Google Real Estate will force the portals to embrace, open and innovate or die!

Slowly but surely Google Real Estate is making inroads into the Australian real estate market with the recent signing of LJ Hooker on top of most of the major players in real estate in Australia. It will take longer for all of the smaller independent agents to come onboard, however it is clear that this is the beginning of a new era and it is time REA and Domain stepped up to the plate and opened themselves up to the Google way of life!

Why? Because not doing so will slowly end their dominance and when the decline occurs it will be so fast that no maneuvering will make a difference.

Some may argue that Google Real Estate has not made a difference as yet, but these people live in complete denial and it will only be a matter of time before visitor numbers begin declining and Google Real Estate begins its upward March.

Remember, Google only has to get comparative data to make a difference. Google also have a far greater capacity to let people know about it than all other real estate portals in the world combined.

Recently a number of videos have been produced that well and truly show how serious Google is about maps and real estate.

Finding a house on Google Real Estate Maps

Here is one to showcase real estate listings throughout Australia

Here is one on how to refine your real estate search on Google Real Estate.

Real Estate API’s
Realestate.com.au and domain.com.au must open their databases up to the general public to create a whole new wave of web and mobile applications.

I have been pushing API’s with these portals for over 2 years and yet we still have nothing. Maybe Realestate.com.au’s big announcement will include an API?

What can an API do?
As an example any website would be able to carry listings through this API, so community websites, industry websites, councils, agents, even business2.com.au would be able to carry listings, sales data etc. Portals do not need agents permission as agents have signed away all rights to the data when they join these sites.

Signing up should be simple and approval rapid and it should be accompanied by rapidly evolving documentation and examples.

Boon for portals
One other thing we will see is innovation across the board, even things we have not even thought of will take us by surprise, but the biggest boon will be for the portals. It will extend their listings and sales data reach and allow that data to be ingrained across 10’s of thousands of websites across Australia and the world.

Versions
There should be two versions of the API, the free version which carries 3rd parties adverts from the portals and is a little limited and then a paid version that carries no advertising and allows the user to do whatever they want with the data!

Flow on
The flow on effect of this will flow across the industries to jobs, cars and classifieds.

Will this happen?
Don’t hold your breath, large organisations are slow at moving on these opportunities, usually waiting until it is too late. We are fast approaching a time where I think realestate.com.au and domain.com.au will start going backwards unless they really innovate with API’s.

One only has to look at the music industry and the movie industry to see how stubborn incumbents completely ruin their own industries by not embracing and innovating.

55 Comments »

How REA buries agents in search results

Google doesn’t like duplicate content. People suspected of using it to manipulate search results are punished, often by their site being banished from a high rank in a search.

Duplicate content is often legitimate and Google understands this. Take property listings for example. Jane Smith is a real estate agent. She uses MyDesktop to upload a new listing to her site. As part of the MyDesktop service her listing is uploaded to reiwa.com, domain.com.au and realestate.com.au, all via an XML feed.

It makes sense for Jane to pay for this service. She enters her listing details once but gets exposure on a number of sites. But that’s not the end of the story.

Jane is interested in more than selling her listing. She also wants to attract new listings. To do so she wants to be found in a Google search and this is where duplicate content becomes an issue.

When Google finds duplicate content they look for instructions from the webmaster about how they want a page indexed. These instructions are found within the page meta tags and help the search engine deliver the most relevant results to the end-user.

However, when Google finds legitimate duplicate content – a property listing on multiple sites for example – without these instructions they are faced with a choice: Which page of content do they deliver in the search results? Their response is to “… always show the version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you’d prefer.” What that means to Jane is the original content, the page she created when posting the listing on her website, may well not be what a web searcher finds. And she’s trying to build a database of subscribers to her e-newsletter that’s bad news.

Let’s look at a real-life example. I conducted a Google search using the phrase “2brm unit for sale Victoria Park”. It’s a search term that might be conducted by either a buyer or seller. The first page of the search results contained no results from real estate agents. All were from listing portals or site scrapers. Starting to see my point?

