Property Portals – Global Top 100

Released on: May 22, 2009, 6:32 am
Author: Sonja Voigts-Hoffmann
Industry: Real Estate

New research published today by Globaledge.co.uk reveals the most important property portals on the internet. The research analyses more than 250 portals covering 42 countries and eleven languages and ranks them according to their power on Google.

To evaluate each portal, Globaledge.co.uk used SEOMoz’s LinkScape tool which replicates the most important elements of Google’s algorithm by ranking the importance of over 34 billion URLs. To order the list, Globaledge.co.uk sorted the data by the number of unique inbound links each portal has.

US portals dominate, but for how long?

Four US portals, Realtor.com, Zillow.com, Trulia.com and Move.com make the top ten. Globaledge.co.uk director Ashley Rigg isn’t surprised by the results. “Property portals in the US have a distinct advantage in the rankings. They work in a market that is at least three times the size of even the biggest European countries so there are many more websites that could potentially link to them.”

Also making the top ten are China’s Sofun.com and Focus.cn which reflects the growing importance of emerging economies on the web according to Rigg. “Just over 20% of China’s population are currently online and it’s a similar story in many other large emerging markets. As these online populations grow, so will the number of websites built to serve them. If we did this exercise again in three years time, I’d be willing to bet that the list will be like a ‘Who’s Who’ of property portals in the developing world.”

It pays to be a market leader

Interestingly, seven of the top 10 portals are all leaders in their respective markets. Realtor.com or Move.com are market leaders in the US (depending whether you believe Hitwise or ComScore), Soufun.com, Funda.nl, Realestate.com.au and Immobilienscout24.de dominate in China, Netherlands, Australia and Germany respectively. The Immobiliare Network (which includes Immobilmente.com) which arguably dominates in Italy and Gdeetotdom.ru is Russia’s largest stand alone property portal.

“When you dominate a market you become associated with that category. You not only tend to outsell your nearest rival by a huge margin but you also get talked about and therefore linked to naturally in conversations” says Rigg explaining the results. “These portals have huge inbuilt advantages in their markets. They are in a huge virtuous circle. Being well known gets you links which reinforces the trend. Dislodging market leaders is exceptionally difficult and is often extremely unprofitable.”

Top 10 Property Portals – Results Table

For full results table and article please visit Property Portals – Global Top 100.

Contact Details: Sonja Voigts-Hoffmann
PR Executive
Globaledge.co.uk
Tel: 0044 207 199 7895
Email: sonja@globaledge.co.uk