Planning to Outsource RETS integration

[FairwayandIsle]

I am preparing to add MLS search functionality to my website. I have decided to go with a RETS feed. I plan to submit a basic project scope to RETS developers. We are going to outsource the initial set-up, but plan to make the effort to learn RETS from a practical maintenance stand point. I could use feedback from those that have gone the RETS route.

What are your opinions on the must haves vs. the nice to haves as they related to RETS integration and end-user functionality?

How can RETS effect a good basic SEO strategy (not that I profess to have a good basic SEO strategy, I hope you will humor me anyway)?

Can you recommend developers that specialize in RETS integration?

Thanks,

-Coarine

[REW Reed]

Do you plan to do maintenance on the RETS feed yourself down the line?

Real Estate Webmasters develops IDX's in RETS, FTP, MSSQL, and a few other obscure formats. We find FTP to be the most prevalent, easy to develop for, maintain, and debug. RETS looks to be a more flexible standard for MLS's though, so a lot of them are using it to manage IDX and even more have plans to switch to RETS. Going forward, RETS development is a pretty sound decision.

[cormip]

The effectiveness of your final MLS Search has less to do with the underlying technology than it does with the usability of your search form and how engaging the results appear. As this readership knows, the framed 1990s era search tools provided by most MLSes leave a lot to be desired, especially when compared to the advanced capabilities available in RE Search Tools like BestHomePro and others.

To answer your SEO question, Search Engine Spiders will only follow linked content. They do not traverse forms. They also generally like indexable content, which property listings typically don't have a lot of. So, if your RETS Search is form-based, there is nothing there that a SE will index. If you create some links to pre-built RETS Searches, and plce those links within or near relevant, searchable content, then the SEs will would at least have something to index.

Paul Cormier

[FairwayandIsle]

Do you plan to do maintenance on the RETS feed yourself down the line?

I was planning on learning RETS so that I could keep up with the maintenance.

As far as the search interface, I want to have a combination of form searching and preset search for difference subdivisions in my area.

[REW Reed]

If you want a good example of the two, here is one we built for a client in Colorado. The first is the standard search:

http://www.jakemarsh.com/denver-mls-search.php

The second is an area page using a search snippet (like your preset subdivision search):

http://www.jakemarsh.com/denver/areas/cherry-creek.php

We can do these with both RETS or FTP. Because so many MLS's are switching over to RETS, you can save some maintenance costs by starting with RETS.

[webmaster]

Just a quick note: We would not be submitting a bid on this project - REW IDX Framework is proprietary and is only available as a hosted solution with Real Estate Webmasters. We do not provide access to our source code.

In terms of RETS and how to make the most of it - keep in mind, RETS is just the conduit for accessing data, it is not your application itself (Covered somewhat above by Paul who sounds like he is worth listening to )

Your solution (how SEO friendly it is, how it converts, what features it has) has to do with your programmer, and how they create the solution for you (And a lot to do with you, because you need to tell them what you want)

Mod_rewrite is a must for search engine friendly URL's
Good site mapping or link architecture to get as many pages spidered as possible
Title, algorithms to reduce duplicate pages
The list goes on and on. You really should have a registration component as well as (And there are many schools of thought here) registration is much more effective (If done properly) in generating leads vs allowing complete access to all data for free.