The one that caught my eye, though, was from realestate.com.au (REA), the first entry in the search results. It included a link to a listing profile page, which contained the very same information as the original listing page on the agent’s site (when these properties are marked by the agent as sold these links may stop working). In this instance Google has determined that, of the two pages of identical property description, the one from REA was the most relevant. The agent has missed out on a visitor to their website and a chance to add to their email database.

Google’s recommendation about syndicated content, and that’s what agents are doing with their listing data, is this:

Syndicate carefully: If you syndicate your content on other sites…it is helpful to ensure that each site on which your content is syndicated includes a link back to your original article. You can also ask those who use your syndicated material to use the noindex meta tag to prevent search engines from indexing their version of the content.

In other words Google wants to index the original content, but they need help.

Let’s look at Google’s suggestion in two parts as it pertains to the above example.

First, REA does provide a link to the agent’s website, just not from the listing page and not to the original listing page (article) as recommended by Google. There’s no way for Google to know which piece of content was the duplicate. Furthermore, when they do provide a link to the agent’s site (from within the agent’s profile page) it’s hidden by a rel=”nofollow” tag. What this means is that the link is ignored by the search engines. The agent gets no Google love from the REA link and no boost in the performance of their site in a Google search. It’s all one way traffic in favour of the portal.

Second, REA don’t add the noindex meta tag to the duplicate page. If they did the page wouldn’t be indexed and therefore wouldn’t display in the search results.

Agents who think that the reason for a web presence is just to advertise property will have no problem with the portal’s behaviour. Buyers are finding their properties and that’s all that matters. But agents who want to build a brand using the Internet will have a different viewpoint. These agents provide content to REA to advertise their listings not so the portal can dominate search results.

I concede there’s more to SEO than just dealing with duplicate content. Even if it wasn’t an issue some agents manage their websites so badly they will never be found in the first page of a search. But agents who take pride in their website and their brand are right to be peeved at REA’s ethics. And they’re also right to look to the membership organisations to which they belong to step up and help them compete.
It’s high time for agents to demand  a fair go.

14 Comments »

Twitter Twits

When Twitter recently announced the ability to place all of your followers into lists I thought that they had struck a goldmine for future revenue streams and everything pointed towards a business model that made perfect sense – to me.

Then today it all went pear shaped as Biz Stone (Co-founder) announced a ‘non traditional’ way they will allow advertising on Twitter without telling us what it is – a great way to get spin going, especially when you are as popular as Twitter!

In my opinion Biz Stone and Twitter have just showed how dumb people can be when it comes to monetizing popular free programs. What did MySpace do? Sell advertising. What did Facebook do? Sell advertising. What is Twitter going to do? Sell advertising – albeit wrapped in a ‘non traditional’ catchphrase. The crux of all of this is that no-one has any idea how to make money out of free software that is popular and when you have no ideas, you turn to 3rd party advertisers.

Biz, I am sure advertising will bring in some revenue, but you have missed a golden opportunity here to take a different approach, it is a crazy idea, but people might actually be prepared to pay for software that makes their lives better. Here is the model I would have approached.

Premium Accounts

I know a premium account is just a stupid name for making more money than a normal account. Usually companies (think realestate.com.au and domain.com.au) create a popular site and then cut the throat of their core by making them look less important than premium companies. In real estate it is a joke, but with Twitter it would be different as it makes sense on top of a free model. Myhome.com.au do it with premium style listings on top of basic free listings. I don’t mind this approach as long as the user (the person looking for properties) is not getting search results compromised.

Basic
With Twitter nothing changes, you get all of the same features as you currently do, you are treated the same and all new updates are afforded to you. In other words – in other words we still love you and we understand without you – we could not operate successfully!

Premium – Multiple Accounts
You can create multiple accounts all under the one account. As an example. I have Agentpoint, Business2, Ginga and Zooproperty.com. Currently I have 4 Twitter accounts to manage. So I can now have a master account and merge others accounts under this one account – nothing changes for my followers.

When a user wants to follow me they can select what account(s) to follow or ‘follow all’. My default account is my master account – so if they do not choose any accounts, it then defaults to my master account.

