Google Poses Potential Threat to UK Property Aggregators with New Portal Plans
Google, with a history of launching services first in the US and then rolling them out to other global markets if successful, already provides a property portal service in the US and Australia whereby users, or estate agents, can upload details of properties for sale onto Google Maps. These results can then be displayed in search results.
It is currently being widely circulated that Google is now considering launching a property search function in its UK maps channel, which could threaten popular online property aggregators such as Rightmove or FindaProperty.
This potential move by Google can be considered as dangerous to existing UK property search portals since they will allow estate agents to list properties on Google Maps for free.
In a statement issued recently in response to the reports however, Rightmove Commercial Director Miles Shipside discounted the threat from Google saying, "As a pure search engine, Google's offering would appear to differ from the full service we have established for home-hunters, potential vendors and agents in the UK market. This can be seen in the property site that Google has already launched in Australia."
