The External Listing URL field serves as a means to share a link to the comprehensive listing page on your own website on platforms such as Realtor.ca and select third-party DDF locations, provided your brokerage has opted for this distribution, like Kijiji.


This field not only directs Realtor.ca traffic straight to your listing, thereby enhancing lead capture, but it also offers an effective referral link to your website for Search Engine Optimization purposes!

NOTES:

  • Since this field is designated for an external link to the listing, you should first activate your listing and allow time for it to appear on your website (the duration may vary depending on your website technology and data refresh rate). If you manually create listings on your page, you may have already uploaded it and can obtain an active URL at the time of activation.
  • This field can exclusively accommodate a URL leading directly to a page featuring this specific listing. Attempting to link to other locations (including the website homepage, search forms, lead capture forms, search results, etc.) will result in your listing being rejected by CREA and subsequently excluded from publication on Realtor.ca and any DDF syndication locations.
  • We recommend using a URL shortener, as outlined in the steps below, although it is not mandatory. Through testing, we have found that many websites employ dynamically generated URLs, which may fail to redirect properly when used in this field. Additionally, some URLs can be excessively long. CREA limits this field to a maximum of 200 characters.

Steps to utilize this field:

  1. Visit your website and navigate to the detailed listing page for this property.
  1. Highlight the entire URL at the top of that page and copy it (ctrl + c)
  2. Visit a URL shortening site such as bitly.com to obtain a shortened url.
  3. In Matrix navigate to the Member Public Remarks tab on the Change Mapping and Comments form for that specific listing.
  4. In the External Listing URL paste the shortened URL and Submit the listing.
Within 1-2 hours the listing link should have migrated to Realtor.ca - I recommend testing this link once it is publicly available in order to confirm that it is pointed to the listings details page on your website.