Nothing changes when I Tweet as I have separate accounts to Tweet under and no-one gets annoyed.

Premium – Customise Theme
My “Twemium” account allows us to customise our Twitter theme some more. Better sidebar control, better backgrounds etc. All of my accounts now become a part of a left sidebar and can be click-able. I can also customise my background with a few extra features.

Fees

So what would a user pay as a premium price for these features? I would say $55 USD per annum is a fair price that most can afford for what essentially is a great service. Not everyone would need to upgrade and there is no penalty for not upgrading.

Revenue

Let’s say 20% of users upgrade to premium. Current estimates put twitter at about 5 million active users. So that would bring in around $55 million per annum. I would consider this a good return on what is essentially a 100 person company. How many companies could boast $550,00 in revenue per employee? This could easily grow to 100 million per annum.

If they get selfish and stupid they will fail. Twitter is no flash in the pan, but it we may get a little bored with it and if we are not careful only business will be interested and that will kill the platform.

Biz Stone tells us he is in no rush, well, he is in no rush to fail and everything they were doing up until now made sense. If advertiser revenue is their only idea with this software then they seriously need to take more time before making announcements.

9 Comments »

Is a major realestate.com.au update on the cards?

Over the past few months it really seems like every week we are seeing a new feature or improvement being released by one of the top two real estate portals. Realestate.com.au release a minor update in the past week that hides the phone details of agents and Domain.com.au released their Radar search recently.

So what are we going to see next?

One rumour that’s been flying around for quite awhile now is that realestate.com.au is going to integrate a review system into their portal. Back in February last year Dave Platter (ex- Corporate Public & Investor Relations Manager at The REA Group) as a then contributor to this blog tested the concept on the readers with a post called “Here’s one way real estate agents can control the web’s future“. Of course Dave was quick to point out that he and Shaun DeGregario the then realestate.com.au General Manager both denied that the company had any plans to integrate such a system into the portal. Read the rest of this article »

5 Comments »

Real Estate Photos Being Altered But By Domain Not Open2View

On a slow news day late last month an eagle eye reporter of the Dominion Post newspaper in New Zealand reported on the shocking crime of turning the sky blue! The local Open2View real estate photographer had the temerity to use the same cloud formation on different photos and the Dominion Post caught them in this despicable crime.

Showing there is not much bigger than a politicians ego local MP Clayton Cosgrove chimed in on the issue when approached by the paper for comment that agents should show the property in “its ordinary environment” and “I just think it’s a bit on the nose. The more straight up you are, the better you are.”

Showing what a hypocrite he was, the MP who apparently proposed the recent real industry reform bill to parliament seemed to have no problem when he said that photoshopping photographs  ”could make me look slimmer and give me more hair”. Seems this kiwi pollie thinks misrepresenting his own looks is fine, but changing a sky blue is a little smelly!

Nobody suggested that the house was changed in anyway nor its surroundings. Nobody removed power lines, blotted out a bus stop at the front of the property,  added a garden that wasn’t there or anything else that misrepresented the property in anyway. They turned the sky blue, thats all.

The whole sordid affair started doing the rounds here in Australia after a local blog picked up on the story and it was retweeted on twitter.

Lets all put this in perspective shall we.  Nobody seems to want to hold Domain to task for altering photos that clearly misrepresent the property but everyone gets up in arms over a blue sky.

Domain does not display photos in the same aspect ratio that they are provided in and will warp the images.  Now when the photo is in landscape the differences are only minor and unless you see the original image side by side it is often difficult to tell. It is a little like when you go to your friends place and they have a fancy widescreen tv displaying a 4:3 or letterbox picture. It looks pretty close but everybody seems to have put on a little weight. So a small house appears bigger and a crowded room appears a little more spacious.

It’s when photos are provided in portrait orientation  things really start going astray.  Lets look at the same property on three different portals.

---

Domain.com.au

---

Realestate.com.au

---

Myhome.com.au

---

So if there is any Fairfax journalists thinking of running an Australian spin on the story,  maybe they should look a little closer to home first. Misrepresenting the size of a home or a room is far more serious than changing the colour of the sky.

