There’s been a lot of speculation about why REA & Domain haven’t uploaded listings onto Google Maps real estate search as yet & I believe the main reason why is Money.
Reading between the lines Google, REA & Domain could stand to make a lot of money out of this deal. My theory is that a deal could be happening based around an Adsense style commission paid to REA & Domain.
Google makes most of its money through Pay Per Click advertising.
As PPC advertising became more & more popular Google ended up with more ads than ad impressions simply because people rarely searched past the first page on Google.
To solve this problem Google came up with Adsense. This enabled Google’s ads to appear on external websites by paying the website owner a percentage of the advertising revenue generated from their site.
Since launching real estate search on Google Maps, Google have been able to expand their potential online advertising space at the mind blowing rate of approx. 1 million pages.
For example, when you click on any one of the listings on Google Maps & then click the More Info link you’ll see 4 tabs – Overview, Details, Photos & Web Pages.
On each of these pages there is a vacant area to the right or at the bottom that is just screaming out for the Sponsored Links to appear.
If you look closely on the Web Pages page you’ll notice that as more sites feed their listings on, more Web Pages links like Homehound, MyHome, the agents website, etc appear down the page. This automatically expands the currently vacant area on the right hand side of this page. Just waiting for Google to turn on the Sponsored Links switch.
At first I couldn’t understand why Google would display numerous feeds for the one listing but now I get it.
The whole thing is a brilliantly devised concept by Google to expand their PPC advertising space. They’ve even designed it in such a way that they get 4 or 5 pages of advertising per property listing.
With Google reporting hundreds of thousands of listings being uploaded since the launch that adds up to approx. 1 million pages that they can now advertise on, with a lot more on their way as they roll this concept out globally.
And with total control over where they place their sponsored links Google will want every listing they can get. That’s why Google won’t charge agents to upload their listings & it’s also the reason why they will allow private sellers.
When you think about it REA & Domain have virtually all the online listings in Australia & getting a feed from them would be extremely lucrative to Google & will add millions of extra pages to their site, so it makes sense that Google will probably pay an Adsense style of commission to REA & Domain to have their listings feed.
So all I’m wondering now is what’s the deal? And how much more money do REA & Domain stand to make out of real estate agents’ listings?
44 Comments
Aryan
I don’t think the deal will happen if the upper management at REA thinks straight. REA is making all the money because Agents believe that they have to be on it. If they start feeding to google it kills the REA monopoly and agents might just start turning it off.
And as far as Domain goes I have never seen them do anything that is either innovative or new they are always the last one to join the party.
James
Re “When you think about it REA & Domain have virtually all the online listings in Australia”
These listings come from the Agents and as Aryan has stated in many cases it is because Agent’s think they have to be on these sites and for many it is just an easy option.
If the agents through their franchise groups (which most already are) and the independent offices through the various sites that have a feed in place to Google get their listings onto Google the play ground can soon change from a content perspective. This combined with it being in Google’s interests to drive the traffic to their site to obtain the CPC revenue causes an issue for REA and Domain.
Kylie Emans
All the more reason agencies should be promoting their own websites, advertising their websites on their signboards etc. These companies are going to be the next Woollies and Coles of online real estate. Actually they probably already are…
Robert Simeon
Greg,
Great article – you make some really great points here. The way I see it looks like “odd portal out” and “odd agency out”. It really would not matter if REA and Domain were on Google Maps for one defining reason as the individual agentcies would be mad not to have an application that uploads properties directly onto Google Maps (we should have ours tomorrow). Now that Google is the big player agents are being told they need the SEO on Google which is why they need the enquiries going to their websites not a third party. It depends over time how relevant REA and Domain become depending on how the public enjoy the Google experience.
Then what happens to HubOnline and MyDesktop if the agents want to upload direct to Google they will have to allow them even though REA and Domain own these businesses.
The key is the recognition and Google does receive a motza in PPC advertising from REA and Domain who both now have to convince the agents that they remain relevant and worthy of subscription.
