One thing I noticed recently was spyk.com no longer carried REA listings. Are they doing some things to stop certain search companies from indexing their data? If so, why?
To me, if they are it would mean that they spend so much money and effort trying to be indexed by the big players such as Google, MSN and Yahoo, it would seem to be unfair to block certain spiders from indexing.
I do hope this is not the case as it would reak of double standards. Would be interested to hear a response!
I have tried to contact Spyk.com for a response and will keep trying….
Note: This weekend I will be posting my forecast for 2007 that I have been working on for a few days!
26 Comments
Tom S
Hi Peter and Happy New Year!
Well, a little bit of a slow start to this subject, so I thought that I’d make a contribution.
Data Aggregators was suppose to be a killer app with regard to the various portals. These were 1st mooted about 2 years ago and over time people have realised that there is no real threat and that the concept does not add much value from the consumers or agents point of view.
The map used by Spyk is glossy however the underlying content is flakey at best (Beta or not). This is a good technology piece that is not seamless and appears to have little commercial application. An example of a description of a house is my neighborhood is
Peter Ricci
Nice post Tom, however, at the core the Google’s of this world are data aggregators, now what if they released a search engine that only contained property listings.
My view is that big traditional media players do not have a given right to be successful online. They may have the money to buy anything great at this stage and they will.
I think it will take another 5 years before the majority of agents get it!
Mike
Hi Peter
How many Australian agents are ready to make life easier for an aggregator by feeding them XML directly? rather than forcing us to crawl the sites and hopefully scrape it properly?
We could make life a lot easier for agents if they had XML and we would be able to get their sites online immediately.
The only way for an aggregator to be successful in this market is to have inventory, if the agents want someone to break the power of the big two, providing XML would be the easiest way to do it.
Appreciate any feedback about the amount of agents ready to provide XML and any way of easily getting their feeds rather than stumbling around in the dark searching for them.
Thanks
Mike
Peter
Mike 100% true. I think all real estate web developers should now be turning to standards based development. Many would be scared because it would mean it would be easier to switch developers, but I am a big believer in this and the future I am sure will make it impossible for developers to get agents onboard unless they develop in a open standards based environment!
This will only happen once agents become more involved in what works for them.
A great post!
Mike
Hi Peter
We are building crawlers that take data off the agents sites and present it, but this is very manual and hard going compared to adding an extra XML feed.
We have just had our first breakthroughs with this today with our crawled data showing on our maps presentation.
I know you sell a product that supplies XML feeds. If you had an aggregation site that offered free listings, would it make it an easier sell for you?
Also would you be prepared to offer a free trial to the agent to get it working?
Is there any agents out there that would be willing to have their data on our beta test, in Sydney in particular would be good.
I expect to be able to start accepting XML (as well as the scraping we are doing) within 2 weeks so line the agents up.
Email me if you would like to discuss further, search4geeks@gmail.com
thanks
Mike
Robert Simeon
Maybe, just maybe the ‘smarter agents’ are internally working on their own online deliveries ?
What we don’t know is when the “Google Tsunami” of property information – afterall all they dominate 80 % of world search engine criteria.
Quite funny that all our properties have a faster search functionality from Google when they lift our properties from REA and Domain – as against a search on these individual portals.
Another fairy tale – ” Who has been sleeping in my bed = Google”
REA and Domain get the traffic and Google get the business !!
Ha Ha !! Another property portal coming close to you soon !!
Obvious for some – yet they fail to see the possibility that they are driving down a dead end street.
Tom S
As of Dec 2006, Google currently have 47.4% of the web-search market.
Also Robert, could you be a little less cryptic in your posts?
There was an interesting article in the Fin Review today regarding realcommercial.com.au. They have just rejigged their site to take into account client and customer needs! Shock, horror! The aim is to provide clients with the most cost-effective ways to advertise commecial property and consolidate their position in the market.
I know this may not read as ‘a fairy tale’ to some, more like a dose of pragmatic, intelligent service oriented reality.
I agree that eventually real estate web development will move to a common data exchange standard. However, this will not be the silver bullet that the aggregators are hoping for. There are several other larger challenges that they face. Copywrite springs to mind, and value add is another.
snoop
The Google market share number is for the US.
In Aus they are prob double that.
As for all these property aggregation sites,I dont get their plan and think they are wasting time and money
The nett of it is they will never have the traffic of Google ,REA or Domain.
Peter Ricci
Snoop, in Australia Google would have around 80% of search within MSN coming a close second. You have to take account for the 10’s of thousands of people that don’t know how to change their start page from Ninemsn to something else.
As for the aggregators. Think about this, if one of them did it right (and none do at the moment) and had all of the listings across Australia – the site was lighting fast, the site showed a couple of images and an overview of descriptive text then I think it would work. This would save visitors plenty of time. Now imagine if they could then stream that information to email addresses mobile phones and even tv set top boxes!
The problem is smaller operators do this and until a bunch of smaller operators get together the landscape will not change.
Peter Ricci
And Tom
As for realcommercial, it is one of the most ordinary frustrating user experiences one can imagine….a complete overhaul is needed and I am sure they are working on it!
snoop
heres another for your aggregation play!
Lot of developers must have had a boring xmas break!
http://www.itorip.com.au/
Peter
Yes there are a few of those sites built from free re scripts, they take about a day to set up….
I do yawn when I see sites like this and they always send me info about how amazing they are and ask me to write stories….