Domain need to clean up their code and stop distorting photos because its a dangerous game to be misrepresenting properties these days with some government departments looking for scalps… even big ones that can afford to pay big fines.

21 Comments »

Australian Real Estate Brands Compared

Most major real estate groups will conduct regular brand surveys to gauge just how their brand is positioned into the marketplace. They are normally conducted through expensive surveys. Results often include statistics for prompted and unprompted  awareness of your brand.  Naturally these reports focus on the brand that engaged them… the group paying the bill.  They always seem to emphasise the good news and rarely position the brand to the whole industry.

One way to measure a brands effectiveness is what the public are actually searching for. Google released a product awhile back called Google Insights for Search which you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties.

Google Insight gives us a great way to compare the relative brand strength of different brands right around the country and even broken down into each state.  Please note that this represents how many people are searching for these names and in no way represents web traffic. Realestate.com.au and Domain.com.au would win on a pure traffic count hands down but when it comes to what the public searches for they are not the number one brand in Australia.
Read the rest of this article »

3 Comments »

The Results Are In : Real Estate Portals Survey

The Australian Real Estate Portals Survey is now closed and the results are in.  Overall we had over 500 people who viewed the survey and 92 participants complete it in full. None of the questions were compulsory and not every question was answered by everybody.

Several of the questions required choices to be selected against 16 real estate portals.  I tried to include a collection from the subscription, free, state based and niche portals, specifically the luxury portals.

Performance

It’s probably no surprise to anyone but the portal with the overall best result on performance was realestate.com.au with less than 15% of people indicating they were dissatisfied by their performance and over 68% claiming they were satisfied or very satisfied with their performance. The small remainder had a neutral response.

In contrast Domain had a significantly larger 27% of people dissatisfied and a lower 40% satisfied. Still we are talking about performance  here and Domain still delivers so all in all fairly good results in comparison to the rest of the portals. Domain Prestige on the other hand gave a pretty poor result. Despite the fact that only 20 people actually provided a rating only one person indicated they were satisfied by their performance.

Homehound and Myhome came in pretty similar with around 50 people providing a rating. Both have a few more people dissatisfied than they do satisfied but the most popular result response was in the middle with Neutral. I guess you can read into that they are doing an Ok job!

Google Real Estate had just 20% of participants indicate they were dissatisfied but a massive 37.5% indicated they were satisfied. That performance satisfaction rating was nearly as good as Domain’s and is really quite surprising. In just a few weeks I cant see how Google would be close to Domain on a performance level. Then you have the fact that Google just passes on the inquiry to their own website or one of the other portals so it would be pretty hard for the average agent to quantify the results from Google Real Estate.

Whilst the number of respondents for the two free luxury portals were a lot lower those that did respond did not find much to be satisifed about the performance in either Millionplus or Luxuryhomes.com.au.  The three state based real estate portals provided a mixed bag of results. The number of respondents for each was naturally much lower but Realestateview.com.au was the standout performer followed by REIWA and a relatively poor results for realestateworld who struggled with only two people wishing to record satisfied results.

Read the rest of this article »

11 Comments »

Australian Real Estate Portals Survey

When the major real estate portals conduct their own client surveys the questions are obviously limited and never compare them openly to their competition. Also the published results are often handpicked to show them in the best light rather than an full, honest and open view of the results in a totally transparent manner.

That’s why I have created a survey using the QuestionPro online survey targeted to the Real Estate Industry Participants on the subject of Real Estate Portals, their impact and their future in the industry.

Once the survey is closed I will post the results on this blog. In fact I will also release all information to any real estate group or portal who wants it. Please contact me direct to request a copy of the data.

Please pass the survey aussierealestateportals.questionpro.com to everyone you know in the industry.

It would be fantastic if some of the real estate groups could also forward the survey out to their membership as the more people we get to complete the survey the greater cross section of results we will get and the better understanding of the industry’s opinion on this topic.

You can be anonymous if you want to however if you leave your name and company it will place better emphasis on your selections and comments.

