Solid Earth’s Spring platform provides ‘deep linking’ to brokers from public-facing MLS portals

Andrea V. Brambila from Inman News:

“Brokers who belong to multiple listing services that operate public portals powered by Solid Earth’s Spring platform can now add a “deep link” bringing consumers who find listings they represent on the portals back to listing detail pages on their own websites.”

I just think this is the worse idea ever. Why? You need to sweat the details. A good portal needs to have a coherent path; homepage, search results page, and property detail page. It needs to be consistent. If a consumer clicks on a listing and then it brings up a whole new website (different colors, different typeface, etc.) they are going to wonder, “what’s up with this?” and go somewhere else where they can get a better experience.

I understand the industry is trying to come up with ways to encourage “big brokers” (and lets be honest and just say Berkshire Hathaway, okay? -thanks) to participate in MLS public facing websites. But if that means making your existing website a shitty experience, then everyone loses.