Agents are just starting to ask why they are not appearing on page one of the relevant searches so whilst free (ironic) many will have to PPC to be relevant. The agents who have been pushing their SEO relentlessly are now getting the results.
Interesting times 🙂
craig pontey
Maybe its time for Agents to take back control…….anyway who does actually OWN the data????????
Robert Simeon
Craig,
My understanding is that once the agents post (their) sales data with the aggregators they have just assigned it over. What the agents should do is hold it back until the aggregators pay per data entry which is deducted from their relevant subscriptions.
I can see many happenings on the property horizon.
Glenn Rogers
REA and Domain don’t have a lot of choice here.
If they don’t play ball Google can change the algorithm to disadvantage the 2 main portals …..after all they own the platform that brings them most of their traffic.
If they go along with it for a fee it’s no skin off their nose and may be lucrative.
The only danger maybe that Google are then a step closer to dealing direct with the agents and bypassing the portals altogether.
After all it’s not the portals that bring the traffic in it’s really Google if you get my drift, without Google they aren’t looking too flash.
Simon Smirnov
I am sorry but I don’t understand. Google have already said they are going to charge for enhanced listings (already they are appearing at the top of the results, kicking all the *free* ads down the list). How long do you think it will take for them to start auctioning the positions in the results like they do for adwords? And now you are competing against private listers, plumbers, developers etc. And what stops some random person scraping your property data, re-posting your OWN property to Google with a landing page with better SEO than yours, and becoming the top link for that listing? Oh and when someone clicks that link “other properties in the x area” are listed. There are a million other fake listing, duplication, out of date combinations that spammers can use. Find the Google Support phone number and ask for a turnaround time to resolve these problems. 24 hours is their standard update time, so once you *think* you have fixed your misleading price, description, report a fake listing etc. you are exposed for a minimum further 24 hours. And don’t think they are giving you free link juice, an off-domain 302 redirect isn’t as clear cut as that.
The real bottom line is this. Google map search is no different to Adwords on their normal search, except it has less visitors cause it is hidden under advanced map options. Engage an SEO expert and put your bids into Google. Not saying this is a bad idea, just saying it isn’t a cost cutting white knight.
Robert Simeon
Simon,
A real estate agency only requires Google AdWords if their SEO is weak – that simple. Obviously if a business is sitting on page 4 or 5 AdWords is then required. The reality being is that agents should start making SEO a priority because their competitors have been all over SEO for quite sometime.
The total number of pages on your own website is a great starting point.
Simon Smirnov
Not that simple. When Google start putting more and more Adword (enhanced listings as they have said they will) spaces at the top of their map result pages then your SEO ranking means bugger all, because you effectively become the 10th or whatever listing on the page.
Robert Simeon
Simon – I see your point. The problem as I see it is that for too long agents/agencies have been overly reliant on third party (property portals) assistance simply because they have been inept in developing their own online strategies. They are the prime candidates that Google is after as against the agencies that have built and run strong online platforms (who are now laughing).
Personally, I regard the likes of Google, REA and Domain nothing more than back-up to our own online business.
Darren
err. “its all about money, ain’t a dam thing funny” (Grand Master Flash) — Google Real Estate is an extention of google base which is connected to product and commerce. Where the revenue is for them is as you say ‘speculation’. Why REA and DOMAIN have not loaded is obvious. Why would they want to give up their data when they have their own established positions?
Robert Simeon
Darren – the data is already on Google Maps (so they are not giving anything up) either with the agentcy or another third party (Homehound) etc.
Greg Vincent
Simon, the Adwords enhanced listings on Google will open up a whole new world for a lot of real estate agents.
With a Pay Per Click campaign set to an individual property, agents will need to make sure they not only have the campaign set right, but they’ll also need to look at ways that they can optimise the property advertisement to ensure the maximum chance of converting the paid click into a lead (via data capture) otherwise it could be an expensive exercise.
