Imagine that you were looking for information on Chrysler’s new ecoVoyager, released just a few days ago at the North American International Auto Show. Most of us would just Google it. And why not? All sorts of great information from various web pages comes right up.
Now imagine you enter the same query, but instead of quality links, you saw nothing but results from other Google created pages. Maybe Google has it’s own news story, a Google Group of ecoVoyager fans, results from the unofficial eco Voyager blogspot.com blog… You get the picture.
If the only results Google ever returned were for it’s own content, people would be headed off to a new search engine in droves. That’s exactly NOT how to run a search engine. Nobody will put up with that. Unless you’re searching for real estate.
Until now, virtually every real estate listing web site shares a similar M.O. Do a search on Trulia, and you’ll find search results that lead to Trulia details pages. Do a search on Realtor.com, and you’ll get the same. You’re not searching the Internet, you’re just searching content on that existing web site. A decent enough business plan, but search engines, they are not.
When I spoke with Douglas de Jager about his DotHomes real estate search engine, (launching today) he referred to it as the “Google of property”. After a review of what they are offering. That’s an accurate appraisal. DotHomes is an actual real estate search engine.
One way or another, other real estate aggregators depend on MLS, IDX, or user generated feeds of listings poured into their system. DotHomes takes the search engine spider approach. Their system goes out onto the Internet and looks for listings. It determines the best possible source for the data, and then parses it.
The result is… results. Query DotHomes and the results come from independent sites. See a result of interest, click on it, and you’re off to the listing agent’s web site. Just like a real search engine. I think it’s brilliant. The advantages to this way of doing business are many.
Because DotHomes does not serve up those details pages, they do not need permission from the listing agents. Results go strait to their pages. This means their is no need for the business agreements that tend to limit the number of results that many other aggregators can display. This approach offers the possibility that they could eventually surpass every other aggregator in listing results to choose from.
Direct linking also means you get the agent’s best marketing effort. As videos, virtual tours, and high definition photos become more commonplace on the net, the agent’s own web site is the best place to view that bandwidth.
In my opinion, it also makes it a more effective search tool. I don’t want to search Realtor.com, I want to search the whole damn net. You can also use search terms like “view of the pacific” to find what you’re looking for. DotHomes will search the entire country for a term like that. Great for people who are looking more for a house with a particular feature than a house in a particular location.
The premise is great, but while most aggregators race to acquire feeds, DotHomes’ biggest hurdle is parsing the net. Every agent’s web site is just a little different. So merely finding the pages is not enough. DotHomes then has to identify how the content is structured, and then organize that data. It also has to determine the best source for the data. The same listing information can be listed on the agent’s site, or the broker’s site, or somewhere else. To get the best data, from the appropriate source, DotHomes relies on their own proprietary software, and a touch of human intervention. This all takes time though, so expect the database of results to be a work in progress over the next year.
Will it work? I think so. DotHomes is not a new player. They currently entrenched in South Africa and the UK. At launch, they are already indexing over a million listings here in the US. There interface is simple and fast. I like it because it sends me off to where I want to go instead of serving up extra pages of ad laden content from the aggregator. This is the same idea that allowed Google to overtake Yahoo as the dominant search engine of the day. I wont be surprised if DotHomes.com’s competition is all looking up at them by the end of the year.
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I know today is DotHomes.com’s official launch date, but I was surprise to see a very limited amount of listings. Real estate aggregators like Homescape.com have depended on search MLS, IDX or user generated feeds of listings because that’s were users can get the most diverse and rich catalog of home listings. When I attempted to search for a home for sale on Dothomes.com, the site showed zero results for neighborhood searches. For someone living in a city like Chicago, being able to search by neighborhood is key. Dothomes.com is hardly the “Google of property” as a real estate search engine. In the world of online listings, cotent is king and if dothomes is unable to get the kind of listings that sites like Homescape or Relator.com provides, then users will click off as fast as they arrived on the site.
Hi Amy, thanks for your comment. Lenderama has covered sites like yours (Homescape) before. What is it about this one that motivated you to come to my blog for the first time and comment?
I agree that content is king. What makes DotHomes different, is that they have a business and technology model that can eventually put them in the lead. Like I said before, we’ll have to watch over the next year or so to see how that pans out.
Hi Todd,
I recently came to Homescape.com as their resident blogger and editorial producer. With my news journalism background, I bring consumer driven content to the site and spend much of my day surfing the Net and reading blogs like Lenderdrama. I comepletely agree with you about Dothomes business model. On the surface the model looks really great. But due to current industry limitations on how listings are permitted to be displayed, Dothomes will face many legal questions to come. Until the industry and all MLS opens the doors to complete free use of their data, Dothomes will be scraping for content as any other search site.
I have much experience in others “scraping” my content. IMO, that’s a term that’s used for someone that comes along and steals all your data to post as their own.
That’s not exactly what any true search engine does. They look at you data, take what only can be described as “fair use”, and direct traffic back. DotHomes is only using data that is already publicly displayed on the web, so I really don’t think any MLS can really do anything about it.
