do nothing to assist with your personal domain ranking well. Many SEO experts even argue that redirects to a vendor’s domain can actually harm your search engine rankings.
The point is there is NO point in NOT potentially utilizing ALL of your listings as content on your real estate website. This is not “Black Hat” Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is just common sense.
Listings in your MLS database that are indexed by the search engines can be found by simple searches such as addresses, MLS numbers and other keyword phrases and thus provides a value added service for your visitors and listing clients alike.
UltimateIDX™ solutions that are UltimateIDX Hosted IDX Websites, or UltimateIDX WordPress Plugin, or UltimateIDX JavaScript Plugin for PHP, come with Search Engine friendly URL strings for easier indexing by the search engines. These pages appear “Static” vs “Dynamic” and are indexed more often than standard “Dynamic” pages. This is critical for higher rankings in major Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.
These Search Engine friendly strings encourage the Search Engine bots to crawl your site more frequently and index ,more pages. Of course the more pages you have indexed the better chance you have to rank higher in the Search Engines.
So on your website what do the URLs look like and what domain appears on a search of your MLS?
If your see strings such as “?” or “#” or similar characters in your URL they are NOT Search Engine Friendly addresses.
If you see strings with sub-domains to your vendor in them then you receive NO benefit from any pages that are indexed. Your MLS vendor does. The string will appear something like
If you have a search page that displays a static URL (the same for every search) and a scroll bar within the page to the left of the search criteria then your IDX/MLS vendor is using what is called an “I-frame”, also know as an in-line-framing solution. This system actually puts your vendors search page within your page and again gives you no SEO benefit.
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