Here’s a couple of things that might help:-
Uploading listings directly onto Google will help to drive traffic back to your company website & away from your competitors listings.
Insert the URL of your company website’s landing page into the text. (something you’re not alloweded to do on the portals).
Also, make sure that you’ve optimized your company website for conversion with good sales copy, landing pages & effective calls to action.
PaulD
Completely off the subject – but I got my first scam letter from the Middle East via realestate.com.au I wonder how long it will take for these letters to increase the “Unique browser” numbers that REA are so proud of – and don’t forget, there’s an extra “email enquiry” that I’ve had this month.
email as follows:
Customer Details
Name: d
Phone:
Reply Email: abraham_nome1@yahoo.com
Comments: abraham_nome1@yahoo.com
Dearest One,
I really interested to invest in your company, am searching for serious partnership who can lead us and advice us to the best investment to put our inheritance .
Iam presently in Dubai fasting and praying for the best investment to join. I think of investing into real estate as per to buy house and rent it to peolpe but the way houses is getting down here in UAE made me to be afraid to fix our only hope into it.
Therefore, your advice or instruction of the best investment we can invest our family inheritance in your country can help and bright our future.
The fund US$6.3m was deposited here in Abu Dhabi by my late father now I need to invest the money to any profitable venture. Call me if you recieve my message (abraham_nome1@yahoo.com) Tel-00971556173571.
Abraham
Glenn Rogers
B2 offline for most of the day, a very busy news day too.
I think Google and News and Fairfax will work it out, there money to be made for all concerned.
I do query the notion that the listings belong to anyone but the agents, saying it’s “our” content is wrong really, the content is the agents, no one elses.
As far as bugs in Googles handling of the listings if they are smart enough (and I’m sure they are) to get an experienced real estate man on board it will run a lot smoother.
Now who could that be ???? ummmmm, oh yeah what about Simon Baker ?
What a a good idea, wouldn’t it be ironic if the man REA fired came back to cost them more than they ever imagined.
Greg Vincent
Glenn, reading between the lines do you think Simon’s recent comments indicate that he’d like to be directly involved or not?…
“Simon Baker
Glenn Rogers
Greg,
I read that but those comments only re inforces my thougts that if they had Simon on board he could fix all that, and I think he’s one of the few that could.
Would he want to be involved ? Depends on how closely Google took him into the fold, he could advise them on on line real estate worldwide, make no mistake he turned REA into what it is today, and he could do this. AND I hope they’re reading this.
The match is very obvious to me.
Glenn Rogers
apologies for the typos and grammar mistakes, no edit button I’m afraid
Glenn Batten
Hmm.. I thought Simon Baker still has a substantial holding in REA. Why would he work against it… Does not make sense.. and he certainly is not dialled in on their news. Only 24 hours before the launch he said that Google would not enter the real estate sector… less than a day before it actually happened. he was trolled for it by Robert Simeon and he fell for it.
His position now has a financial motive behind it and at least on one post on his blog he forgot to mention that till prompted.The last thing he needs is a strong Google diminishing realestate.com.au revenues and thus his very large investment. Just does not make sense to me and I have to agree with Greg..
but that does not last too long :).
Google paying REA and Domain commission… I Don’t Think So! Can;t agree with you on that Greg.
I think there is only two reasons why REA and Domain do not provide Google listings.
1/ It legitimises Google Real Estate as a significant player and as the top dogs and they dont want to do that..
2/ More importantly it would fracture the market share into hundreds of pieces thus diluting the major players overall share and thus place huge pressure on their subscription model.
Anything that ends up on Google Base can be mashed up by other sites and that includes real estate. Sites like Base Estate are already on the scene serving up Australian Listings. If you add REA and Domain listings to the Google Base database then a right now.
