Top 10 real estate websites in April

Hitwise: AOL Real Estate growing market share

AOL Real Estate continued its steady upward climb during April in rankings of the Internet’s most popular real estate websites compiled by Web metrics firms Experian Hitwise.

After rising from 16th to eighth position to break into the Hitwise top 10 in March, AOL Real Estate continued to boost its audience in April, rising to fifth place with a 2.91 percent market share in the real estate category, Hitwise said.

The rankings of the top four real estate sites were unchanged from March.

The latest numbers from Hitwise show Realtor.com was the most popular real estate site on the Internet in April, with a 6.5 percent market share, followed by Yahoo Real Estate (6.1 percent), Zillow (5.52 percent), and Trulia.com (4.75 percent).

Realtor.com operator Move Inc. announced an agreement with AOL Real Estate in January, in which Move is powering the site’s homes-for-sale search and coordinating ad sales to real estate agents, brokers and other advertisers.

Zillow and Yahoo Real Estate have a similar alliance, with Zillow managing a common set of for-sale listings on both sites, and ads agents and brokers purchase from Zillow appearing on both sites.

Hitwise’s numbers show Yahoo Real Estate and Zillow with a combined market share of 11.62 percent, compared with a combined market share of 9.41 percent for Realtor.com and AOL Real Estate.

Hitwise rankings take into account a number of metrics, including visits, page views, and average visit time.

AOL Real Estate’s move up in April bumped Rent.com (2.41 percent market share), Homes.com (2.18 percent) and MSN Real Estate (1.74 percent) down one place in the rankings, to sixth, seventh and eighth places, respectively.

ZipRealty (1.53 percent) hung on to ninth place in the Hitwise top 10, while FrontDoor.com (1.51 percent) bounced back from 57th to 10th place. HGTV’s FrontDoor.com began the year riding high on traffic from a sweepstakes competition, which propelled the site into second place on the Hitwise list in January.

Sites on the Hitwise top 10 list captured 35.1 percent of all visits in the real estate category in April, compared to just under 11 percent for the next 10 most popular sites.

Rounding out the Hitwise top 20, Apartment Guide (1.49 percent) fell one position to 11th in April, followed by MyNewPlace (1.19 percent) in 12th.

Rentals.com (1.15 percent) picked up two places in the rankings in April, reaching 13th as it moved past Re/Max Real Estate (1.13 percent), 16th place Apartments.com (1.1 percent), and 17th place ForRent.com (1.03 percent).

Weichert.com (1.11 percent) moved up one position, to 15th, while LoopNet (0.94 percent) and Listingbook Services (0.92 percent) maintained their 18th and 19th place positions on the Hitwise top 20 in April.

HomeAway (0.87 percent) fell three positions to the bottom of the Hitwise top 20 list. Brokerage site Redfin — which claimed the last spot on the Hitwise top 20 in March — did not make the list in April.

Three sites entered the Hitwise top 100 in April — MyCheapApartments.com (57th), Realestatebook.com (93rd) and California Association of Realtors (100). Dropping off the Hitwise top 100 were OwnerWiz.com, Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America, and LandandFarm.com.

The top 10 ranked search terms were realtor.com, zillow, trulia, realtor, remax, zillow.com, century 21, real estate, homes for rent, and apartments for rent.

Fast-moving websites included Real Tour Vision (up 171 places to 123rd); RE Technology (up 210 places to 237th); Century 21 Town and Country (up 273 places to 421st); TaxSaleList.com (up 113 places to 182); Bridlegate-Ranch (up 859 places to 1,322); Walk Score (up 114 places to 216); Homebuyerassistant.com (up 29 places to 70th); NNY Homes (up 581 places to 1,504); Arizona Multiple Listing Service (up 160 places to 469); and Johnson City Real Estate (up 831 places to 2,008).