Good, because you need to know
What if I told you that your use of IDX is about to be severely limited in a world where agents have been left to compete with the likes of Trulia, Zillow, et al within Google? It’s true if a rule up for debate is solidified next week in DC.
If you haven’t read this post, you should do it now- don’t let the already 240 plus comments overwhelm you, stick to the post.
Now that you’ve read that post, and have some understanding of what’s going on, what you need to know is that this greatly impacts all of our ability to compete in the global community if other local boards pick up this ruling and adopt it in your local city- and they will. We already know that our local MLSs/Boards compete with us for use of keywords and key terms in our local markets, and this power grab only solidifies that you will inevitably be buying your own leads back from someone else without a single drop of compensation for your hard work.
The ramifications are absolutely endless, but a few examples of the immediate impact are those folks who have spent several years building local community blogs around their niche markets, use craigslist, or allows any search engine to index and promote all local listings within their site, could be forced to cease or risk penalty- there are so many more examples, I cannot list them all.
All is not lost
This issue is huge, and unfortunately a few Realtors have been drug to the forefront of this issue to defend your use of Google as a tool to promote listings, and they’ll soon be on their way to DC to stand before the committee, the question is, will you stand with them? I know Agent Genius readers will, but what about your friends?
Here’s what you can do NOW
- Read the thread of comments to the post for suggestions (some are as follows)
- Bring this post to the attention of your local board leaders
- Email, blog to fellow Realtors with this link and ask them to weigh in with their thoughts
- Simply trackback with excerpt to this post with this link
- Call MIBOR and ask them to reverse or suspend actions until NAR can fully weigh their decision on ‘scraping’ – MIBOR CEO Stephen J Sullivan (317) 956-5000 x237 or email here stevesullivan@mibor.com (be professional)
- Email Cliff Niersbach cniersbach@realtors.org and politely ask Cliff to please reconsider the Google is a scraper issue.
- Go to DC if you can and attend the committee hearing on this issue to lend support.
- Have a look at local issues in committees now locally and get on committees that you feel you can add expertise that is forward thinking- help them!
I realize that we all wanted at one time to keep MLS data in the MLS, but that fight was lost (and in some cases given up freely), however, what you must now understand is that that train has left the station, and your only ability to compete with those same media companies is being threatened.
We thank all who will participate, and want everyone to know that we believe that issue can be resolved, but it will take your constructive voice to make it happen.
If you have further suggestions, drop them in the comments, if you know of a way this will impact your business, drop it in the comments.
Blog about this issue on your local blog, let us know in comments, we’ll link to you in this post.