Think about it.. if REA and Domain provide listings to Google anybody else who wants to create a portal can have access to virtually all property for sale and for rent in Australia. Hell, I might even create a portal because doing so will be very easy and cheap to do 🙂
They are not a destination portal hosting the full property details, but they will steal eyeballs and thats would be very costly for companies that boast to us every month just how many eyeballs they get.
Data is the power here and REA and Domain have it. If they give up to Google they will share it to whoever wants it. Oh yeah, guess who powers the ads on sites like Base Estate… Google!!,
Right now any wannabe portal can hookup to all the listings on Google – See http://bit.ly/14F5t2 Why would REA and Domain want to provide these guys with all of their listings.. The would be sealing their own fate.
If Google would agree not to provide those listings to any third parties through its API’s and to only serve up them as the destination on all of their listings they would provide their properties in a heartbeat. If I was at REA I would be trying to negotiate some middle ground like this but I cant see Google allowing that. It goes against their whole concept of handling data.
Market pressures might force REA and Domain to start feeding Google listings, but you can be sure they will never be happy about it when sites like Base Estate can get access to the data.
In the US real estate data has always been easy to access through the MLS systems which is why even the largest player in the country has only 5 to 8% market share….. but here in Australia it is very securely guarded in the top two portals which is why the dominate….. As that information becomes more freely available they will in turn lose their relevance.
Greg Vincent
Glenn, I can’t see both REA & Domain maintaining a united front on this for too long. I believe that one of them will see the inevitability of the situation & do a deal with Google.
I agree with you, short term they’d be better off holding on to their data. But long term Google will keep improving & grow rapidly. If there is a deal on the table & they are being offered a percentage of the ongoing adwords this may help these companies to survive long term.
When you look at this stand off from REA & Domain from Google’s perspective, in reality Google really only needs to do a deal with one or the other. They don’t need both to make it work.
The main reason for this is that most agents do a single upload & their listings are exported across to multiple sites, which means the data is duplicated.
So, if Domain jumped in & did a deal, Google may end up having to pay very little for REA’s listings because of the duplication of the data.
Glenn, let’s say Domain had equivalent to 70% of REA’s listings data, if Domain moved first, REA’s data value in the eyes of Google would drop significantly because Google would only need the remaining 30% of listings data.
Whereas if REA move first, Domain could be in real trouble with their data having little to no value to Google.
One thing’s for sure, it’s definitely some interesting times ahead for all 3 companies.
Glenn Batten
Whether either of them crack will depend upon how much traffic Google can collect…. that will totally rely upon when they release stage two of the rollout and that is integration into standard SERP pages and easy access to the data for third party mashups. Last time I looked you could not access it but Base Estate clearly is… so they may just have not updated their online docs explaining how to coneect to the AU data.
Until then they will just tread water.
For my mind the top two portals need to justify their subscription by being the very best destination portal they can be. Ramp up their services to the agent and to the web visitor and put some value back into the subscription. Their reliance upon visitors and property views needs to be broken.
The Portal Survey I am running at http://aussierealestateportals.questionpro.com/ has some very interesting messages to all players including Google. Its closing at the end of the month so if anybody has not completed the survey please do so.
As the insider has pointed out, there has never been so many updates from the top two portals since Google launched.. and there is more in the pipeline. But these updates are lots of waffle and little substance really.
The sad part about that was why were they not on the drawing board before.. Why be reactive instead of being proactive like Google. Thats whey they will lose this battle. They need to start to think about things differently, a little out of the box, and proactively at opportunities rather than trying to bandaid an old model.
I know Domain is at least looking at things a whole lot differently than they have before… they just have to put some of these things in action.
I can understand why the are hesitant to feed to Google.. I raised that in the comment before…. but I actually dont agree with the stand they are both undertaking. They don’t have to have a an 80% market share to justify their subscription, thats where they get it wrong…
They need to understand that sites like base estate will spring up. In fact it goes even further. Existing sites like community portals can add a real estate feature to their site easily. Several of us on this blog have been suggesting REA or Domain provide an API so others can integrate listing into their site… Well they sat on their hands that long that Google beat them to the punch.
