Try this before reading on. Open your branch page on Rightmove and note how many properties it shows for sale and to let. Then count the same on your own website. For a surprising number of agencies the two numbers are different, and the website is the lower one.
It matters more than it looks. A vendor deciding between two agents will look at both websites. If your site shows two thirds of what the portals show, it reads as an agency with less stock, and nobody tells you that is why they chose the other one.
Why the numbers drift apart
The website feed is not the portal feed
Your CRM sends listings to Rightmove and Zoopla through feeds those portals have spent years getting right. The feed to your website was usually added later, often by a different supplier, and it is the one nobody checks. It can run on different settings, on a different schedule, or not at all.
A tick box in the CRM
Many CRMs have a separate setting for whether a listing is published to the website. If it is left unticked when the listing is created, the property reaches the portals and never reaches you. It is the most common cause, and the easiest to fix.
Imports that fail quietly
Website imports often skip a listing they cannot read: a photo that is too large, a field in an unexpected format, a missing reference. The rest of the import carries on and reports success. Worse, a whole import can fail and leave the site frozen at whatever it last received, with nobody told.
Sales and lettings, branches and filters
Some sites show only one listing type on the search page, or only one branch’s stock, because of a filter set at launch and forgotten. Others hide properties under offer. Each is a reasonable choice, but it should be a choice.
How to find out which one it is
- Pick three properties that are on Rightmove but not on your site, and open them in your CRM. Look for a website or internet setting that differs from the listings that do appear.
- Ask whoever runs your website for the import log from the last run. A good import names every listing it skipped and why. If there is no log, that is your answer.
- Check when the newest listing on your site was added. If it is days older than your newest instruction, the feed has stopped.
What good looks like
A website feed should be as accountable as a portal feed. That means a count you can reconcile, where the number found in the CRM equals the number published plus the number held back, each with a reason. It means failures that name the property and the problem. And it means nothing disappears from the site without a person agreeing, because a feed that is missing records looks exactly like a feed reporting sales.
That is how we built the sync in Realist, and it is the first thing we check for any agency that asks.
Want us to count for you?
Book a demo and we will compare your website with your portal listings before the call. Book a demo.