Little Audience Crossover Between Major Property Portals

Latest data from leading independent website monitoring company Nielsen indicates that, less than one in five (19.93%) house hunters using Rightmove and Zoopla Property Group visited both companies’ websites in December. Four out of five (80.07%) users who visited a major property portal during December used one or the other, but not both.

The research paints a rather different view from the widely held belief that the audiences are largely common and that there is potential duplication of enquiries from the major portals. The data shows to the contrary that the vast majority of users searching for property online clearly select one player or the other but not both for their property search needs.

The data also reveals that 64% of Rightmove’s users during December used only Rightmove and that 56% of Zoopla Property Group’s users used only the Zoopla Property Group websites and did not visit Rightmove.

This new insight into the audiences of the leading portals comes just a week after Zoopla Property Group reported record levels of activity on its websites during the first half of January with new highs seen for the number of visitors to its sites, the number of searches conducted and pages viewed and the number of enquiries sent to its members.

Alex Chesterman, Founder & CEO of Zoopla Property Group said: “This data confirms what we have always stated and should serve to dispel a common misconception that the audiences between the major property sites are heavily duplicated. Consumers generally choose to use a portal for convenience as a one-stop-shop and therefore using multiple sites somewhat defeats this purpose. There is little duplication in terms of traffic and even less in terms of enquiries.”

Source: Nielsen NetView, December 2012