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Property browsers quit the home page

19 September 2008
Written by rosalind renshaw

Traffic to property websites has fallen.

The latest ComScore figures show traffic to Rightmove has declined 29.5% between August 2007 and August 2008, and by 7.9% since July of this year. During the same periods, Thinkproperty fell by 44.5% and suffered a monthly drop of 37.6%, making it the biggest loser.

However, Rightmove’s unique visitor numbers are still far higher than any of its rivals. In August, it had 2.4 million unique visitors, compared with Findaproperty, the second most visited property portal, with 1.304 million.

Findaproperty’s monthly dip in numbers was only 2.4% and its annual fall just 10.4%, but its stablemate in Daily Mail Group ownership, Primelocation, did not fare so well. It had 929,000 visitors in August, with ComScore registering a monthly fall in traffic of 8.4%% and an annual dip of 25.7%.

However, the two sites are now part of the Mail’s newly formed Digital Property Group, which also incorporates FindaNewHome and HomesandProperty. Together the four have a combined UK reach of 2.045 million monthly unique users. However, even this combined total is still 355,000 behind Rightmove’s annual traffic.

Another loser was Propertyfinder, which registered 1.123 million unique users in August, a monthly fall of 6.3% and an annual fall in traffic of 23.5%.

The biggest winner was Nestoria, posting a 159.9% year-on-year rise. However, the rise was from a small base and although traffic in August was just 509,000, this was still ahead of the 414,000 recorded for Thinkproperty.

Globrix, the most recent property internet launch, was not in the top ten property portals.

Comments

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    With the market going through tough times, how much longer will it be before Rightmove get's found out - charging extortionate fees in a declining market will only last until a better solution comes up, then watch their popularity and share price fall. I have been using www.propertyhat.com and whilst I can only list 1 property at a time, it's free and they have said they will extend this shortly - hurry up Property Hat, we'd love to have an alternative to use!

    • 21 September 2008 05:21 AM
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    In the figures, findaproperty faired better then other, probably because it's demographic audiance is a better split of renters and buyers, who no doubt are few and far between.

    Rightmove is likely to loose market share as it's not as cost effective. However, when 25% of the agency market is duty bound to support it, it can't fail.

    • 20 September 2008 12:05 PM
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    Surely it's time to take stock of where we advertise online.

    Rightmove, although still the most visited website, is only at the top because the majority of agents promote them rigorously in newspaper advertising, on for sale boards, on office documents etc, etc, etc.

    It's US that made them great in the first place. We advertised their business and they charged us for doing it...Great marketing, but haven't they taken us for fools?

    What if we all adopted Globrix, which is free, has better search, links to our sites directly and is owned by Murdock?

    We'd all save hundreds of pounds a month, get more visitors to OUR OWN sites and be able to market more directly.

    Surely this makes sense, doesn't it?

    • 19 September 2008 01:17 AM
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    Just goes to show how important branding and a good web name is. My wife refers to Globrix as Glowsticks. OK if you want something bright to wave about!

    • 19 September 2008 12:16 PM
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    Although traffic has dipped, I would suggest that the internet is the most popular way buyers search for their next property. Interesting to see that globrix doesn't feature in the top 10.

    • 19 September 2008 11:53 AM
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