DPG Claims “Fastest Growing” Title
September 7, 2009 by Emma Sorensen
We’ve done a lot of stories about which portal is the “fastest growing” in the UK, and it is not a topic that is going to vanish any time soon. UK portals both within and outside of the “big 4″ seem intent on proving their growth and strength by claiming the coveted title.
The latest is the Digital Property Group (DPG) which claims that its four property portals combined (primelocation.com, findaproperty.com, homesandproperty.co.uk and findanewhome.com) are the fastest growing in the category.
DPG says it is making this claim based on analysing absolute figures, rather than a percentage increase, as the number of unique visitors acquired month-on-month provides a clearer indication of which brands property searchers are choosing to visit. The company argues that this ensures a clarity that’s often lost, with portals claiming to be the fastest growing within the category based on a month-on-month percentage increase alone but benefiting from a low starting point due to a lack of consumer traction.
The company says this same data also reflects the ever decreasing gap between The Digital Property Group and its nearest rival, UK market leader rightmove.co.uk.
Andrew Smith, DPG’s Head of Research, said:
“Working in percentages, especially over such a short period, can be deceptive. When assessing unique visitor performance, we are interested in absolute figures, certainly not an erratic percentage which reflects an already low base. Our figures show the true volume of consumer preference which is really what estate agents should be interested in.”
“When taking absolute unique visitor growth into consideration, The Digital Property Group is the fastest growing portal group, and have also closed the gap on Rightmove by 123,000 unique visitors between June and July 2009 alone. This is further evidence that the no.1 position is coming under pressure.”
DPG is using comScore figures to make their stake on the “fastest growing” title:
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This does seem like a more true reflection of the market at the moment though would be nice to back track at least 3 months to get a real perspective.
.My only gripe is why don’t you make a list of each web site in its own entity ie .com rather than cloaked within a group ie propertyfinder.com, finadaproperty.com etc .
Please lets just see which ’site’ is performing. Only then can you get idea what is really happening. I’m sure you would see trovit rise and also globrix. Also you can see which site within a group is performing and which is flatlining …….
So hang on – Smartnewhomes, Zoopla and PropertyFinder are the fastest growing (in % terms), and Zoopla & PropertyFinder are now part of the same company, so in absolute visitor growth terms they gained +88 +360 = 448, which is more than DPG.
Whichever way you look at it, DPG is not fastest-growing – sorry Andrew.
Michael – not too sure about that. The 448 figure for Zoopla wont have been de-duplicated by comScore as they dont recognise that group as a single entity. And if you’re taking absolute loss or gain into account, Thinkproperty actually lost visitors between June and July – so it would be further reduced… Either way, it’s conjecture as it’s not validated by comScore, so impossible to say that Zoopla are faster growing by these metrics.
[...] claimed the “fastest growing property portal group” title in September and October. The company, which [...]