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FAQs

Answers to frequently asked questions

Common Questions

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Yes, our IDX solutions are available for select boards in Canada. Please check for your province in our IDX coverage list to see if we offer service for your MLS.

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IDX Setup

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Yes, we offer free IDX trial accounts for our plugins. You may sign up for them on the individual product pages for our WordPress IDX and Mapping IDX plugins by clicking the “Free Trial” button.

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Yes, we can combine MLS feeds into a single IDX search. There are a few exceptions, but most MLS boards and associations allow us to combine their IDX data feeds. To verify if the boards you are a member of allow for co-mingling of their data, and pricing information, please contact our sales department.

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Diverse Solutions may occasionally run deals or discounts throughout the year – to inquire about any current running promotions, please contact our sales department for details.

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We offer working demos for each of our IDX solutions, these demos include fake listing data only and are for testing appearance and functionality. You may sign up for them on the individual product pages by clicking free trial, WordPress IDX and Mapping IDX.

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Unfortunately, there is no MLS that covers the whole country. Some MLSes have joined together to form large state-wide MLS data feeds, but there is no national MLS at this point. We do, however, offer IDX service in 100s of areas, in nearly every state, and can combine MLS IDX feeds together into a single IDX plugin or mapping IDX search account. You can see all the states and areas where we offer MLS IDX feeds in our MLS Coverage section.

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Our dsSearchAgent and dsIDXpress free IDX trial accounts last 30 days. To extend your trial, please contact one of our sales representatives. In our trials there are no live listings included, to see how live IDX search updates will look on your site, please contact our sales department.

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Our dsIDXpress plugin is our IDX solution designed to get MLS listings indexed on any real estate website. As soon as you install dsIDXpress on your WordPress real estate website, it generates a new page on your domain for every listing in your MLS IDX feed. Depending on your area, this can mean over 10,000 new indexed IDX listings on your website; it’s all on your domain and your server. Every listing page is search engine optimized to get your real estate website indexed for IDX listings. Learn more about the SEO benefits of our plugin in our product tour, compare our IDX solutions, or try a free demo of our IDX plugin on your site with our free IDX trial signup page.

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Most properties that you find in the MLS database as a Realtor are also included in the IDX feed, but not all. Some brokers or agents who add their listings to the MLS database will “opt out” of showing those listings via IDX display, which means their listings will only appear to other Realtors – they are not available in the IDX feed. Usually the IDX feed includes over 90% of the listings found in the MLS database; but some areas have higher or lower percentages of opted-out properties.

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Most MLS rules won’t allow us to give you access to their IDX feed data until they have approved an IDX data agreement for your account, so most of our trial accounts include a sampling of fake listings in California and do not include any live listing data. To try our IDX with live listings for your MLS, contact our sales department and they can show you existing client sites in your area that you can visit for testing.

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In most cases, both real estate brokers and agents can use IDX on their site. To see a list of which MLS IDX feeds are for broker websites only, find your MLS in our IDX coverage list.

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Yes. All our data providers have very strict rules on who can display their MLS/IDX listings. We can work with developers and web designers to get started, but our IDX search products need to end up on the website of a licensed real estate agent or broker.

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Generally, no – but some MLS areas or Realtor Associations charge their members a small setup or monthly fee for using the MLS IDX feed. Our sales representatives will notify you of any possible MLS fees.

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Both plugins are sold separately, and can be used independently. Either can be used as a stand-alone IDX solution for your website, but for the optimal features, filters, site integration and lead capture, most agents and brokers use both solutions on their site. Real estate agents and brokers are encouraged to use our IDX comparison guide to compare the differences of our IDX solutions.

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A VOW, or Virtual Office Website, takes on slightly different meanings from one MLS to the next. Most areas consider our MLS search to be an “IDX” solution, however because we do include buyer registration, some MLS areas (including MLSPIN in Boston) consider our product to be an “VOW” solution. For details on whether we offer IDX, VOW, or both for your area, please visit our MLS coverage page or contact our sales department.

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Usually we can add additional IDX services immediately to any account that has already gone through the initial approval, but this can vary based on your MLS. Please contact us for details for your MLS feed or association.

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Once you’ve placed your IDX order, we’ll automatically send you any necessary MLS IDX agreements along with instructions on how to complete. Simply complete and sign the forms and send to your MLS for approval. Once your MLS notifies us that your agreement has been approved, we’ll email you access to your new IDX account. In most cases, the process to add IDX search to a real estate website takes less than 3 business days.

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Our Mapping IDX (dsSearchAgent) is our full-featured IDX solution that focuses on lead capture. It can be used on any site, running any platform, and includes advanced filters, customization options, modules, search features and lead capture abilities. Our IDX plugin (dsIDXpress) adds listings to your WordPress IDX site primarily for SEO. As a stand-alone IDX search, it provides basic customization and search filters, or it can be used along with our Mapping IDX for added functionality. The dsIDXpress plugin is only compatible with sites running WordPress. For more details on the difference between SearchAgent and IDXpress, including a side-by-side comparison of our IDX solutions, check our our IDX solution comparison matrix or our quick idx checklist.

