Internet display opt-out
The BrokerFold Team — Product + Engineering
Last reviewed
An internet display opt-out is a seller’s written instruction that their listing not be displayed on the internet — kept off public portals and off other members’ IDX and VOW websites — while remaining inside the MLS itself. The listing still exists for member-to-member cooperation: agents can find it, show it, and sell it. The public just never sees it online.
How it works
The choice is made at listing time, on the board’s listing paperwork, and it travels with the record as data. When a feed delivers listings to website vendors, opted-out records arrive flagged — or don’t arrive at all, depending on the board’s plumbing — and every compliant website must respect that instruction. It is not one switch, either: boards generally distinguish a full internet opt-out from narrower ones, like suppressing the address or blocking automated estimates, so a seller can dial privacy without going fully dark. And because the instruction belongs to the seller, only the seller can lift it — a mid-listing change of heart runs as an amendment through the listing brokerage, and the record’s display flags update downstream from there.
What it explains
This is one of the quietest sources of confusion in real estate: a home is visibly for sale — sign on the lawn, agents booking showings — yet no website shows it. Before anyone blames their website vendor, the diagnostic question is whether the listing appears on any member site; if it appears on none, an opt-out is the likely answer, and no platform may override it. The full missing-listings walkthrough is in why are listings missing from my IDX website.
What it means for your website
Honouring opt-outs is not a courtesy — it is a condition of holding the feed, and boards audit for it. A properly built platform enforces the instruction at ingestion, before a record can ever reach a page, rather than filtering at display time and hoping nothing leaks; that is how BrokerFold handles it. The same discipline extends past active listings: what may show publicly, what sits behind a VOW login, and what a seller has withheld entirely are three different permissions, and a listings site has to keep all three straight on every page it renders — including the gated sold data layer.
Frequently asked questions
Why would a seller opt out of internet display?
Privacy, mostly. High-profile owners, tenanted properties, estate situations, or sellers who simply don't want photos of their home circulating online. The trade is real: less exposure usually means a smaller buyer pool, which is why agents document the choice carefully.
Can a seller hide just the address instead of the whole listing?
Usually, yes. Boards typically offer narrower switches alongside the full opt-out — suppressing the street address, blocking automated value estimates, or turning off public comments on portals that support them. The listing still displays; the sensitive detail doesn't.
Keep reading
- Why are listings missing from my IDX website? Four honest causes, in diagnostic order: the feed slice you're on, internet-display opt-outs, status scope, and vendor sync lag. How to tell which one it is.
- IDX IDX is the framework that lets a realtor display their board's active MLS listings on their own website. How it works in Canada, board by board.
- VOW VOW stands for Virtual Office Website: a registered-visitor experience that shows sold prices and off-market listings on a realtor's own site.
- Sold data Sold data is the record of what properties actually sold for. Where it lives in Canada, who may display it, and how a VOW puts it on your website.