Homely Founders Refute Traffic Claims Made by Rival View

The Australian challenger real estate portal Homely.com.au has called into question traffic claims made last week by its rival View.com.au.

A press release issued last week by View claimed that while REA Group-owned Realestate.com.au had seen 2.2% traffic growth in the period from October 2023 to February 2024, Domain had seen a 2.6% decline, Allhomes had seen a 9% decline and Homely had seen a 0.5% decline.

Citing figures from the Australian division of the Ipsos Iris Online Audience Measurement Service, View also claimed that its recently relaunched portal had seen 102% traffic growth in the same period.

In an email sent to local media, Homely's co-founders Jason and Adam Spencer refuted the claims, saying that View's assertions "in no way match our actual or market performance, as certified in our internal Google Analytics data, which is considered a ‘source of truth’."

The email goes on to say that Homely contacted Ipsos...

"who confirmed their data was incorrectly cited, and that Ipsos has provided formal notification to the competitor that they could not use this data in this way. Additionally, Ipsos did not produce the graphic used, and had no input into the press release."

The SEO expert and founder of Portal Ventures, Mike van der Heijden took to Linkedin to claim that View.com.au's spectacular growth was related to the recuperation of traffic redirected from the old Realestateview.com.au domain.

When contacted, View Media Group declined to comment on Homely's letter but did provide Online Marketplaces with the data behind their claim. The numbers quoted in the original press release are correct.

View Media Group (VMG) is an umbrella company led by former Domain CEO, Antony Catalano that encompasses several PropTech enterprises including B2B utilities firm Beevo and marketing specialist The Today Business which was acquired in October 2022.

VMG relaunched View.com.au in 2023 with the aim of creating "a digital real estate superstore" to take on the likes of Domain and Realestate.com.au. The portal is free-to-list for sellers and mainly monetises from adjacent revenue streams such as finance and utilities.