According to the latest Nielsen and comScore averages, traffic to the Top 10 UK property portals was down 8% in April to 8.7 million combined unique website visitors from a figure of 9.5 million in March 2009.
The figures were released by UK property portal and property information website zoopla.co.uk. Each month zoopla.co.uk releases property website rankings they compile themselves by averaging the number of unique visitors as reported by Nielsen and comScore. zoopla.co.uk say the averages provide a more stable picture of the market and aim to eliminate any bias from an individual reporting methods.
Whether the figures are any more useful as an average (rather than on their own) is debatable. But the averages certainly paint a portrait of the UK market that will surprise some people.
Top 10 UK Property Portals for April (compared to March):
1. Rightmove (-5.37%)
2. Digital Property Group (-9.67%)
3. Propertyfinder Group (-14.31%)
4. Nestoria (-7.92%)
5. Zoopla.co.uk (-1.76%)
6. Globrix (+4.27%)
7. Trovit Homes (+5.15%)
8. Trinity Mirror Network (-23.69%)
9. Fish4Homes (-7.79%)
10. Home.co.uk (-28.35%)
zoopla.co.uk say the figures will be particularly troubling for some of the “first generation” property portals like the Propertyfinder Group who are down almost 15% and the Trinity Mirror Network who are down over 20% on March traffic.
In contrast, some of the newer portals like globrix.com and Trovit Homes continue to show month-on-month growth and close the gap on the old guard.
zoopla.co.uk itself showed a slight decline in traffic but held onto fifth place.
Alex Chesterman, CEO of zoopla.co.uk, commented on the rankings:
“With over 85% of UK buyers beginning their property search online, the traffic figures to the leading property portals provide a good proxy of buyer interest in the market at any given point in time and the green shoots of growing buyer interest beginning to appear in March seem to have stalled in April.”
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a non-story. April is always a poor month compared to March due to the long Easter weekend.
Are you suggesting that the market share of the major portals has shifted onto the minor portals in the space of 1 month? The consistency of change across the major portals should indicate this is an effect of the market. Globrix and Trovit have such a small market share that it’s not very difficult to make gains in terms of %.
You’re basically publishing a press release from a minor player that’s hoping to gain some credibility.
Is this supposed to be some kind of journalism?
Clearly publishing a press release without scrutiny. The list is not even the real top 10! Look again at Comscore or Alexa!
Agree, April has one less day than March and has Easter. Would be shocking if numbers didn’t go down month on month.
Would be interesting to see Hitwise figures.
Chris and J Rodgers: thanks for your comments.
The article makes it very clear that the figures are supplied and backed by zoopla.co.uk.
As we wrote in the article above: Whether the figures are any more useful as an average of Hitwise and Comscore (rather than on their own) is debatable. But it paints an interesting picture.
If anyone would like to supply the raw Hitwise or Comscore figures – or any other figures – we’d be delighted to run another story and compare them.
Your point about there being less days in April is interesting.
Thanks for responding Emma! Here is the list of property portals I extracted from comscore April 09
1.Rightmove
2.TDPG
3.Propertyfinder
4.Nestoria
5.Trovit
6.Zoopla
7.Globrix
8.Mouseprice
9.Fish4homes
10.Homes24
11.Look4aproperty
12.Home.co.uk
13.PropertyIndex
J Rodgers,
I think you might find that the numbers in cited in the original post by Emma were averages of both Nielsen and ComScore.
Not sure that anyone is looking at Alexa as any credible source as yet.
However, you are right when you (and others) mute other variables contributing to less traffic/activity on the larger portals. Number of days in a month, weekends, public holidays etc.. are all the standard.
I am interested in the significant drop for Propertyfinder – which might indicate a reduced SEM budget contributing to the variables fore mentioned. Does this mean that some members of the top 4 are looking vulnerable to more nimble and niche sites?
A recent report I read recently highlighted the fact that many of those searching Internet Property Websites were doing so out of interest and .curiosity and were not serious buyers.
That would be obvious
Add the traffic numbers of the main portals then look at actual transaction numbers of houses sold .
Now as a percentage year on year or quarter on quarter is it changing then you have an answer.
Fair enough AJ – I obviously didn’t read the original article carefully.
It is an interesting point your raise regarding propertyfinder
I would like to add however that third party traffic numbers regardless of source (Alexa, Comscore, Hitwise etc.) all bounce around a lot from month to month because the sample they use is small. Next time you do this I would be interested to see your analysis again but comparing three monthly averages instead of month-on-month.
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