For the third month in a row, Yahoo Real Estate was the most visited real estate website in the country in September, according to the latest rankings from Web metrics firm Experian Hitwise.
The National Association of Realtors’ official search portal, Realtor.com, was the second most visited site last month. Yahoo Real Estate and Realtor.com have been battling each other for the top position in the Web rankings, trading places seven times over the past year.
Yahoo Real Estate captured 7.35 percent of visits to real estate category sites, compared with 6.57 percent for Realtor.com in September.
Zillow continued to rank third, with 6.38 percent of visits, followed by Trulia (5.55 percent) and Homes.com (2.7 percent).
AOL Real Estate, with 2.29 percent market share, moved up two spots, to No. 6, with MSN Real Estate (2.08 percent) and Rent.com (1.8 percent) each notching down one spot to No. 7 and No. 8, respectively.
FrontDoor Real Estate (1.75 percent) climbed from No. 24 to No. 9 last month, perhaps assisted by a "Trick-or-Treat" Sweepstakes that ends Nov. 1. Another sweepstakes had boosted the site’s traffic in February.
FrontDoor bumped Apartment Guide (1.44 percent) down one spot to No. 10.
Hitwise reported that sites on its top 10 list captured 37.9 percent of traffic among all real estate category websites in September.
That compares with the 10.2 percent combined market share of the next 10 most popular sites: ZipRealty (1.25 percent), MyNew Place (1.24 percent), Apartments.com (1.2 percent), LoopNet (1.02 percent), Re/Max Real Estate (1 percent), Weichert.com (0.95 percent), Rentals.com (0.94 percent), Redfin (0.89 percent), HomeFinder (0.88 percent), and ForRent.com (0.84 percent).
On average, users spent 8 minutes, 54 seconds on a visit to a real estate-related website in September, one second less than the month before.
Five websites entered the top 100 last month: www.rentalproperties411.com (63rd), Searchrenttoownhomes.com (86th), Monmouth County Association of Realtors (90th), OwnerWiz.com (97th), and USAMLS.net (99th). Rentalproperties411.com was one of September’s fast-moving sites, moving up 64 places.
Five sites left the top 100 in September: www.rentsavers.com (137th), Prudential Real Estate (111th), Condo.com (113th), Move.com (110th), and RealtyNow.com (105th). Move.com is owned by Move Inc., which also operates Realtor.com.
The top 10 real estate search terms tracked by Hitwise last month include several brand names of major search portals, brokerages, and one Realtor association and multiple listing service. "Realtor.com" was the top term, followed by "zillow," accounting for 1.35 percent and 1.29 percent of search clicks, respectively. Every other search term accounted for less than 1 percent of clicks.
The other popular search terms in the real estate category were "trulia," "remax," "zillow.com," "realtor," "homes for sale," "century 21," "coldwell banker," and "har.com." Search terms for rentals, which have been popular in previous months, were notably absent in the top 10 in September, though they made up four of the next 10 most popular search terms.
In addition to www.rentalproperties411.com, fast-moving sites last month included Marriott Vacation Club, up 408 places to 159; www.oldcolony.com, up 941 places to 701; renttoowncentral.com, up 254 places to 473; Rabin Brothers Auctioneers & Appraisers, up 504 places to 1,129; The Metropolitan, up 715 places to 1,549; Biltmore Lake, up 1,030 places to 2,172; All Power Brokers, up 508 places to 1,310; Bert Rodgers Schools, up 314 places to 899; and PrivateCommunities.com, up 154 places to 497.
