Property search and information site Yahoo Real Estate ranked as the second most visited real estate site on the Web in May, according to Web metrics firm Experian Hitwise. Zillow, in third, had taken that No. 2 spot in February after the Yahoo site bumped it down to third place in December.
Yahoo Real Estate captured 4.3 percent of visitors in Hitwise’s real estate category rankings, narrowly beating out Zillow, which captured 4.1 percent of visitors. Hitwise bases its rankings on a sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users.
Realtor.com maintained its lock on the No. 1 spot with 6.2 percent of traffic; Rent.com also kept its No.4 spot with 2.8 percent of traffic.
Trulia jumped into the top five with 2.7 percent of traffic, bumping ZipRealty down to sixth place with 2.4 percent market share.
MSN Real Estate rejoined the top 10 as it shot up five places to the No. 7 spot from the No. 12 spot last month. Homes.com slid down to No. 8 and RE/MAX Real Estate dropped a couple of places to No. 10, taking the spot previously held by MyNewPlace.
ApartmentGuide continued its steady rise up the ranks, easing into the top 10 as No. 9. April’s rankings showed that apartment rental sites were gaining traffic. Results for May are more mixed, however.
Rentals.com left the top 10, dipping down to No. 12, while ForRent.com rose one place to the No. 13 spot, bumping down Apartments.com. At the same time, ApartmentFinder.com broke into the top 20.
Century 21 Real Estate and Redfin retained their No. 15 and No. 16 spots, respectively, in the top 20. Meanwhile, FrontDoor Real Estate took off from its No. 37 spot in April, landing at No. 17 in May.
ConnectWithLife, a search site for real estate, autos, loans, insurance, and home improvement professionals, climbed up a couple of spot to No. 18, with Listingbook Services at No. 19.
The top 10 websites collected 29.2 percent of visitors in the real estate category, while 40.1 percent of traffic went to the top 20 websites. The top 100 websites accounted for 69.8 percent of traffic. The length of an average visit fell slightly to 9 minutes, 36 seconds in May, compared with 9 minutes, 57 seconds in April.
The top 10 real estate search terms in May were "realtor.com," "apartments for rent," "zillow," "real estate," "remax," "century 21," "zillow.com," "unclaimed money," "houses for rent," and "houses for sale," in that order. All except "realtor.com," which accounted for 1.8 percent of search terms leading to a real estate category site, accounted for less than 1 percent of visits.
Fast-rising sites in the four months ending in May included: Skyline Properties (up 875 places to 1,012th), Fairfax Realty (up 591 places to 929th), My Unclaimed Property (up 25 places to 56th), Laffey Associates (up 322 places to 776th), LakeHomesUSA.com (up 118 places to 356th), Vacation Rental Selected Properties Directory (up 403 places to 1,187th), RentBlurb (up 94 places to 309th), Costa Rica Real Estate Service (up 517 places to 1,466th), ThatRentalSite (up 26 places to 91st), and Apartment Home Living (up 14 places to 49th).
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