Why Google Property Search isn't a problem for portals

It was finally reported in the national press today that Google is likely to launch it's Real Estate search in the UK next year. Hardly breaking news for those of us in the industry, but it seems to have had an adverse effect on Rightmove's share price nonetheless.

I don't believe this will be a problem for the big portals though. Here's why:

1. It hasn't caused armageddon in Australia and the US

Realtor.com in the US and Realestate.com.au in Oz, the dominant property portals in their respective countries have both continued relatively unscathed by Google's entry to their marketplaces. Why? Because they offer agents more than just another place to list their properties and they have established brands with loyal users.

Even if Google did pull traffic away from the established portals, would this actually harm them? Most of them don't run advertising, so their traffic numbers aren't important from that respect. We tend to think of these things in absolute terms; "will people continue to use Rightmove or switch to Google". The reality is they may use both, they may use many others. It's a big enough game for there to be plenty of players. The success of one doesn't necessarily mean the doom of another. Look4aProperty is still hanging in there after all.

2. Google is a search engine, not a portal

The established portals' dominance in property is actually great for Google, because it means others have to invest heavily in paid for search to get a look in at the top of the search results or toil late into the night adjusting keywords for years. Google is unlikely to want to compete with the major portals both because it is not a portal itself and because the portals help it to generate revenue, but it is likely to believe there is serious paid for search revenue to be generated from the 'long tail' of property advertisers, namely agents. Google Property Search may actually end up linking through to individual properties on Rightmove, Primelocationet al, in which case, the status quo would be maintained.

3. Agent websites compromise the user experience

You only need to look to Globrix to understand how far we are from Google stealing everyone's thunder. Globrix' site is just about as slick as you get in portal world and their property database (although not complete) is as good as one needs to claim to have 'complete' UK coverage. Despite this compelling combination and consequent success, they haven't really troubled the paid for portals. I would actually classify Globrix as a search engine rather than a portal, because to present properties fully, Globrix does and Google will rely on users leaving their sites to view property information in full on an agent's own website. This is where they fall down.

There are so many completely rubbish estate agent websites out there, it compromises the user experience massively when a slick site like Globrix links through to a property page on an agent's website that was clearly designed (badly) in 1998. Poor presentation and poor navigation on the agent site would discourage serious property hunters from repeatedly using Google Property Search, not to mention the potential for property listings to be duplicated or out of date. Some agents already have a great website with fantastically presented properties, but this still doesn't help Globrix or Google, because of the inconsistency in the presentation.

Rightmove has always carefully managed uniformity. Their property listings are consistently presented and as much as this has been a frustration to agents keen to achieve stand out, it has helped Rightmove generate a loyal user base who are comfortable with browsing the site. This is because they are familiar with how all the information on a property is set out. Rightmove have never allowed their listings to click through to the agents' own websites because of the loss of control that comes with this.

What next?

Google Property Search will come to the UK. Not today, not tomorrow, but soonish. That's about the only thing we can be certain of. What happens after that is open to huge conjecture. In a world of a successful Google Property Search, agent websites would need to be more fluid. Property pages would need to be the landing pages or individual properties would need their own websites in the same vane as the Estate Create tours. Think about how this works elsewhere, if you search for a product which Amazon or eBay list, it doesn't click through to the homepage, it goes directly to the product page, but most importantly here, Amazon and eBay attempt to persuade that visitor to delve deeper into their own sites by displaying offers, functions and other product suggestions similar to the product they have found.

There will be agents that 'get it' and raise their game significantly in this arena, and fast. Those will be the ones who are able to say to vendors "oh yes, all our properties are optimised to appear on the new Google Property Search" and leverage a point of difference from the competition, but they won't be saying in the same breath "and that's why we stopped listing on Findaproperty, Rightmove, Primelocation, etc." Why? Because every single one of their competitors would cite it as a reason not to list with that agent.

Comments

[Mike Carter]

Great post. I couldn't agree more with all your points....