Home Goes Pending, Sold or Off Market - What Happens to the Page?

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This is a good point.

It would be nice if the properties that are under contract/pending would continue to appear at least until sold. After a property is sold perhaps there could be a message along the lines of "property has sold or is currently off the market...etc" Is this possible?

Cindee

thanks for the update Sir Robert of Internetland

Hey Robert - Mike T here in Denver! I had this same question. Our MLS allows SOLD data in our IDX feed...so any chance you will have an option for people like me that are allowed to display SOLD data? That would be huge!

Why is it that some MLS's don't allow this data for some? I know it's available in ARMLS. We have been asking for this feature for a long time and to make a page with sold listings would be awesome with the dsIDXpress!!

It's a policy thing for the MLSs. Last I checked ARMLS did not allow the use of SOLD listings yet. For the sake of discussion here did you want to display just YOUR sold listings or did you want to display ALL sold listings?

For me (ARMLS) I think we discussed that once in a conversation in Phoenix. Unfortunately, that might be the case, you would know more than I. I would prefer an option with a module or RSS feed with the individual agent's listings that are sold, perhaps by date or month or year options! I SO WOULD WANT THIS!!

Thanks for the suggestions we'll keep it in mind for future improvements.

HELP AVOID GOOGLE CRAWL ERRORS - One important feature for future consideration is how sold,canceled,expired, off market listings are handled.

I have 1000 pages that are indexed by Google that the status changed on ...so now Google see's 404 errors on all of these pages because they are still indexed, but since DSIDX pulls the listings after status change instead of simply updating the status change of the properties on the existing pages there is no longer content there. THIS IS A PROBLEM.

I hope this can be addressed because it make an otherwise great and SEO friendly product potentially not worth risking over time having all these Crawl Errors that the plugin will cause in its current configuration.

If others are using Google Webmaster tools and the DSIDXpress plugin you will see the crawl errors as well and depending on how many pages you are getting indexed the authority of your site etc this could have unintended negative consequences in SERPS over time.

Please respond if this is something that is being looked at internally,

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Avoid Google Crawl Errors caused by dsIDXpress plugin inadvertanly.

I'm copying over my reply over from the merged topic as well:

As soon as every MLS is OK with us leaving the content up once a listing is off market, or they change their fining and compliance policy to place all responsibility to remove the IDX content off pages and only leave the "surrounding content" onto the member's shoulders, we will reconsider our policy on how we remove listings. However, considering at least 1/4 of the MLS providers do not allow this kind of plugin at all because it allows for indexing of listings - and another 1/4 to 1/2 of the MLS providers have only tentatively allowed the plugin because they do not understand enough about how indexing works to give it a for sure approval or denial; we do not see this happening anytime soon.

To ensure IDX data that is off market, expired, sold, or otherwise not allowed for display is not shown, we only display the data:
- on unique pages that are removed completely when the listing goes off market (which will result in 404 errors)
- and in modules, results pages, and via shortcode, where the particular listing(s) will simply not show up once off market

If you are looking to wrap surrounding content around listings and avoid 404 errors, create pages with shortcode on them. You can add whatever content you want to the page, and the IDX content (as generated by the shortcode) will only show up as long as the listing is active.

If you wanted to wrap the same content over and over on every listing page (as many agents have requested), this will create even more duplicate content for you, so this is not something we provide any support for.

I would encourage any of you to contact your MLS and see how ridiculous their rules are on indexing of listings, not to mentioning "allowing Google" to cache off marketing data. Just be careful, chances are they may just freak out altogether and pull the plug for you (this has happened with 3 of our MLS providers so far... one in Northern California, one in Virginia, and one in the Carolinas). It's a sad but true joke how the MLS providers approach technology.

It's unfortunate we have to resort to 404 errors, but 1) not removing the listing data is an MLS compliance nightmare, and 2) having 1000's or even 10's of 1000's of pages that just said "this listing has removed. did you want to search other listings in Los Angeles, CA? click here to start a new search" is even more detrimental to SEO.

If Sam or ListingPress's products promise to offer more flexibility to users as far as indexing of off market data, redirects for removed listings, or any of these other requests, we wish them the best of luck. However, as mentioned previously, we do ask that you keep comments, questions, complaints, and suggestions dsIDXpress related and not use the forum for advertising or promoting other products.

In addition, Diverse Solutions has been doing this for nearly 5 years. That may seem like a short time, but not so when you consider the speed of technology on the web and the normal lifespan for many web companies. In this time we have never had our feeds disabled or had to pay fines due to compliance issues, and we have maintained healthy relationships with nearly 100 different MLS providers. As a result, our clients have had a reliable source of data for their search with a company that will still be in business years from now - but yes - as part of this we have had to be cautious with products that push boundaries with an MLS like dsIDXpress does.

Sam, using the short code links creates duplicates.

3 in fact. You may want to check it out. That is 3 for each link/page you create.

For a while google indexes them like crazy, then will drop you for dupes. Better off not using the short codes. Any questions just call me

I agree with much of the reasoning, however the 404 ruins the customer experience. Likely never to click your page in Google search results ever again. I wouldn't.

Personally, I don't care for a mega number of hits. Even though I count them daily ;p. I want strong CTR. That's when I can help someone, provide value (and get paid)

That is the most important issue! I hope the plugin will see a solution that returns some love to the consumer. It does not have to be magic. People are smart and will click one or two more times if we can keep them interested.

btw. The MLS issue is never going away! It's a cash cow. A big ugly one.

M

Is there any way to do a 301 redirect to the MLS ID's zip code results or even the tract, community or county results for off market listings?

That is a great suggestion to 301 to the MLS ID zip code page.......anyone from DS can offer some input here?

I made several suggestions on this subject a while back: http://community.dsidxpress.com/diver...

I called you about 2 months ago Mike - I stopped waiting hint hint

We do not 301 listing urls because we have nowhere to 301 to. 301 redirecting is meant only when you are saying "oh that distinct content isn't at this url, it's at this other url now". On top of that 301 is by definition "permanent". What if the listing just went pending or temporarily off market? Then when it comes back google still thinks that the url has been permanently moved and you're now up the creek on ever getting that listing to show up in google again indefinitely.

I get that 301'ing instead of 404'ing SEEMS like a massive treasure trove of google juice. But 301'ing like suggested doesn't follow the letter of the law so google doesn't inherently like it, and therefore you shouldn't like it.

We do like the idea of helping you guys spruce up the 404 page to make it easier to redirect actual visitors to related content. I'm sure that we're going to do something in this realm in the next major dsIDXpress release.