A property with no latitude and longitude cannot be drawn on a map. MLSImport imports coordinates when your MLS sends them and does not work them out from the address, so a listing that arrives without them has no pin and no map on its own page.
The fix depends on which of three things is true: the feed does not carry coordinates, it carries them under names we are not reading, or it carries them as zeros. Each is checked differently.
Check one property first
Pick a listing that is missing from the map and open it in the WordPress editor.
- In standalone mode, open the Location tab of the property panel and look at Latitude and Longitude.
- In WpResidence, WpEstate, Houzez or Real Homes, open the theme’s location panel and read the same two fields there.
Empty fields mean nothing arrived. Values of 0 mean something arrived and it was zero, which is a different problem with its own article. Real values mean the import worked and the map is the place to look next.
Cause 1: your MLS does not publish coordinates
This is the common one, and it is not a setting you can change. Some MLSs withhold coordinates from the public feed, and some carry them for part of their inventory only.
Confirm it in one step. Find the same listing on the MLS’s own portal. If there is no map there either, the coordinates were never in the source data and no amount of configuration on your site will produce them.
What to do: ask your MLS to include Latitude and Longitude on your feed. That request is the only permanent fix. Until they do, the address-based fallback below is the practical option.
Cause 2: the feed uses different field names
RESO names these fields Latitude and Longitude. Some MLSs send the same values under their own names, and a value we are not reading is the same as a value that is not there.
Ask your MLS support two specific questions:
- Are latitude and longitude included in the API feed for our account?
- What are the exact field names carrying them?
Send us the answer and we adjust the mapping on our side so those names are read. This is not something to guess at, because a wrong name reads nothing rather than reading something wrong.
Ask for the answer in writing from the MLS rather than over the phone. The exact spelling matters, and field names in these feeds differ by a capital letter more often than you would expect.
Cause 3: coordinates arrive as zero
A listing sent with latitude 0 and longitude 0 is not missing from the map. It is on the map, in the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa, and it drags the view out with it. See the separate article on properties appearing in the ocean.
The address-based fallback
For feeds with no coordinates at all, we maintain a separate add-on plugin that fills them in from the address. It reads the address saved on the property, sends it to a free geocoding service, and stores the coordinates it gets back so the lookup runs once per listing rather than on every page view.
Two things to know before you rely on it. It depends entirely on the address the feed provides, so an incomplete or unusual address returns nothing. And the service is free, which means no result is guaranteed for any given address.
The add-on was built for WpResidence and can be tested on the other supported themes. Contact support to get it and we will install and test it with you.
On WpResidence you can test one address before deciding. Open a property and use Place Pin with Property Address. If the pin does not land, the geocoding service cannot read that address format, and the add-on will not manage it either.
Why fixing coordinates by hand does not hold
You can type coordinates into a property and save it, and the map will be right until that listing next updates. Sync overwrites imported fields with the feed’s values, so your correction is replaced by the empty or wrong value that caused the problem.
Manual coordinates are worth entering only on properties you added yourself, which are never overwritten because they do not come from the feed.
When the location is right but the wrong field fills the taxonomy
A related complaint reaches us with these: the county and state category shows a county name where you want the state, or the reverse. That is a mapping choice rather than a coordinate problem.
Both values usually arrive in the feed, and the Category column on the Select Import fields tab decides which one feeds the taxonomy. Point StateOrProvince at the category you want, set the field that currently holds it to none, and re-run the import so existing properties are updated. Coordinates are untouched by this, so it will not fix a missing pin.
Frequently asked questions
How many listings are affected on my site?
Sort your properties by latitude in wp-admin and the empty ones group together. If it is a handful, they are listings the MLS did not geocode. If it is all of them, the feed does not carry coordinates at all.
Will the next sync fill in the missing coordinates?
Only if your MLS starts sending them. Sync writes what the feed contains, so a field the feed does not carry stays empty however many times it runs.
Does the Import History screen show me the coordinates that were imported?
No. It records what happened to each listing over the last thirty days, which listing and which import task, not the field values. Read the values on the property itself.
Can a property with no coordinates still be found in search?
Yes. Text and dropdown search works on any property. What it cannot do is appear on a map or match a search drawn on one.
Related
- Why some properties appear in the ocean
- Setting up the map: MapBox key, starting point and zoom
- Select Import fields
- The WpResidence map is zoomed out and the listings are clustered
Send us one MLS number that has no pin and we will tell you which of the three causes it is.