RE/MAX Real Estate narrowly beat out Apartments.com as the 10th most-visited real estate site on the Web in March, according to Web metrics firm Hitwise.
Remax.com has been steadily rising in Hitwise’s rankings since December, when the site held the 13th spot in the top 20. It finally broke into the top 10 with a 1.39 percent share of traffic. Apartments.com rose back to the ranking it held in January — 11th — after slipping to 12th in February. The site captured a 1.34 percent share of traffic to real estate sites tracked by Hitwise.
The top six rankings on the list remained the same as in February. Realtor.com kept the top spot on the list with a 6.51 percent share of traffic. Zillow kept the No. 2 spot it reclaimed in February at a 3.49 percent traffic share, and Yahoo Real Estate followed with a 3.38 percent share. Next came Rent.com (2.75 percent), ZipRealty (2.52 percent), and Trulia.com (2.32 percent).
Service Magic moved up two spots (to seventh), with Homes.com following in eighth and MSN Real Estate at ninth. MyNewPlace, which grabbed the 10th spot in January, dropped to 12th in March.
The top 10 sites made up 28.43 percent of real estate industry Web traffic last month, while the top 20 captured 39.39 percent of the industry’s traffic.
Among the top 20, Apartment Guide rose one to 13th place, and Rentals.com followed. Listingbook Services jumped two spots to 15th place, switching spots with Century 21 Real Estate, at 17th. ForRent.com and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) held their spots at 16th and 18th, respectively. Redfin hopped up to the 19th spot, and vacation rental site HomeAway was 20th on the list.
Five sites entered the top 100 in March: GOSection8.com (92nd), Real Estate Market Minute (95th), Stop Snap (97th), Candy Hallstead (98th), and Fidelity MLS Solutions (99th).
The five sites leaving the top 100: JustListed.com (to 102nd), LandandFarm.com (111th), Obeo (125th), My Realtor (114th), and FloridaMoves.com (108th).
The top most popular real estate-related search term was "realtor.com," representing 1.93 percent of 49,968 such search terms. Others that made it to the top 10 search terms were, in order, "apartments for rent," "zillow," "real estate," "century 21," "zillow.com," "remax," "houses for rent," "homes for sale," and "houses for sale."
If both Zillow-related terms were combined they would make up 1.05 percent of all search terms, pushing them up to second place.
Fast-moving sites included Edina Realty (up 47 places to 28th), Utah Real Estate (up 69 places to 117th), vahomes.org (up 813 places to 1,399th), Wichita Falls Association of Realtors (up 389 places to 806th), Navarre Properties (up 434 places to 922nd), Texas Homesites.com (up 530 places to 1,081st), rentBits (up 23 places to 51st), lvarmls.rapmls.com (up 72 places to 173rd), Investor Wealth (up 484 places to 1,073rd), and Washington Fine Properties (up 404 places to 1,026).
To obtain its rankings, Hitwise extracts usage data daily from its partner Internet service provider networks, which include usage from home, work and educational venues. PricewaterhouseCoopers audits the firm’s methodology quarterly, according to Hitwise.
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