rightmove.co.uk

rightmove.co.uk is the UK’s number one property website. Rightmove advertises more residential property than any of its competitors, with over one million UK properties listed from over 90% of all UK agents. The site receives over 35 million visits per month, and serves in excess of 400 million pages of property information to end users.

Ownership | Market Position | Key Measurements | Market Coverage | Advertising Model | Financials | Site Sections | Technology | Key Management | History | Recent Press | Information Sources

Ownership

rightmove.co.uk is owned by Rightmove Plc. The website was launched in 2000, originally as a joint venture between four of the UK’s largest estate agents: Halifax, Countrywide Assured, Connells and Royal & Sun Alliance. In March 2006, Rightmove Plc (RMV) was listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Market Position

rightmove.co.uk lists more properties and attracts more visitors than any other property portal in the UK. The website has ranked as high as 7th most viewed website in the UK (Hitwise) and was named ‘Best UK Property Portal’ at the 2007 Daily Mail Property Awards. rightmove.co.uk was also named ‘Best Homes website’ in the BT Online Excellence Awards 2007.

Key Measurements
(September 2008)

• rightmove.co.uk - the most visited property website - had 37.8m visits in September. This is as many visits as the next 3 biggest property websites added together and more than orange.co.uk and friendsreunited. (Hitwise, September 2008)
• rightmove.co.uk has 2.431m unique users (Comscore, September 2008)

Market Coverage

rightmove.co.uk covers the whole of the UK. Aboutmyplace is Rightmove’s mapping website supporting our Rightmove users with map based information currently including sold prices, schools, and transport.

Advertising Model

rightmove.co.uk generates revenue from charging members a monthly subscription fee. rightmove.co.uk members include estate agents, letting agents, new homes developers and letting agents. rightmove.co.uk does not advertise property from private sellers. Access is free for visitors to the site, who can search for property to buy or rent. In addition to access to comprehensive property details, images, floor plans and maps, visitors can subscribe to the website to receive ‘new listings’ email alerts for their search area. Homehunters contact the agents via rightmove.co.uk to request further details and arrange viewings.

In addition to regular property listings, Rightmove offers various other marketing products to it’s members to make their brand or select properties really stand out. These ‘Choice products’ include:

• Brand Plus – the member’s logo appears alongside all their summary results
• Premium Display – an individual summary result is presented in an enhanced design
• Showcase - properties are displayed in highlighted boxes at the top of the search results pages, these are displayed before standard listings and have a larger picture than a standard listing.

Financials

Unknown

Site Sections

The key sections of the website are:

• Homes for sale
• Homes for rent
• New Homes for sale
• Find Agent – search for local Rightmove agents in your area
• House Prices – find out how much UK properties have sold for

Technology

rightmove.co.uk uses enterprise grade best of breed technology running UNIX, with Apache and Java running against an Enterprise grade database.

Key Management

The key management are:

• Scott Forbes – Chairman
• Ed Williams – Group Managing Director
• Graham Zacharias – Group Finance Director
• Nick McKittrick – Managing Director of rightmove.co.uk
• Scott Marshall - Finance Director of rightmove.co.uk
• Miles Shipside - Commercial Director
• Peter Brooks-Johnson - Product Director
• Alan Gearing - Property Related Services and Marketing Director
• Simon Hickie - HR Director
• Kathryn Harris - Marketing Director
• Peter Armstrong – New Homes Director

History

In early 2000, rightmove.co.uk was a joint venture between UK’s largest estate agency chains - Halifax, Countrywide, Connells and Royal & Sun Alliance. The company began charging agents to advertise on the website in 2002 and the business went from strength to strength, with the New Homes division launched in September 2002. In March 2006, Rightmove plc was publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Recent Press

Press releases are listed under the press and information section at rightmove.co.uk.

Information Sources

Management Interview
Site Review

1. rightmove.co.uk Launches Huge Marketing Campaign

   UK market leader rightmove.co.uk has announced the launch of its biggest ever marketing campaign. To begin in late December, the new campaign is modelled around the slogan “See More”.

2. rightmove.co.uk Trial £95 Premium Listing

   A press release from rightmove.co.uk says the UK market leader will be launching a Beta version of its website on 8 June 2009. The Beta site is to trial sellers’ and agents’ response to a publicis

3. Rightmove plc Appoints Director

   Rightmove plc, operator of rightmove.co.uk, the UK's leading property portal, has announced the appointment of Ashley Martin as a non-executive director and as Audit Committee Chairman.

4. rightmove.co.uk Announces Restructure

   UK market leader rightmove.co.uk has announced changes that will simplify its organisation and Board, effective as of January 2009.

5. rightmove.co.uk Laying Off 20% of Staff

   This week rightmove.co.uk issued a press release revealing changes to their organisational structure they claim are aimed at increasing focus on its core UK property advertising business. The changes