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At this time, our mobile IDX solution is only available with the purchase of Mapping IDX or the pro version of WordPress IDX. Please visit our product comparison page for further details.

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All of our IDX products include a one-time setup fee, along with a monthly or yearly service fee. In addition, some MLS areas charge a small fee to members for the MLS IDX feed in addition to our prices. Mapping IDX is $89.95 per month, plus $99.95 for setup. The WordPress IDX plugin is priced at $99.95 for setup, plus $59.95 per month for the Basic version, $89.95 per month for Pro, and $299.95 per month for Pro Plus. More details are available on our product comparison page.

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Visit our IDX coverage section for a complete list of the MLS IDX data feed areas where we offer services.

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MLS IDX Data

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Yes. WalkScore data is show on every listing detail page where available, and you can also use our custom URL builder to create IDX result pages that filter using WalkScore.

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Yes, dsSearchAgent includes IDX lead integration with Top Producer. Just provide your account ID and we’ll automatically send any new IDX leads over to your Top Producer account.

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To send new MLS listing emails to clients you will need our dsSearchAgent mapping IDX solution and/or the Pro variant of our dsIDXpress plugin. Our Lite version at $39.95 a month does not support listing update emails.

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At this time, no. Our products do not offer any direct lead integration with Salesforce.

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Manufactured and mobile home listings are included in most of the data feeds we offer, but you can double check availability for your MLS on our IDX coverage list.

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dsSearchAgent mapping IDX includes an admin area where you can modify the colors, but there is no CSS or other layout customization. However, we do include search widgets that can be modified with HTML or CSS. The dsIDXpress IDX plugin is fully customizable with CSS. Nearly every item on each MLS listing page is assigned a class or ID that can be manipulated with CSS. Our IDX MLS plugin usually does a great job adopting the styling of your WordPress theme, but you can make additional changes to all the elements (including listing widgets, IDX modules, and MLS search pages) using CSS.

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REO, shortsale, and other distressed listing filters are included with both our Mapping IDX (dsSearchAgent) and our WordPress IDX plugin (dsIDXpress), as long as the data is available. Most areas include this data in the MLS data feed; otherwise we do our best to manually filter distressed listings. To see if your MLS provides foreclosure IDX data, check out our MLS IDX coverage page.

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dsSearchAgent allows IDX users to perform searches that exclude distressed listings. You can also create custom IDX links for filtering these listings in your admin area. dsIDXpress does not offer any way for IDX users to exclude distressed listings, however you can use our WordPress link structure to create custom IDX URLs for this purpose.

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While our products primarily focus on residential real estate, commercial listings may be displayed if provided to us by the MLS. Please contact our sales department to inquire whether or not your local MLS provides commercial listing data.

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WordPress IDX

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If you are a dsIDXpress customer with a paid account, please contact our IDX customer service to retrieve your existing activation code. If you are using a free trial account, just return to our IDX plugin trial page to generate a new code.

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Yes, pricing for dsIDXpress is based on the number of sites (or URLs) where you have activated the plugin. Our regular setup fees, monthly fees, and approval process applies to each website using the WordPress plugin, however discounted pricing may be available for each additional website URL on a single account. Please check our IDX plugin pricing page or contact us for details.

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Yes, our WordPress IDX plugin is compatible with any hosting service. See IDX hosting details here.

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Yes, our WordPress IDX plugin can be used on any hosting server. However, we do record the hosting server IP address and domain name for each IDX account for security purposes, so if you change your hosting server or domain name, or if use a server that regularly changes their IP address, let us know.

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Yes, the dsIDXpress IDX plugin is compatible with a multisite version setup of WordPress, however, you would need to purchase a product license for each instance of the setup.

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Yes, at this time our IDX plugin will only work on sites running WordPress.

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At this time, Diverse Solutions does not offer any affiliate or re-seller programs. Please contact our sales team for any current promotions.

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Once you install dsIDXpress, your site will show every IDX listing available in your MLS. Every IDX listing on your site is fully indexable, and can be viewed, crawled, and indexed by Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines. Depending on how many properties are available in your area’s MLS IDX feed, this could mean 10,000 or even 100,000 new pages on your website – so most sites do not get indexed for every IDX listing. Usually IDX listings in the cities, neighborhoods, or areas that your site talks about the most will get indexed the best.

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No. dsIDXpress will plot IDX search results on a small Google Map, and you can create widgets for your sidebar that display filtered listings on a map – but there is no option for users to perform searches using a map search interface. Map search features are only available with our dsSearchAgent mapping IDX search and mobile IDX search solutions.

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The dsIDXpress IDX plugin is designed to be compatible with all WordPress themes that are version 2.8 and above and are self hosted. You do not need to purchase or run any one specific theme to use our products and services.

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No, at this time dsIDXpress is only compatible with WordPress.

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It’s free to create a real estate blog or website with WordPress; however you will need to pay for a hosting server for your WordPress blog in order to use certain themes and plugins, including our dsIDXpress plugin. A typical hosting server generally costs between $8 and $12 a month.

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