Rightmove shares soar to new high after Google quits property

Rightmove’s shares continued to soar to new highs after the announcement that Google is withdrawing from the property portal market.

The shares ended trading yesterday up 35p (4.35%) at £8.39.

The huge rise was a mirror image to what happened when Google launched its property offering in the UK. Then, the shares plunged on the news to below £5.

Yesterday, a Google spokesman said of the company’s decision to abandon its attempts to crack the property search market: “This feature wasn’t used as extensively as we would have liked, and proved difficult to maintain, so we’ve removed it.
 
“Google likes to experiment because we believe that’s the best way to create ground-breaking products and features that make a difference in people’s lives.  

“But not every bet is going to pay off.”

Rightmove commercial director Miles Shipside said: “Rightmove began utilising Google Maps on our website almost exactly a year ago and in launching the service we underlined that we did not view Google’s real estate venture as being in direct competition with our core business.

“During the six-month period that Google have formally operated in the UK property market the home-moving public have visited Rightmove in record numbers and we have seen no negative impact on our business from Google’s market entry.

“Google gave a platform for private sellers to advertise and therefore many agents will welcome this news. Although other property portals partnered with Google and provided them with their agents’ listings, Rightmove chose not to do so.”

Google Maps launched its property feature in the UK last year ago, after the offering went live in Australia in July 2009.

It seemed impossible that the internet giant would get the offering wrong, although agents were always nervous about the fact that it allowed private sellers to list.

However, Google seems to have made two fatal errors.

First, it put it on its mapping function and not its much better known and far more user-friendly Google search engine.

Secondly, it seemed to have no clear strategy for monetising the facility.

Alex Chesterman, CEO of Zoopla, said: “This has been an interesting experiment for Google with an outcome that has not entirely surprised us.

“Whilst Google is clearly the world-class leader at search, its real estate offering on maps did not provide users with the type of rich product experience of sites like ours.

“The overwhelming majority of consumers continue to use the leading portals as their online starting point for property search as demonstrated by over five million visitors to our site per month.”