Each of these sites will make little impact but collectively they will change the market share of all current players. Whilst these sites will steal eyeballs they will also pass more qualified buyers through to whoever feeds the data to Google.
They just have to extract more qualified leads from those visitors and assist agents in getting sales.
Ask any agent.. if they got 50% less property views but 50% more buyer leads for the same subscription level and they were of a better quality would you be happier and I bet the answer comes back a resounding YES!
Rusty
Question: How do real estate agents track leads from the portals (or from print for that matter)? As a property searcher myself I do a lot of online searches on the major portals but rarely “convert” this interest through an email enquiry. Instead I turn up at open houses or call the agent directly. Nobody ever asks me where I saw the property. The Google Maps proposition is different as it directs users to the agents’ own websites. So it would appear to be more successful in generating leads but I’m not so sure that this is really the case.
MC
Good point Rusty.
What this means is that agents websites will become more important as they will now be where their properties details are investigated more closely. At the moment, the property portals keep buyers trawling for as long as possible meaning they don’t let go of eye-balls easily at all! This then equates to more advertising dollars. Agents have fallen into lazy habits with the advent of ‘portal power’. Time to re-gain the power. (And this from the old original portal man! 🙂
PaulD
I just had a look in our local area, regarding the spread of listings between REA Domain and Google maps. The Search function on Google maps is difficult to restrict to just one postcode, so there was a bit of crossover in that regard. The thing that surprised me the most is that basically all the listings on REA & Domain are already on Google maps. There are a large range of providers already, and I’m sure there will be more to come. The current providers included:- onthehouse.com.au, homehound.com.au, myhome.com.au, realestateworld.com.au, vode.com.au, luxuryhomesaustralia.com.au, as well as a couple of individual agents, and specialised local websites. I had no idea the uptake would be as rapid. It is just over 3 weeks, and in my area at least, several of the agents are discussing not IF they will drop one of the two big ones, but when. Obviously that situation will vary enormously from area to area. It seems the agents are willing to try something new, I wonder about the buying public ?
I would have thought it would be the other way around. Normally agents are the very last ones to go with something new (in my experience)
Glenn Batten
Rusty..
In answer to your question… Different agents will do different things. We track enquiry and inspection sources religiously as we provide a report to owners each week with that information. However… it can never tell the full truth because buyers will only ever tell you one source. What if they viewed the property in a buyer magazine, seen the web id, looked it up and seen there was an open house, decided to go to that open house… but also they looked in the paper and seen the same address.. what is the actual source of the enquiry .. different buyers will tell you different things and none of them will be the full story.
Of course there are stacks of agents that never bother asking as you have met. 🙂
Craig
PaulD, you make an interesting point. One thing Simon Baker keeps harping on about is that Google needs REA because REA have all the listings and without them they won’t even get over 50%. I would be surprised if Google got listings from ‘the rest’ (especially Domain) that they didn’t get 80-90%.
Glenn Batten
PaulD..
REA and Domain are claiming that Google has only 20%.. Thats just shows how big the blinkers are they have on.
In our area it is closer to 75%
In addition to the smaller portals uploading as you also point out you have some franchise groups such as Ray White, LJ Hooker and First National uploading as well. The first two are linking back to corporate sites but First National is linking to member sites.
In any area with a large market share held by independents there is a greater chance that Google wont have a higher percentage of the business. But that will soon change as more independents realise their data hosts like Portplus are hooked up to Google and all they need do is flick a switch.
Glenn Rogers
Glenn
Bakers stake in REA is small beer in the big picture Google could fix that in a heartbeat if they wanted to.
The only problem I see is that you’re dealing with Google AU and they may not have the same pull as the US parent.
