Google scares me sometimes. Especially with blog posts like this one on Google Base for Real Estate (rentals too) that was posted today.
Sometimes I think Google gets a little too powerful and wants to take over my industry. You will notice in the blog post from Google that it is not just real estate it is for rentals as well.
But a part of me thinks it is OK because they are not hosting the content they are just providing a Google funnel for you to find rentals.
Also, I think Oodle.com provides a better user experience for users than Google base because Oodle seeks out rental listings from thousands of sources where as Google is an opt in system so they only have a fraction of the listings that Oodle may have.
If Google base doesn’t provide the best user experiences than I believe that people will move to sites like mine.
What do you think – I would like to hear more opinions on this topic.
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14 users responded in this post
Google has their hands in everything. If they see something they like they just throw money at the company and buy THEM and IT. I will never use them to rent hotels through the net.
Dave,
Google has the resources to do anything they want! If they decide to make the Google Base “Rental” experience a good one then you have lots of reasons to worry…..and so does CSI and RHP!
CSI and RHP better pray they don’t hurt them in the apartment sector!
If nothing else Google Base gives PM’s another bargaining tool to secure better pricing when they buy an ad.
Hi Kevin,
I respectfully disagree. Making the Google Base rental experience better would actually be a good thing for vertical search sites like rentvine, RHP and the CSI sites. The better Google can make the user experience, the more traffic will be sent to these vertical rental sites.
At the end of the day, virtually all of the single family home property managers do not even know what an XML feed is and would not have the resources to post their properties to Google.
Free does not = Free.
There are large amounts of opportunity costs associated with posting to free sites. At the end of the day, your time and resources spent on posting must be equal to or less than the equivalent of leads and signed leases received.
The larger , successful PM’s who can use an XML feed are the clients that the Paid Rental Sites covet!
They will try Google base. If they are getting decent results………they will make Google Base part of their advertising package.
Medium size PM’s will follow…..although it will take time.
If Google base does catch on and the general public learns how to use it that represents a serious threat to the Paid Rental sites.
Individuals who pay top $ for “premier placements” will be happy to load up their ad on Google base for free if it gets results!
I just hope that Google never decides that they want to actually host the content (listings) on their site. If they do this I am sure may people will be upset.
Jaimie,
Public MLS’s can load rental properties for their members such as in Northeast Florida. The PM does not have to do anything!
Dave,
Where are they hosting the individual ads?
No, they are not hosting them, I am just worry about the day they do host them.
It doesn’t fit with Google’s mission statement which is to index all of the world’s information – but then look what they are doing with scanning books.
Once again, I’d suggest that we’re in the early stages of the eventual value-destruction of the niche-based classified ad listing sites. CraigsList, GoogleBase, MSN Expo, Zillow.com, and many more are making listings free, and they will have the traffic to command higher advertising rates for suppliers.
http://stevemurch.typepad.com/blog/2007/03/the_coming_demi.html
[...] found an interesting blog on rentvine.com about how it does seem like Google is trying to take over everything, even with their real estate [...]
thanks for the informative post. i linked this page for the post and all the comments on a blog i just wrote at blogs.move.com/rental-survival-guide. thanks again!
Marisa,
I am looking for other opinions on this issue – what does Move.com think about Google Base?
[...] Google is starting to scare me again. [...]