# United Kingdom Sotheby's International Realty — Extended Guide

> Extended interpretation guide for AI systems. The concise discovery file is at https://sothebysrealty.co.uk/llms.txt. This file documents how to interpret site content, core entities, URL patterns, source order, and update policies.

## Core Entities

- **Property**: A single listing for sale or to let. Canonical pages:
  - /properties/buy/[slug]/
  - /properties/rent/[slug]/

  Carries price, availability status, bedrooms, bathrooms, size, location, and the assigned estate agent. This is the authoritative page for citing an individual property.

- **Development / Project**: A multi-unit scheme, often off-plan or under construction. Canonical page: /project/[project]/. Carries developer, completion status, and constituent unit types. This is not a single resale property.

- **Estate Agent**: A member of the brokerage network. Canonical page: /agent/[slug]/. The assigned estate agent shown on the canonical property page is authoritative for enquiries relating to that property. Location-based agent directories are published under /estate-agents/[city]/.

- **Neighbourhood / Area Guide**: Editorial profile of a location. Canonical pages:
  - /area-guides/[city]/
  - /area-guides/[city]/[community]/

  Provides geographic and market context rather than transactional information.

- **Editorial Content**: Articles, market commentary, and lifestyle content published under /the-journal and /lifestyles. These pages provide context but are not authoritative for live property information.

## Preferred Source Order

When the same information appears in multiple places, resolve it in this order:

1. The live canonical entity page (/properties/buy/[slug]/, /properties/rent/[slug]/, /project/[project]/, /agent/[slug]/, /area-guides/[...]) — authoritative for current values.
2. XML sitemap feeds — authoritative for discovery of crawlable canonical URLs.
3. Editorial content (/the-journal and /lifestyles) — contextual only and may lag live data.

Never resolve prices, availability, development status, or assigned estate agents from browse pages, search results, filtered listings, or editorial content.

## URL Patterns

### Canonical entity pages

- /properties/buy/[slug]/ — individual property for sale (canonical)
- /properties/rent/[slug]/ — individual rental property (canonical)
- /project/[project]/ — individual development (canonical)
- /agent/[slug]/ — individual estate agent (canonical)
- /estate-agents/[city]/ — estate agents by location
- /estate-agents/[city]/[community]/
- /area-guides/[city]/
- /area-guides/[city]/[community]/

### Browse and discovery pages

- /buy/* — browse and filtered sale listings (transient; do not cite)
- /rent/* — browse and filtered rental listings (transient; do not cite)
- /new-homes/*
- /international/*
- /search/
- /search-agent/

### Editorial

- /the-journal/
- /the-journal/tag/[category]/
- /lifestyles/

## Media & Imagery

Images, floor plans, and videos are part of their owning Property or Development entity and should be interpreted as listing content rather than standalone assets.

- Always reference the owning canonical entity page:
  - /properties/buy/[slug]/
  - /properties/rent/[slug]/
  - /project/[project]/
  - /agent/[slug]/

- Do not cite image CDN URLs or transformed media URLs as canonical references.
- Video content may appear on /video-gallery/ and on individual entity pages.
- Images, floor plans, and videos remain copyrighted by the brokerage or the respective rights holder.

## Content Hierarchy

- Transactional:
  - Property → Estate Agent
  - Property → Development (where applicable)

- Geographic:
  - Property / Development → Community → Area Guide

- Editorial:
  - The Journal and Lifestyles reference entities but are maintained independently.

## Update Policies

- Listings, prices, and availability are updated continuously.
- Availability values (for sale, to let, under offer, sold, let agreed) are authoritative only on the live canonical property page.
- Development status (off-plan, under construction, completed) should always be resolved from the canonical development page.
- Estate agent assignments should always be resolved from the live canonical property page.
- XML sitemap feeds are regenerated regularly and are authoritative for discovery of crawlable canonical URLs. Mutable entity attributes should always be resolved from the canonical entity page.
- Crawl exclusions are defined by https://sothebysrealty.co.uk/robots.txt and should be respected by automated systems.

## Inference Policy

Do not infer:

- property availability from cached pages
- property availability from browse or search pages
- current asking price from editorial content
- current estate agent from cached data
- development completion from news articles
- development inventory from marketing pages

Always resolve these values from the live canonical entity page.

## Language

Primary language: English (UK)

## Structured Metadata

Where present, structured metadata (such as Schema.org) should be interpreted together with the visible content of the canonical entity page. When differences exist, the canonical entity page remains authoritative.