2011 IDX Broker Agent Newsletter

Welcome to another Agent Training Newsletter!

Over the past 6-9 months, traffic to our client pages has grown exponentially. More search crawler traffic, more indexed IDX pages, and higher visitor engagement have led us to apply some radical changes to our server infrastructure:

Short-term: We have replaced 16 of our servers with newer, faster servers that contain more RAM and better hard-drives. We have also moved our client databases to higher performing servers to allow for the thousands of concurrent connections required to quickly serve IDX search results and details.
Long-term: We are moving our services to a large, reliable cloud-based computing vendor. This way we can add new servers on-demand, to meet the growing need for fast search results.

Nobody said managing 400 MLS datasets would be easy. Yet we are doing it, and building it to scale so that we can maintain the same high quality service and support that makes IDX Broker unique. Thank you for helping us reach these new milestones!

This month's newsletter will explain how to setup a custom subdomain, show you how to define system rules for better lead "housekeeping", and will discuss some of the powerful map search settings available.

Best regards,
The IDX Team
@idxbroker

Setting Up a Custom Subdomain

Most IDX pages are hosted on a subdomain of idxco.com. We create this default subdomain for you, and it looks something like this: http://www.yourdomain.idxco.com/idx/1/basicSearch.php

Rather than use the standard yoursite.idxco.com subdomain, you have the option of setting up a custom subdomain for IDX pages. You can choose any keyword as your subdomain prefix - homes.mydomain.com or search.mydomain.com are a couple of examples.

A custom subdomain accomplishes two things:

Indexing: Once your new subdomain and IDX pages have been removed from the Google sandbox (approximately 3-5 months), your IDX pages should begin to get indexed alongside your primary domain pages in Google results. This has not been tested with other search engines. A "site:mysite.com" search in Google will display query results for mysite.com as well as search.mysite.com, your IDX pages.
Portability: You own the subdomain. It's not your IDX vendor's domain or subdomain, it's yours.

Here are the steps you can take to get your custom subdomain up and running on your IDX Broker account.

Ask your hosting company or domain registrar where to find information about how to create a subdomain for your website. Most providers will display these instructions in their Knowledgebase, or the Support section of their website.
Establish a CNAME for your custom subdomain, using idxco.com as the destination.
After setting up your CNAME record, wait 36-72 hours for those DNS changes to propagate across the Internet. If you are not sure that your CNAME is set up correctly, you can use a tool like CentralOps to check your settings. Note: If you are unsure how to establish either a subdomain or CNAME record, please contact your domain host or registry for assistance.
Once your subdomain is set up correctly, login to your IDX Broker control panel and go to Account Management -> Domain Control. Enter your custom subdomain in the box provided.
Click the radio button to select Custom Domain, and save your changes.
Once you have saved these settings in your control panel, you will notice that all of your IDX links under Account Management -> Page Links and Customize -> Saved Links now display your custom subdomain.

What do I need to do after I switch?
First, update the URLs of any IDX links that you have added to your website. Usually, this can be done with a simple find and replace in your HTML code. Next, go to My Preferences -> Map Options and update your Google map key. Contact IDX Support if you have trouble setting up your new map key. Finally, if you are using WalkScore maps on your property detail pages, you will need to add your WalkScore key under Account Management -> Domain Control at the bottom of the screen.

You can find more in-depth information on how to set up your custom subdomain in our Knowledgebase.

A custom subdomain will take your IDX pages to the next level and give your site URLs that polished, integrated IDX look that will set your site apart from other real estate websites.

Keeping Your Leads Organized: Inactive Leads

This section will explain the Inactive Leads feature under Lead Management in your control panel. Leads can sometimes be difficult to categorize, sort, and prioritize. This is where IDX Broker's Inactive Leads feature can help.

By default, IDX Broker will automatically disable lead accounts that have not had any email update or saved property view activity in 90 days. Leads will also be disabled once the lead has had an account with you for 90 days. You can change these default settings by visiting the Inactive Leads section of your IDX control panel.

Here, you may also choose to receive an email summary of your recent leads that have become inactive. If you do not want your Inactive Leads to remain in your account, there is also a preference to delete your leads outright from your account. This setting is OFF by default.

These rules also give you an easy way to omit or include Disabled Leads when exporting your leads. You will find that functionality under Lead Management -> Export Leads.

Map Options

Your IDX Broker account includes a powerful map search tool. This page gives your visitors the ability to search using a dynamic mapping tool rather than traditional search forms.

Aside from Custom CSS elements that your designer may use to resize the map to your specifications, your control panel also provides options to customize your map search page default settings. You can change the default center location, zoom level, max properties, and even IDX results page map options. All of these options are available on the My Preferences -> Map Options page:

Google Map Key- Each IDX Broker account needs a unique Google Map key to power the map search. Your account is automatically set up with a map key, and will not need to be changed unless you choose to set up a custom subdomain.
All Results Page Maps- This field allows you to activate a map that will display at the top of your search results, mapping properties returned by the search results. Note that the default setting for this is OFF, although we recommend that you turn this feature on.
Display Google Map On - Use the checkboxes here to choose which IDX results pages will display the map.
Map Behavior - This controls the map display on results pages only. You can choose to use the map to display ALL listings returned by the search, or just the listings on the current page. This preference also lets you choose the default view style for your maps - map, satellite, hybrid or terrain.
Map Search Center Location - This is an important one. This is the default center location for your Map Search. When your Map Search page is loaded, the map will be centered on this latitude and longitude. When your account was set up, the center location was set to your office address. If you need to change the center location, enter a new latitude and longitude here. You can use the handy lookup tool provided here to get coordinates for a street or city address. Note that if a site visitor changes the location of the map, and use the same machine to view your map search page later, their last known settings will be saved and will override your map search default settings.
Map Search Defaults - Here you can select default search values that your map search will use when first viewed. Options here include property type, bedrooms and bathrooms. This is where you can also set the maximum properties displayed on your map search.
Use Search Control Palette - The Map Search is set up with a search control palette that is a little different than the default Google map controls. If you prefer the default Google controls, you can turn off your custom Search Control Palette here.
Map Zoom Level - These two dropdown menus allow you to set the default zoom level - both for your map search page and any maps displayed on results pages.

You can find more information on your Map Options in our Knowledge Base. In addition to the default Map Search page, we recommend that you review the Custom Map Search pages available to you via Custom Links. You can use Custom Links to build custom map pages and add those links to your website.

Use IDX Broker's map search tool to make your website's search capability stand out. By taking a little time to customize your map search using the options listed above, you can easily show your site visitors the volume of listings available in their local area.

We hope you enjoyed your newsletter!