The beauty of their system is that they really don’t need cooperation from the real estate base. DotHomes’ clients are mortgage originators, insurance agents, and anyone else who might want to advertise there.
Dothomes is nice site but not the next google of real estate. It has failed to gain traction in the UK. None of the web 2.0 portals have really made a dent in the dominance of the big 4 (Rightmove, Propertyfinder, Primelocation and FindaProperty). Bob North has some good stats on market UK market share http://www.estateagencynews.co.uk/north_articles/north.asp
Joel Burslem, from Future of Real Estate Marketing blogs about Dothomes today and brings up some good points about the quanity and quality issue that Dothomes will have with their method.
Joel’s two qualms are quality and quality.
Quality is one of those unknowns. How fast the listing shows up is really only important to a seller or their agent. Buyers aren’t going to know the difference. How fast DotHomes updates things like price changes will be interesting to watch. Google comes and finds my content just minutes after I post it. Maybe some sort of pinging technology will need to happen.
However, the quantity argument doesn’t fly in my eyes. It would, maybe, if any of Realtor.com’s competition could come anywhere close in terms of the numbers of listings they provide. But even then, Realtor.com does not have FULL coverage of all listings.
At launch, Dot Homes is already in the mix, when it comes to the other guy. However, they are the only model that is positioned to have even a fighting chance at out-listing Realtor.com because they are the only player who doesn’t utilize the same business practice of counting on agents (or their feeds) to come to them.
Hello Todd,
Excellent points and one very close to home for us. I agree that the the Trulia & Realtor don’t provide a real search engine experience of being totally transparent, just based on their revenue models. These are really just real estate advertising platforms with a search engine function.
The goal of these is as you say to possibly delay and wow the user with sticky features so that they can sell advertising.
Although I also think dothomes may face some issues of what “fair use” is with the combination of photos, description, address and price.
In my early review of the site it seems that they are getting the listings from 3 main sources c21, era and coldwell with some sprinkles from other sources like Alain Pinel according to Kevin http://3oceansrealestate.com/blog/dothomes-is-yet-another-real-estate-search-site.html#comment-139751
As they get more listings the task of managing all the listing data may get very difficult. Although this model is good for savy web pro’s like you do you think that consumers are ready to be retrained on how to search real estate?
I agree Jessie. The first million listings is the easiest. The last million might be a hundred times harder to capture.
As far as fair use, de Jager told me there would be an opt out feature, so I doubt they will challange the objection of a broker. But if they did, I think they would win. I’ve been on the opposite side of a fair use challenge, and the law is surprisingly liberal.
At this point, one would have to wonder why any broker would want to. It’s one thing for a buyer’s agent to repost listings, but any properly credited distribution of content that is already on the Internet has very little downside to an agent.
Dear Todd,
Thanks for the post, and for your thoughts. Always appreciated.
Jessie, likewise, thanks for the comment.
Let me rather crudely attempt some clarification.
DotHomes offers brokers free and effortless leads directly to their own listings on their own sites. We do not include the MLS listings which are to be found on any broker’s site for which that broker is not specifically the listing broker. And, we do not host any listings. We link directly, and without any charge, to the original listing on the listing broker’s site.
Given this, as Todd mentions in his last comment, it seems more than a little peculiar to think that any broker might want to opt out. We drive leads to listing brokers. We do not charge. And, we certainly do not drive traffic to any broker’s site to view listings for which the particular broker is not specifically the listing broker. To our thinking, and please forgive any ignorance, it seems that DotHomes provides only upside for listing brokers. There’s no cost, no effort, and non-listing brokers cannot usurp leads from listing brokers - as other services permit.
So, from our end, this doesn’t really seem to be a legal matter (though, having taken legal council, we confess: we do believe that, in this particular instance, the law is on our side*). The service we provide is supposed to be pro broker, and we’ll be looking to work with the brokers ad infinitum with a view to continually improving our service - to help them improve their business.
As regards quantity of listings, we’ve just launched. We have just over a million listings currently, and this number will be increasing on a daily basis. Do we believe that we can reach the levels of coverage of Realtor.com? We’ll let time but the judge of that. But, I’ll admit that, from a purely technical perspective, we’re cautiously optimistic that this can be done, and that it can actually be done relatively quickly.
Amy Le, in answer to your comment, we can all cite metrics whereby we’re the greatest, and whereby we have fantastic traction. Our UK service has won several awards: http://www.byteplay.com/blog/company . I’m sure your US service has done equally well. I wish you everything of the best in your endeavours.
Thanks again.
The more feedback the better. We’re looking to learn, and to work with the industry.
Hope all’s well.
Best wishes,
Douglas
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* Copyright concerns need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. The questions to be asked:
(1) In what specifically is copyright supposed to vest?
(2) Who precisely is the copyright holder?
(3) How, specifically, is some service supposed to be infringing on said copyright?
(4) What specifically are the damages which are supposed to be associated with the service provision?
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