3D this, 3D that. What’s the difference?
Zillow (along with its subsidiary Trulia) and Redfin are some of the top websites used by consumers. They both can embed a Matterport or a Zillow 3D Home tour on a listing’s detail page. However, Zillow is kind of dumb when it comes to how it handles virtual tour links – Zillow only looks at virtual tour #1 (currently), all others are ignored. In the Seattle area, the NWMLS allows up to 3 virtual tour links (a combo virtual tour like FloorPlanOnline’s, a separate Matterport link and say a custom video link). Other markets may allow for a branded and unbranded tour link. Unfortunately, as of September of 2022, Zillow will only recognize the first virtual tour put into the MLS.
Thus, we came up with our Zillow 3D Home add-on that gives Zillow enough content for you to “check the box” and get the 3D Home icon (like you see above on the map) but does not give them everything on the home (good from a strategic reason) and still lets you use our virtual tour as a clickable link, which on sites like Zillow, can have automatic rebranding back to the branded virtual tour through our patented Brandkeepr process.
In contrast, Redfin is smart, as they will look at all 3 tour links received, and they will embed Matterport, a video (Vimeo or Youtube), and they can even recognize floor plans from the listing photos, and display them in a separate floor plan tab as well. We have pointed this out to Zillow and they thought it was a good idea, but it takes time to move a ship. If they start recognizing all 3 tour links, the need for this separate Zillow 3D Home option is reduced for most use cases since Zillow treats Matterport the same as their own 3D Home app at this point, and your listing gets the 3D Home icon and preferential search treatment if there is a Matterport tour in the data feed. Better yet, you will not be enabling a competitor by giving them any detailed visual information of the home they can claim exclusive rights to (read their terms of use)….I am sure they have plans to re-market to homeowners down the road with that data, and their terms prevent you and us from using any of it in any manner other than display – so keep it out of their hands!
This video goes through how each site handles the content.
A side by side comparison
Redfin and Zillow highlight listings with “3D” tour content on the map based search results, and they both embed the content on a pop up media window. Whether your listing has Matterport or Zillow’s 3D Home tour (which is really a 360 tour), they both treat it the same. Redfin calls it a 3D Walkthrough, Zillow calls it a 3D Tour. Both embed the content, meaning a window pops up and the user stays on the media page where they can also see photos, videos and floor plans (if applicable).
If you do opt for the Zillow 3D Home addon, we will ONLY show it on Zillow. Unfortunately there is a setting that must be selected every time we do this to NOT distribute it to other brokerage websites. If this does not get switched off, then if your tour includes both Matterport and a Zillow 3D Home tour, the Zillow tour currently will overwrite the Matterport on Redfin. We have brought this up with Redfin, as I do not think that is what Redfin would want, so lets hope they fix this, but we can fix it after the fact, just let our support team know and we can reach back out to the service provider, as needed, and the switch will be made within a few hours. Some of this is a bit our of our control but we do have some ways to work around some of the issues. Again, if Zillow starts recognizing multiple virtual tour links provided in the data feed, the need for the Zillow 3D Home tour add-on will be decreased. You still may want this if your market only has one virtual tour spot, or if you have a photo tour. It’s a great way to bump your listing up for more exposure on Zillow and Redfin for not that much money.
The images below show view for the map search and then the listing page and embedded media pages.
