Framed Real Estate MLS vs Integrated MLS What's The Difference?

There are many real estate agents out there who do not know the difference between Framed MLS and Integrated MLS. We have written this article to help explain the difference.

Framed MLS

Framed MLS feeds are great for real estate agents, they allow them to offer website visitors an advanced search of the areas local MLS real estate listings. Real Estate listings are always fresh and up to date. The reason it is called Framed is because the website owner is actually pulling in the data from MLS inside of a “Frame” and displaying it on their site. When using a framed MLS feed you are not in control of any of the data that is pulled onto your site. A frame is website coding that allows you to call data from another site and display it on your own.

Since you are displaying data from another site, it’s not your own content. Search Engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN do not see this data, they only see a link to where the data is. The only real benefit of using Framed MLS is to provide your website visitors an MLS search and prevent them from going elsewhere to find one.

When a website visitor chooses to contact an agent about a property listing, they will be provided with the listing agent’s contact information. Even though you are presenting the data, the contact still goes to the original listing agent.

Integrated MLS

Integrated MLS works a little differently. Instead of displaying a snapshot of your MLS providers data on your site, you are actually importing all of the data. Once you have the data it is used to create individual real estate listings hosted on your site. Since you are in control of the data, you can then manipulate it to suit your needs and make it work with your site better. This is not an option with framed MLS since you are at the mercy of the provider.

Creating individual listing pages on your site opens a lot of potential with the search engines. Since most MLS can have over 20,000 listings, you will now have over 20,000 separate pages that each have the potential to rank well in the natural results of each engine.

Savvy mls seo webmasters can manipulate this MLS data in such a way that will increase they’re site’s traffic, while still staying within the guidelines set forth by the MLS provider. This type of thing is simply impossible with a framed solution.

Conclusion

Although Framed MLS is great for both website visitors and real estate agents who want an easy way to display MLS listings, it really serves no other benefit besides that. Real Estate agents who use Integrated MLS definitely have a huge advantage over ones who do not. Integrated MLS is by far a better choice and can provide your website a real benefit by producing visitors from the data.

Integrated MLS may require special software to import the data, which may require an additional cost. The initial over head of getting integrated mls on your website is well worth the benefit in the long run.