Rusty
As a user I’m only going to use Google if they link straight to the agent sites. Globrix in the UK is a fantastic example of what is possible by dealing directly with the agents and sending traffic their way. I will not use them if they merely aggregate 3rd party listing sites like Homehound, Myhome etc. as I might as well go to Domain and have everything in one place.
Glenn Batten
Glenn
I agree..
My point is that his stake in REA is a big picture to him…. and that is why his comments are biased.
Whats funny is when he contradicts himself when his bias kicks in. In one post he states “We expect to see the listings search results incorporated into the general search results at some point in time.
MC
In our metro area Domain has already been dropped by several agencies – I checked listings last night. Shocking to be Number 2!
However, they had their chances and thought they could do it without help from agents or experienced online real estate people. Looks like their main asset now is Desktop and who knows how long that type of business is going to hold-up without the direct link to a major portal (Domain), with smaller ‘uploaders’ able to provide similar services at much less cost.
Ah,….I love the smell of frenzy in the morning!
Sal Espro
Anyone ‘out there’ got a costing on what their IT providers are charging to implement the load to Googlebase please?
Thx,
Sal 🙂
Glenn Rogers
Glenn,
While Baker retains his stake in REA I agree there’s no point him advising anyone else that might subsequently damage them.
It’s up to Google to see the oportunity and seize it, if it worked the way I was thinking they would use his REA stake to fund the Xmas party.
Just my 2 cents worth.
MC
*L* The (Ray) White family saw the light and cashed-in their REA shares the day before the Google announcement. They would be better advisors than someone who gets paid to manage other people’s businesses, comment retrospectively and sit on REA shares that are heading South!
MC
Ps How did this talk about advice start anyway? Google doesn’t need all that much advice from what I can see!
Glenn Rogers
“”””””””””Ps How did this talk about advice start anyway? Google doesn
Glenn Batten
Sal…
FREE…. Well no additional charge anyway.. Portplus had built the connection a fair while ago and it had been sitting there waiting to be used. Turns out that there was a hiccup or two in the first few days. but I believe everything is working ok now.
Sal Espro
Thx Glenn. Good at twice the price! (And another nail in the portals coffin!)
Sal 🙂
Peter Brewer
Just loved this quote from Fairfax around the arrival of Google into the ‘real estate portal’ world.. Finally Domian and REA are walking a mile in an Agents Moccasins..
“….Lloyd Whish-Wilson, the head of Fairfax’s NSW metropolitan publishing, which includes Domain’s online and print properties, released a short statement: “We are looking at our options at the moment. We are obviously not keen to support a would-be competitor with our revenue.”….
Welcome to our world Lloyd!
Greg Vincent
Great comment Peter, Domain appear to be backed into a corner. Things will change very rapidly for them as they quickly become seen as the 3rd ranking portal.
We all witnessed how agents reacted to having a 3rd portal introduced when MyHome came along. A lot of agents didn’t see the need for paying the extra subscription & thought ‘two’s company, three’s a crowd’.
For agents outside of Sydney Metro (Domain’s heartland) there will be a lot of agents starting to look very closely at their contracts & whether they actually need to pay for Domain’s subscription any more.
PaulD
Greg,
There are many regional areas where agents get Domain for free, as long as they advertise in the local Fairfax publication. It will be interesting to see what happens when the Agents can’t get their properties on to Google Maps. They may just walk away from Domain and find someone else who will put the properties on Google maps. That would no doubt affect the advertising revenues in the newspapers, but not have much of an impact on Domain, in those areas other than fewer properties able to be viewed, because it is being given away in any case.
Kylie Emans
We are obviously not keen to support a would-be competitor with our revenue.
Greg Vincent
Kylie the big news about Bing is that Microsoft has just signed a 10 year deal with Yahoo to combine their search. It’s a move from 2 giants to take on Google.
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/151520,microsoft-and-yahoo-sign-10-year-search-deal.aspx
Could this be a snapshot of the future for these 2 real estate giants?
PS: I wonder if joining forces to tackle Google has entered the minds of Domain & REA ?