What Google giveth, Google taketh away!

Published : 07 December 2009

Perhaps only Google can cause a panic by their refusal to issue a statement on their intentions! Last week’s non announcement i.e. their refusal to deny the launch of a UK Google Property portal was a surprise only  to the tabloids and the City who gave it such coverage.  Slashing Rightmove’s  share price by a double figure percentage margin was a reaction from the “panic early and panic often” school of media monitoring.

Google's intentions have been fairly clear - naked in fact if you read their instructions to estates agents wishing to load their lisitngs. They have been quietly  developing their property listings view in both the USA and Australia  – at first under a veil of tabs hidden behind the Maps option (Maps→More→Real Estate), and now more transparently through Google Maps. 

However, panic should not necessarily be the order of the day, even for such agregated listings providers as Rightmove. 

An analysis by the excellent PropertyPortalWatch website shows how REA, Rightmove’s Australian equivalent, has in fact recovered strongly from Google’s launch in Australia six months ago, where their share price took an equal hammering to that of Rightmove's last week..  Their analysis outlined the challenge to Google ’s Real Estate model  -    including the difficulties in keeping listings  up to date, de-duplicating them, and fending off listings portals and estate agents from manipulating their rankings. They even raise the spectre of Google’s being prevented from spidering the source sites.

 All of which no doubt may be true, except for the latter. It is difficult to make a practical distinction between the “indexing” of your site by Google – the optimisation of which companies spend large sums of money on! – and its “scraping” of your content.  Google’s reaction reaction  might be to say: Do you wish to be on Google on not? Period.

 Hence what Google giveth, Google taketh away.

 But actually the real  impetus given to the market by Google – and not for the first time – is to squeeze out areas of algorithmic non-added value. To force listing providers and  estate agents groups further down the path of real added value services. With their knowledge of the idiosyncracies of their professional marketplace and their knowledge of  consumer behaviour the fittest of these will be forced to develop their propositions and become stronger.

 Google’s dalliance with what looks like an attractive niche will require a lot more professional focus and bespoke brand and market development to become a serious threat to the Rightmoves and the REAs.  But by pushing them further along their development pathways, Google may be doing them and all of us consumers a favour!