Jump to content
MikeJaquish

To Hot Link or Not To Hot Link? That is the Question.

Recommended Posts

What is the disadvantage of downloading photos from the RETS server, vs. hot linking?

Is it just a matter of bandwidth usage and storage requirements?

 

Will GOOG index photos on my server?  Image search?

 

I guess it is moot for me, since my MLS requires downloading photos to my server.  I'm just wondering why that may be a bad thing.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You are not required to download images to your server unless the BOR watermarks them with you company info.

The only seo advantage for listing images is to use the alt and link descriptions, which both are dynamic in our system....anyone wanting to actually rank for "listing images" aren't typically going to find that those are people looking to "buy real estate" and therefore I'd take Google's advice and do a CDN and then just hotlink the listing images for making page loads even faster and thus ranking better - Even when forced to download I would download all images to a single account and then hotlink all my other sites off of that single source (thus proving that unless images are watermarked with your ID then no need to download)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

No watermark requirements then we could easily pick from at least 6 or more media servers to hot-link from - if you wanted to...or feel free to download them...personally if I can find a reliable media source then I just go with that until I'm "forced" to download as that would be my absolute last choice every time...unless were talking less than 5k to 8k listings or something then I could maybe see doing those as downloads....but still my last choice.

We did CREA Canadian Real Estate Association last year - downloaded all 100k+ listings and images - images took nearly 2 weeks to get them all caught up since there were so many changes every hour.....and with CREA you have to download them since they are NOT Rets compliant.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now

×