Your own website vs your Zillow and Realtor.com profiles

You already have a profile on Zillow and one on Realtor.com, and maybe a page on your brokerage’s website. So do you need a website of your own as well?

They aren’t competing for the same job. Your portal profiles put you in front of people who are already browsing homes. Your own website is the one place online that’s entirely about you, on an address you control. This guide covers what each does well, who controls what, and how to make them work together.

At a glance

What your Zillow profile does well

Zillow offers agents a free profile. Its own guide to setting one up covers:

• A photo and a video. You can show a video near the top of your profile.
• An “About me” section. Zillow notes that visitors only see the first few lines unless they click to read more, so put the important things first.
• Specialties and languages. You can flag areas of expertise, such as first-time buyers or luxury homes, and the languages you speak.
• Links to your website and social accounts. Zillow lists Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
• Past sales. You add them through the Manage MLS Agent ID button on your profile.
• Reviews. You can request them through Zillow’s request form, and Zillow says reviews can come from anyone you’ve helped with real estate, not just from closed transactions.
• Your listings. Zillow’s help center says listings link to your profile through your email address and your MLS Agent ID. If you belong to more than one MLS or use more than one email address, you can add extra emails to your profile.

What your Realtor.com profile does well

Realtor.com also offers a free agent profile, which you claim by signing up for its free professional dashboard. Its guides say:

• NAR membership shows. NAR members can show the REALTOR® logo and their certifications. To complete the claim, you sync your NRDS ID to your dashboard.
• Contact details, including your website. Your profile can display your phone number, email, website, brokerage name and business address, plus a short quote about your expertise.
• Your story and your areas. There’s an “About me” section, a field for your experience, and space for the cities and neighborhoods you serve.
• Sales and reviews. Your profile can show your sales, ratings and reviews. You can request reviews from past clients from your profile, and paste in older ratings and reviews.
• Leads. Realtor.com says profile visitors who click to contact you send you free leads.

What you control, and what you don’t

A portal profile is a page on the portal’s website, under the portal’s terms.

• The portal sets the layout. It decides what appears on your profile and in what order, and it can change the design whenever it likes.
• Your content is licensed to the platform. Zillow’s terms of use (updated October 28, 2025) give Zillow a perpetual license to content you upload and say Zillow may remove or modify it at any time. Realtor.com’s terms of use give its operator, Move, a perpetual license to content you submit.
• Access can change. Both sets of terms say the platform can suspend or end your access to its services.
• Reviews stay on the platform. Zillow’s terms say you may not reproduce reviews, ratings or profile information from Zillow on another website, except where Zillow explicitly permits it. So link to your reviews there rather than copying them onto your own site.

None of this is a criticism. Zillow and Realtor.com serve buyers, sellers and every agent in the market at once, and their terms reflect that. It just means your profiles can’t be the one place you fully control.

When you change brokerages

Your Zillow and Realtor.com profiles are tied to your own accounts, but some details come from your brokerage and your MLS. After a move, update your brokerage name and contact details on each profile. On Zillow, check your MLS Agent ID and the email addresses on your profile, since that’s how your listings connect to it. If you’re unsure what happens to your sales history or reviews, ask each platform’s support team before you move.

What your own website adds

Your name as the address. A site at yourname.com is easy to say at an open house, easy to remember and a clear match when someone searches your name. We cover this in your domain name as an agent.

Room for your story. Why you got into real estate, the neighborhoods you know street by street, how you prepare a home for sale. Your own site has room for the things that make a seller feel they know you before they call. Our real estate agent bio examples can help you write it.

Your results, up front. Sellers want to know what you’ve sold, especially near them. On your own site, your sales lead the page.

Inquiries that come to you. Messages from your site go straight to your inbox.

It moves with you. If you change brokerages, your domain, your content and every link you’ve shared stay put. You update your brokerage name and license details and carry on.

What it won’t do: it won’t bring you the people who browse homes on the portals, and a new site takes time to be found in search. That’s why you keep your profiles.

How to make them work together

1. Keep both profiles complete. Photo, bio, specialties, areas you serve, sales and reviews, on Zillow and on Realtor.com.
2. Use the same details everywhere. The same name as on your license, the same brokerage, phone number, email and website on every profile. It helps people, and search engines, connect them all to one agent.
3. Add your website to each profile. Zillow supports a website link, and Realtor.com has a website field.
4. Link from your site to your profiles. Point visitors to your reviews on Zillow and Realtor.com instead of copying them across.
5. Keep asking for reviews. Use Zillow’s request form and Realtor.com’s review requests after every closing, and add a reminder to your calendar.
6. Share your own domain everywhere else. On your business card, your digital business card, your email signature and your social profiles. It’s the one link that never changes.

Your advertising still needs to follow your state’s rules and your brokerage’s policies wherever it appears. Our guide to fair housing in agent marketing is a good place to start.

So, do you need both?

If you want to be found by people browsing homes, keep your portal profiles complete. If you want one place that’s entirely about you, on an address that stays with you for your whole career, add your own website. Use both, and point them at each other.

Every Real Agent Marketing site is written from a brief that takes minutes and is built on a domain in your own name, registered to you. Your listings are ones you add yourself or import from your brokerage profile page. We don’t connect to Zillow, Realtor.com or MLS feeds. See how the website works, or see pricing.

Sources

• Create a free agent profile in 8 easy steps: Zillow’s guide to its free profile, website and social links, past sales, reviews and listings.
• How do I sync my listings with my Zillow profile?: Zillow Help Center on linking listings by email address and MLS Agent ID.
• Zillow Terms of Use: content license, account changes and the rule against reproducing reviews elsewhere (updated October 28, 2025).
• Claim and complete your agent profile: Realtor.com’s overview of its free agent profile.
• 3 easy steps to claim your realtor.com profile: signing up for the free dashboard and syncing your NRDS ID.
• 10 ways to optimize your Find a REALTOR® profile: profile fields, including your website and brokerage, and requesting and adding reviews.
• Realtor.com Terms of Use: content license and account terms from Move, Inc.