12 Comments »

Google launches real estate map search Australia

At 3.00pm today Google launched their new real estate search mapping tool which allows real estate agents to publish their listings for free and the public to browse listings.

The site has a number of new features. Users of the site can search for listings in a particular suburb and then refine the listings down using the various option, the map reloads and only the listings appear with your search (as little icons on the map). Users can then review property information via map pop ups and then go directly to the agents listing from there.

Currently there are a number of listings driven from Homehound, Harcourts and other groups, however Domain and Realestate.com.au have yet to send their listings through the free service from Google.

You can send feeds via the API or from a variety of Feed types and research this by clicking here. Talk to your feed provider about getting your listings on Google, its free and it should bring your business some pretty good leads as Google Maps has some pretty good research tools already built in.

Business2.com.au will write a review in next few days. Below is the press release from Google Australia.

Google today announced the addition of a real estate search feature to Google Maps in Australia. The new feature allows real estate agents, franchise groups and portals alike to upload their listings directly to Google Maps at no cost, making them more easily discoverable by the millions of Google Maps users in Australia.

Increasingly, people are starting their search for a new home online – Nielsen research shows that 87% of Australian home buyers use the internet to research properties*. Google saw more than 35% growth in real estate-related searches from Jan/Feb 2008 to Jan/Feb 2009**.

“We know that many Australian home buyers already use Google Maps to help their house-buying and renting decisions, especially driving directions and Street View, and by making real estate listings available right in Google Maps we can drive qualified buyers directly to listings,” says Andrew Foster, product manager, Google.

“It’s a simple and free way for real estate companies to make their listings even more discoverable, and have them seen on an easy-to-navigate map.”

Real estate agents can visit http://maps.google.com.au/realestate to find out more information about how to work with Google to have their listings appear on Google Maps.

The new feature lets potential home buyers enter a city or suburb and see available listings represented by markers or small circles on the map. They can then refine their search by price, type of property, bedrooms, bathrooms, and parking. The map will automatically update with relevant listings when panned or zoomed to another suburb, and when the search criteria is changed. Clicking on a marker or a small circle will provide more information about the listing, as well as the contact details of the listing agent and a link to their website.

President of the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia, Rob Druitt, said agents and property managers in WA would welcome the opportunity to have their listings searchable on Google Maps.

“The real estate profession, perhaps more than many others, has become strongly focused around IT and the use of websites over the last decade. The evolution of the internet has transformed the sector, such that buyers, sellers and renters are much better informed and have easy and quick access to images and contacts. Indeed, this is now the high expectation with property consumers.

“Agents are keen to embrace this, as they are always looking for new and different ways to increase exposure of their listings without runaway expenditure. The opportunity presented by Google can only help in this regard,” Mr Druitt said.

The original Google Maps prototype was invented by four engineers in Sydney: Lars Rasmussen, Jens Rasmussen, Noel Gordon and Stephen Ma, all of whom still work in Google’s Sydney engineering centre. All over the country, Australians use Google Maps to find addresses and local businesses, see satellite imagery, obtain driving directions, and create and share personalised maps, making it the most popular online maps site in Australia according to Nielsen NetRatings (May 2009).

Note: Google Australia will answer all reasonably related questions if you clearly include them in comments below.

96 Comments »

Domain launches a new search that works.

Domain has launched a real estate new search engine that I think consumers will find better than anything on the portal market today. It uses Web 2.0 technologies that allows users to refine their search from the one page that continually reloads.

It could be a little quicker and more intuitive (www.dothomes.com is the best I have seen) but it is a huge leap in the right direction and will no doubt be further refined.

Realestate.com.au’s search is just so limited and frustrating for both consumers and agents (first 200 results only – please spare me the reasons)

It seems Domain are really starting to add some innovation to their website and are not afraid to make some serious changes not only to the business model but also to the way we use their websites. It still has a long way to go – but it is showing some great signs.

The new search is more evolutionary than revolutionary (we have been doing this for about 2 years on many of our websites) but it is the way all searches will be conducted (or similar) in the future on all of the major portals.

45 Comments »