Robert Simeon
In an article that appeared earlier this week –
A media search party to last all year
DIGITAL MEDIA
Michael Sainsbury
January 15, 2007
PERHAPS it’s stating the obvious to say that 2007 is likely to be watershed year in digital media in Australia.
The writer stated – ” Such growth will pull Australia into line with other countries where search is already the biggest, and fastest-growing, category.
But the Australian market is distorted in search too. Google has 80-85 per cent of the search market – in the US for instance it’s under 50 per cent. MSN and Yahoo hold low to mid-single digit shares and so much for the rest at this stage.
Much of the action has been, and will continue to be, in local search, the online category that threatens Telstra’s Yellow Pages in the medium term.
But Telstra’s bid to best Google with Sensis search has failed so far. News’s TrueLocal has found only a very limited market and Ninemsn’s Mylocal has been the sector’s biggest (although possibly cheapest) dog.
So this year, expect redoubled efforts from News and MSN to wrest some share from Google, and Yahoo is likely to launch a local search product in Australia some time this year. ”
One can only hope that this too is not to cryptic !! Nah – having too much fun for that 😉
Robert Simeon
Let me further elaborate on my ‘fairy tale’ point that I was referring to. Take this property,
30 Euryalus Street Mosman
If a prospective purchaser is interested in the property copy and paste the address and search it at –
http://www.google.com.au
For a specific search this is far and away the fastest way to access the relevant property data. This is exactly why so many prefer this quick search facility that google provide.
Simply a search engine to a property portal which is specific and fast.
Dave Platter
(I work at realestate.com.au)
That’s interesting Robert. Some forward-thinking agents already drive buyers to their listings on realestate.com.au with google adwords. Good on ’em I say.
I think most agents, though, are finding Google is more useful for general keywords like “real estate” and “homes for sale in mosman” than specific addresses.
BTW, if you type the either of those phrases into google.com.au, the first thing you get on the organic results is
…wait for it…
realestate.com.au!
(Somehow, I think you knew that was coming.)
-dave
Tom S
I totally agree Dave. The need to search the web for a specific address would be very rare, speaking from a punters viewpoint. But you’d probably have more concrete stats on this. Maybe you can share them on this blog.
I’m guessing that the ‘so many’ that Robert refers to are made up of predominantly Mossman renters like Snow White as there wouldn’t be too many 8 bedroom houses in Mossman and so I’m sure that she knows exactly where they are.
Robert Simeon
Given that we spend a large proportion each day on the phone talking to purchasers we do discuss where and how purchasers find property. Google is a dominant search that many (not everyone) prefer, as it also lists Council development applications that could affect a property.
Tom S – I ssume that you are a Queenslander given your identification of Snow White (white shoes) and Mossman as my agency is in Mosman not, the Queensland Mossman. 😉
Tom S
Well excuse me Mosmanite! I’m obvoiusly not as well travelled as you Bob. And my speling is a bit ordinary. Apologises.
Robert Simeon
Apology accepted Tom S – now what do we do about those ‘bright’ white shoes ?
Scott
I’m neither a RE agent nor a technologist, but this seems to be an issue of buying power/critical mass
RE.Com.au and Domain (and the major RE agencies and media groups behind) them have it ….
The independent RE agents don’t.
Here’s an idea: Aggregate the content across independent REs BEFORE uploading it to RE.Com.,au and Domain. How?: Someone offer all independent RE agencies a free platform/software through which to upload their listings to RE.Com.au and Domain.
Collective bargaining is an age old principle….
Peter
Scott, spot on, however, who can the independent agents trust? So often they back something only to find a company sell to the majors. The only way I see this working is for independent agents to work together. I have written some articles on this. Thanks for your input and keep them coming, it is great to get input from all different walks!
Regards Peter
Scott
Peter
Why don’t you strip out everything from your listing management software except the RE.com.au upload feature. Establish a new company and grant this company an irrevocable free license to use the upload software. Shareholding for the company to be 10% yourself, 90% independent RE agents (with a majority vote on critical decisions like selling out!). You then offer all independent RE agents $1 shares in the new company if they use the upload software to load all their listings to RE.com.au and Domain. Obviously the incentive for them is bargaining power with RE.com.au and maybe some upside on their shareholding?
If you are lucky your 10% might also be worth something one day. At worst you ought to get a whole lot of new customers electing to upgrade to your full listing software as the migration path ought to be straightforward.??
Scott
Marc
I understand that the 4 main players in the real estate game are starting up their own website on competition with http://www.Realestate.com.au I also had this Utopian attitude that one day we can all share information and the world would be a better place. I have since realised that information is power, power creates money and money forms greed and the cycle goes on. In a perfect world each agent would have their own dedicated website under the one banner. They would own and control all the data that is entered into their website and as a collective starting off small we will overtake the main players. So who does one turn to to “find properties”? http://www.propertyfinders.com.au
Andre
Scott
Does http://www.EAC.com.au not do a little of what your saying.
What about the openMLS and Real Estate Listing Markup Language
Lewis
Well it’s 2014 and REA is still top dog and Domain is wagging in 2nd. Neither site deserves to be in the position they are in, they are slow, full of adverts and the UX is shocking. Google had a pop, however News and Fairfax cried and threatened to pull their Google ad spend, Google caved in. Long term the user is boss and Google holds that belief close to it’s heart. Enter Zillow. It is only a matter of time until Zillow open their Aus play, surely? REA and Domain can then die a slow and painful death. 5 years max?
Jason D
You’re as behind the times as this thread Lewis