The Top 5 Property Portals of India - 2015. Here is our list. (Again)

Question: Which are the Top 5 Property Portals in India right now?

Answer: Here is that list;

1. Magicbricks (www.magicbricks.com)
2. Commonfloor (www.commonfloor.com)
3. 99acres (www.99acres.com)
4. Indiaproperty (www.indiaproperty.com)
5. Housing (www.housing.com)

Note: Changes in the Top 5 list from the IREFD Top 5 Indian Real Estate Portals (2013)

#1. Magicbricks Rank in 2013 - #1 (No Change)
#2. Commonfloor Rank in 2013 - #3 (Up 1 Position)
#3. 99acres Rank in 2013 - #2 (Down 1 Position)
#4. Indiaproperty Rank in 2013 - #5 (Up 1 Position)
#5. Housing Rank in 2013 - #4 (Down 1 Position)

Sadly, no new entrant into the top five list this year.

Next IREFD Top 5 Indian Property Portals List ~ April 2016

Cheers!

The IREFD Team

How were the Top 5 Property Portals of India (2015) selected?

The selection was done in the following manner;

#1. Alexa Traffic Rank Study

Alexa Traffic Ranks and Bounce Rates of Indian Property Portals as on 03 April, 2015

A traffic rank check on Alexa resulted in the above shown global and Indian ranks for the property portals. 99acres is #1 in terms of the Alexa traffic ranking system. Housing.com came in at 5th position. A 19.5% bounce rate shows that visitors to Housing.com are staying back to explore all the new tech and categories more than on any other Indian property website today.

#2. MOZ Rank

For the 2015 Top 5 Indian Property Portals List, we used the MOZ Domain Authority Values as on 03 April, 2015

On comparing the websites using the Open Site Explorer Tool from Moz, Magicbricks emerged as the clear leader in terms of established domain authority, Moz Rank and Moz Trust. Indiaproperty is in second place here (giving them a big advantage in the overall ranking) followed by 99acres and Housing, both of them having domain authority figures of 50. Commonfloor is in second place with MozRank, telling us that they are the folks to look out for in the year ahead.

#3. Past 6 Months Traffic Analysis

When it comes to website traffic estimation, Similarweb is a service you cannot go wrong with. Here are the monthly visitors figures for all the 5 Indian property portals in one simple chart;

Estimated monthly visits/ pageviews stats - Top 5 Indian property portals - as on 03 April, 2015.

Magicbricks leads the pack here, averaging over 5 Million pageviews per month and reaching 7.5 Million pageviews in February 2015! Commonfloor with that green line is at a steady #2 position averaging just over 4 Million monthly pageviews/ visits. 99acres actually trails behind Commonfloor this whole while, bringing it down to overall #3 position in the final IREFD ranking.

The surprise here is Indiaproperty (orange line), starting with a monthly traffic of under 3 Million/ month in September 2014 and reaching close to 6 Million monthly visits in January 2015. Commendable. Housing trails with monthly visits rising from 1 Million to about 2 Million over the last 6 months.

#4. Look, feel and homepage

First impressions are important in India's changing real estate market. The new age home buyer is informed and in many cases, cautious. Which of these property portals have the best landing page and browsing experience? Last time around, we thought Housing was revolutionary and their approach to a property search was spot on. This time, every Indian real estate portal looks somewhat the same when you land on that homepage proving us right.

Among all, Commonfloor is the classiest. The way the folks at Commonfloor are seeing the realty market and its online avatar, makes a lot of long term sense. They deserve that #2 position on this list, hands down.

The commonflor.com home page screenshot - April 03, 2015 (click to enlarge)

Quick Review - Top 5 Indian Property Portals

#1. Magicbricks

With an Alexa India traffic rank of 142, Moz DA of 68 and a credible estimate of over 5 Million pageviews every month and rising, magicbricks.com is the numero uno place to put your money on, if you are a builder. These folks are serious about their business and understand the need for mainstream advertising to give your real estate project, all the online mileage that money can buy.

Pros: Robust Traffic, Clear Market Leader, Quick to Adapt, Best spread of traffic sources
Cons: Some of that referral traffic and others seem low quality/ irrelevant for real estate

#2. Commonfloor

If you are a real estate builder and have to decide between a listing at 99acres and Commonfloor, you should put your money down on commonfloor.com. At least that is what we, at IREFD would do.

Pros: Steady Traffic, Forward thinking approach with long term plans like community building tools
Cons: Poor quality referral traffic, low Moz Domain Authority

#3. 99acres

99acres has a big offline brand equity and they have people in place to liaison with builders across the country. Their traffic from internet searches is pretty high. They are at #3 on this list simply because with their might and presence, they should have pushed magicbricks harder to keep that #1 slot. (They could be looking at a sea change in things but only time will tell.)

Pros: Steady Traffic, brand equity, time in market and builder relationships
Cons: 99acres seems to have slowed down considerably overall.

#4. Indiaproperty

A 100% rise in monthly traffic from under 3 Million in September 2014 to almost 6 Million in January 2015 means that these folks are serious. At one point in the last 6 months, they had more traffic than magicbricks. We would seriously keep an eye out for Indiaproperty.

Pros: 100% traffic jump in the last 6 months, new online advert networks other than Google
Cons: Low search traffic, low quality referral traffic

#5. Housing

Housing is the trendsetter for all the leading Indian property portals. Housing is serious about technology, innovation and simplicity. They are thinking up algorithms and data mining to bring you numbers, information, listing expiry logic and what not. They have also pumped in a boat load of money into advertising as we type this comparo. That should do them good in the times ahead.

Pros: The tech kings, the user interface kings, the internet surfers, the cool dudes
Cons: Being all of that does not sell real estate, yet. Plus we saw some adverts on that homepage and the twitter profiles of those testimonials need to be beefed up 10x. ;)

Parting Notes 

#1. Can we have a refreshed traffic stat without internet traffic from way2sms? It would help immensely.

#2. Nestoria and Mitula can drive substantial traffic to your real estate website.

#3. There is a difference between stuff being sold on flipkart/ amazon and real estate. In real estate, you move all your buyers to the assembly line. Its unique, isn't it? Think out of the box. When you are moving people and not merchandise, standard rules could fail.

#4. If you had a real estate listing website with the right products (which just means finding the right builder; building the right stuff) you would not have to worry about millions of pageviews every month. Maybe, a few thousand visits could help you sell a few apartments each month, for a handful of such builders and you would make more money in reality. On the internet, less is more.

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