Wow......that is all I can think of right now.....not sure what to say anymore.....

Thanks to Colleen Land (& Joel) I was made aware of a local MLS issue, that I was not aware of. Local Board of REALTORS just gave more power to zillow, trulia, ect, over it's onw members

In cliff notes; Our local MLS (MIBOR) has created a new rule and decided that Google is a scraper and that when a Real estate broker/agent is a member of the local Indianapolis MIBOR, they can not have Google spider their website for any information.

With this new ruling now any company or personal website from real estate agents/broker that are members of MIBOR need to either remove their IDX feed or the meta tags that give Google and other web crawlers a way to find you.

NAR was contacted and NAR is in full support of the new MIBOR rule.

I called Paula and to receive the direct details from her and her Broker. Paula has talked about this in one of her blogs called Did Google Scrape My Website? You Be The Judge. Rules Threaten Realtors & IDX Providers.

Baxton Beyer talked posted a email conversation called Email Exchange Regarding NAR’s Recent Decision to Back MIBOR

Paula had called me back later and she was invited to talk about this issue on May the 14th at the MLS Forum that is held immediately before the Multiple Listing Issues and Policies Committee.

The attendees at the Forum have the opportunity to comment prior to the Committee's meeting so members of the Committee can benefit from those comments and insights.

The MLS Forum, May 14, 2009 beginning at 9:00 a.m. in the Regency Ballroom, Lower Level, Omni Shoreham Hotel.

Also anyone who would like to comment about this issue you also can contact Cliff Niersbach(cniersbach@realtors.org) You can also email Steve Sullivan (stevesullivan@mibor.com), MIBOR CEO or call him directly (317) 956.5000 ext. 237. Please keep your words professional if you choose to take action and be sure to reference this article

Sigh.....there is so much I don't know. Just reading your post made me feel like I walked into a college trig class. Like a foreign language.

Someone enlighten me please. What does this mean?

what is trig?

I don't think agents and brokers see how big of an issue this is and how it will hurt us, unless you enjoy paying Realtor.com , and the rest of the aggregators to advertise your listings.

There is no practical difference between this and showing your clients listings from other offices from your MLS, except companies like Realtor.comm Trula, Zillow and Yahoo can't support and stop that.

Another take from a blogger is here

Don't sit idly by and let this happen.

Local Indianapolis agents, all Realtors nationally need to educate themselves and contact their IDX companies, and also notify search engines like Google, Searchme.com etc. so that all of our concerns can be heard. We do not want or should not want the real estate "Interlopers" (sic) or aggregators like Zillow, Trulia, JustListed, etc. to have an advantage over agents.

We need to enlighten as many agents as possible as well as the IDX companies and Googles of the world to campaign against this new ruling.

This issue will be discussed on May the 14th at the MLS Forum that is held immediately before the Multiple Listing Issues and Policies Committee.

The attendees at the Forum have the opportunity to comment prior to the Committee's meeting so members of the Committee can benefit from those comments and insights.

The MLS Forum, May 14, 2009 beginning at 9:00 a.m. in the Regency Ballroom, Lower Level, Omni Shoreham Hotel.

If the Multiple Listing Issues and Policies Committee and if the REALTORS® who serve on the Committee share our concerns, they have the ability to recommend a change in the policy to the NAR Board of Directors.

The contact for the Multiple Listing Issues and Policies Committee:
Diane Ruggiero, RCE, CAE
Kansas City Regional Association of REALTORS®
11150 Overbrook Road, Suite 100
Leawood, KS 66211
dianerug@msn.com
913.498.1100

File a complaint with the department of Justice for restraint of trade.

Last year when they made the "no MLS in website" rule they did it on the advice of a consultant who works for one of the big lead aggregators.

NAR is definitely working to keep us down and promote our competition.

They are going to push somebody the wrong way and find themselves in front of the DOJ again trying to justify why they think it is OK to restrain trade.

Last year they took on us little guys and won. Now they are targeting google. They might have bitten off more than they can swallow here.

I have money set aside to file a restraint of trade lawsuit if/when they zero in on my site/s.

LOL funny!

Still no explanation tho. I'm not being sarcastic - I'm just really not sure what this is about.... Does it mean that our listings won't come up on Google? I'd be upset if I knew better what to be upset about.

My interpretation (which could be completely flawed) is that you have to choose - have a website that Google can "read" and rank, thus allowing consumers to find it in a search, or having the IDX feed to show listings on your site.

So -
***listings, helpful to consumers, but no visitors to the site because it's not anywhere on a google search, or
***highly ranked site with no listings and no reason for anyone to use it.

Again, I could be wrong, but I think that would be the result.

Basically it's just another way for NAR to control the leads. That's how they make their money being a tick that sucks the host(brokers and agents) dry. If you control the leads you control the money. Don't beleive this is about anything else.

What they are saying is you can have your listings on a website but not others. They are going to get their pants sued off on this one.

So th eway I am reading this is if you are a REALTOR you will be screwed. What about brokers/agents that have a liscense but are not REALTORS? If we can still use IDX as we please there would be a mass exodus of people leaving NAR.

I do not understand this topic completely but from what I do understand, it seems the big websites do not like that a search for real estate in anytown, some state brings up a local agent instead of their big national site.

How is this ruling the best idea/rule/concept for the members of NAR or more importantly, better for the clients of NAR members?

I wonder if the big franchises such as Remax or others that allow consumers to search all listings from their website will lean on NAR about this. I sure hope so.

I can't imagine Dave Liniger allowing such a decision to be made nationally without a fight.

Century 21 on the other hand will benefit. see article ( http://www.inman.com/news/2009/05/8/century-21-announces-realtorcom-ad-deal ) Century 21 Real Estate LLC this week announced an agreement that will enhance property information that the company's franchisees supply to real estate search site Realtor.com.

The "Gold Standard Partnership" subsidizes the cost of listing enhancements for its franchise owners.

seems easy to me? you have one website that does very well in google and you just have a no-follow link going to a seperate - no-idex site?

or have your IDX framed?

I'm very much for technology - evidently MIBOR doesn't understand how they are hurting themselves by not allowing their agents to fulling use the information they are providing.

its sad to see associations getting left behind because their board does not understand technology and the internet

Does this mean the Houston MLS will have to stop sending all of their listings to Zillow?

Is Zillow better than Google?

Any more news on this?